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Magistrates in England and Wales are to have their sentencing powers increased in order to reduce pressure on the Crown Courts and "speed up justice", it was confirmed today. Under plans announced by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, the maximum six-month prison sentence that can currently be handed o

Scotland's High Court of Justiciary has refused an appeal against extradition by an Irish citizen who claimed he was at risk of having to “slop out” the chamber pot of his prison cell if he were returned to Ireland to serve a custodial sentence. It was argued by Kevin McGourty that there

An Italian couple have won a nearly two-decade-long court battle over their neighbour's toilet flushing loudly in the night. The couple, from La Spezia, launched the case in 2003 shortly after their neighbours installed a new bathroom adjacent to the couple's bedroom.

Controversial UK government plans to restrict noisy and disruptive protests in England and Wales have suffered a setback following a series of government defeats in the House of Lords. An alliance of Labour, Liberal Democrat and independent peers voted to remove provisions of the Police, Crime, Sent

The High Court has determined that an anorexic woman should not be fed against her wishes by her treating doctors despite the risk of premature death. It was held that, in all the circumstances of the case, it was in the best interests of the woman for coercive feeding to end. In making the order so

A massive €225 million fine imposed on WhatsApp last year moved Ireland into second place for value of GDPR fines imposed since the regulations came into force in 2018, research by DLA Piper has found. Ireland has issued GDPR fines worth €226.05 million since 25 May 2018, now second only t

A new project aimed at reducing barriers to third-level education for people with convictions has been launched at Maynooth University. The Unlocking Potential project provides a fair admissions toolkit for higher education institutions (HEIs), which will help guide the reform or development of admi

EY Law Ireland, which opened its doors last October, has announced plans to increase its headcount from 15 to 50 by 2025. The legal division of the accountancy giant currently has 200 lawyers in the UK and Ireland, but told Law.com that this could rise to 1,000 in the coming years.

Academics have rallied around Professor Colin Harvey of Queen's University Belfast School of Law after he received online abuse linked to his work on Ireland's constitutional future. Professor Harvey said he received a wave of abuse in the wake of controversial comments by former Labour MP Baroness

The International Bar Association (IBA) has released a statement in defence of lawyer-client confidentiality, following a number of recent attacks on the principle from high-profile international organisations. The statement, with forewords by Lord Neuberger, former president of the UK Supreme Court

Brexit has prompted a record number of trademark applications in the UK, according to new data. There were 195,000 trademarks registered in the UK in the past year, an increase of 54 per cent on the previous year's figure of 127,000.

Our regular round-up of deals involving Irish law firms. Submit your deals to newsdesk@irishlegal.com. Arthur Cox LLP is advising Digital 9 Infrastructure plc on its agreement to acquire eir’s majority stake in Tetra Ireland for €76 million.

Hundreds of thousands of boxes of Kellogg's cereals have been seized by Mexican authorities for being too appealing to children. A new law in Mexico forbids the marketing of sugary foods directly to children, for example with cartoon drawings and mascots, ABC News reports.

Priti Patel's proposed new UK border laws would breach the UK's obligations under international law, UN experts have said. In a joint statement, five UN special rapporteurs said the Nationality and Borders Bill would "seriously undermine the protection of the human rights of trafficked persons, incl

Business tenants in Northern Ireland are set to lose protection from eviction in March after emergency pandemic measures expire. Finance minister Conor Murphy today urged landlords and tenants in dispute to consider mediation ahead of the measures expiring on 25 March 2022.