On Monday 12th March 2018, Bermans (Manchester) will be moving offices from Cardinal House, 20 St. Mary’s Parsonage, to the following address:
Third Floor
One King Street
Manchester
M2 6AW
We kindly ask you to update your records to reflect this change.
Please note, our telephone numbers and email addresses will remain the same.
Continue ReadingAn employee who refused to do work after suffering a discriminatory demotion has lost his court case. Mr Rochford was Senior Vice President of a WNS Global Services. He was off work for a year with a back condition (which was a disability). He eventually returned to work on full pay. However, his employer refused to allow him to do his full role or say when he could go back to full duties. Instead they gave him fewer duties, but on the same pay. This demotion related to his disability and therefore amounted to disability discrimination. As a result, he refused to do any work at all and was eventually dismissed for misconduct.
Continue ReadingBackground
We recently engaged a contract dispute case in which the client was owed £107,000. The dispute was a few years old and originally the client thought it was delayed/bad debt so they instructed their local solicitor to deal with the dispute. This was unsuccessful and resulted in the defendants counter claiming for £300,000 in attempt to scare the client.
The client tried to negotiate with the defendants and they were prepared to accept a 50% discount to get the matter resolved, but the defendant was unprepared and instead stated ‘take us to court then if you can’. At no point during the last few years has the claimant made any attempt to pursue the counter claim indicating that it was nothing more than a scare tactic.
The client then engaged a well known law firm in Birmingham to help them recover their £107,000 and this was taken on with the client being charged circa £25,000 in fees before the law firm advised that there was nothing more they could do for them and did not litigate because ‘the costs vs returns didn’t stack up’. So the client was left with no recovery, 2 years of lost time and fees incurred equal to 25% of the original claim.
How did Escalate help?
The client heard about Escalate and made contact with the team and we have subsequently engaged the case and are now pursuing. On the basis the client is happy for a 50% recovery (we are looking for 100% plus historic costs if possible), we are hopeful that we will be able to negotiate this through in path A, however we are very certain that if we can’t then the moment it drops into Path B then mediation/settlement will happen.
Why Escalate?
If you have a unresolved dispute, Escalate can help you to avoid wasting your time and money pursuing disputes with unsuccessful outcome.
Click here for more information or email escalate@bermans.co.uk to contact a member of the team.
Background
A sports club sold off part of its land to a developer in return for the construction of a new club house on the remaining club’s land.
Construction costs over-ran, the developer walked off-site and would not return until additional funds were provided by the sports club to support the club house build. This resulted in a ‘stand-off’ that then saw lawyers instructed from both sides to try and resolve.
The case got stuck in a 12 month plus legal process that didn’t progress, other than to highlight the original weaknesses in the contract drafting which meant both sides had some form of potential argument to keep the lawyers going ‘backwards and forwards’.
The case had gained over £50,000 in legal costs before it stalled due to the sports club running out of money to pursue further. Their incumbent lawyer (national firm) was not comfortable in offering a conditional agreement but certainly were not prepared to cover disbursements. It was also unlikely that the case would have been able to get insurance for the adverse costs (After The Event Insurance) below £100,000 which would have made it prohibitive.
How did Escalate help?
The sports club heard about Escalate through their local accountant and transferred the case to us. Within 6 weeks a heads of term agreement was reached.
Through Escalate we were able to demonstrate that the case was now funded and insured to high court meaning the developer needed to do a deal or risk a significant cash gamble under the court.
Why Escalate?
If you have a unresolved dispute, Escalate can help you to avoid wasting your time and money pursuing disputes with unsuccessful outcome.
Click here for more information or email escalate@bermans.co.uk to contact a member of the team.
Background
An entrepreneur sold her marketing company to a UK business with an American parent with the sum to be paid in three stages over a two year period. The final instalment of £220,000 was due in October 2016 but was never received. The previous 2 instalments had been received and there was no prior indication that there would be a problem with the final one.
Upon failure to receive the final payment, approaches were made to the American parent for justification and none were given accept a generic line of ‘breach of contract’.
The entrepreneur engaged legal support in the UK and also appointed lawyers in New York to explore ‘breach of contract’ and non-payment. Approximately £20,000 was spent in legal costs trying to understand the problem and recover the money, but nothing further than an extended previous position which now said ‘multiple breaches of contract’ but none were evidenced despite requests.
The entrepreneur had taken the view of not ‘throwing good money after bad’ and had decided to write off their final payment and sought advice from their accountant in relation to the tax treatment.
How did Escalate help?
The clients accountant informed them of Escalate and the case was engaged. Within 6 months the entrepreneur secured a recovery of £290,000.
Why Escalate?
If you have a unresolved dispute, Escalate can help you to avoid wasting your time and money pursuing disputes with unsuccessful outcome.
Click here for more information or email escalate@bermans.co.uk to contact a member of the team.
We recently prepared for trial a Funder’s defence to a claim which raised a number of difficult issues in relation to the annual statements required for a fixed sum credit agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (“CCA”). In the event the matter settled before trial but a number of interesting points arose and are worth considering.
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The rules regarding stamp duty land tax (‘SDLT’) have recently been updated, for the third time in two years. Bermans has previously looked at the impact of the introduction of SDLT higher rates, which came into force on 1 April 2016, in two articles which can be found here and here. These articles also provide clarification as to when a purchase may be exempt from higher rates.
This article, however, focuses on the recent changes arising under the 2017 autumn budget, as well as the newly introduced Land Transaction Tax (‘LTT’), payable on the purchase price of properties in Wales from 1 April 2018.
Continue ReadingFunders should be well advanced in their preparations for the introduction of the EU General Data Protection Regulation on 25 May 2018.
Continue ReadingIt is only since 1997, that any disparities between the average rates of pay for men and women have been recorded. In 2016, the gap for full time employees was 9.4% in favour of men. One interesting detail to these figures is that the gap develops from the age of 40 onwards. Until this point, men and women have similar pay. One factor which influences this is the time women take out to have children and the figures indicate that the effect of this inequality becomes more marked in their later years. The Equal Pay Act has been in force since 1970 but recent news items have demonstrated that nearly 50 years later equal pay between the sexes has still not been reached. A senior editor for the BBC, Carrie Gracie, recently resigned over what she described as “unlawful pay discrimination”. The BBC is just one organisation which has come under scrutiny over the differing level of salaries it pays to some of its male and female presenters.
Over the last few years the Government has stated its intention to redress this balance. On 6th April 2017, Gender Pay Gap Reporting came into effect for large private and voluntary sector employers, being those with 250 or more employees. On 5th April each year, they must now publish data in relation to their gender pay gap. These obligations include the provision of:
Continue ReadingA recent VAT case in the European Court Justice is of considerable interest to motor-vehicle financiers because it blurs the long established distinction between the VAT treatment of lease and hire purchase.
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