The Scottish Government’s legislative programme for 2011-12 includes as priorities the Registration Bill and Long Leases Bill (which is being re-introduced after it ran out of time in the last parliament).

The Registration Bill aims to improve land registration in Scotland includes provision for:

• an improved system for handling inaccuracies;
• the introduction of a system of advance notices to protect buyers from last-minute adverse entries in the Land Register which would bring about an end to the current practice of the use of letters of obligation;
• a new procedure for dealing with title to common areas in new housing developments;
• ensuring that electronic conveyancing is competent in all cases including missives; and
• speeding up the transfer of properties onto into the Land Register from the Register of Sasines.

The Long Leases Bill allows conversion of the rights of tenants under ultra-long leases (175 years or more with more than 100 years to run) into ownership.

Guest article is by John Cooke, chief executive of a trade association in the telecoms sector.

These are some thoughts about what leaders and managers should do to cope in the midst of major restructuring exercises, especially those involving redundancies. It came about from a talk I gave to a group whose members were about to start some major restructuring programmes, and had asked me for my ‘top tips’ on surviving restructuring. This certainly isn’t a definitive or comprehensive guide to the subject, but I hope that it might be of some use to anyone facing a restructuring exercise, especially if you haven’t been through it before.

It is based on personal experience and observation of three major mergers, of several other major restructurings in between times, and of leading the stakeholder communications around the closure of a variety of industrial and commercial facilities. The merger experience covers once as part of the team doing the taking over, once in a ‘merger of equals’, and once in a firm being taken over: I’ve done some restructuring, and I’ve also been restructured.

Here are seven things to think about during restructuring. They are:

• Look after yourself.
• Remember your personal brand.
• Don’t get mad. Don’t get even. Think instead what you can learn.
• Be true to yourself.
• Don’t spread yourself too thinly.
• The Western Front and Eric Cantona
• Look after your people.

Why are there seven steps? That’s simply because that’s how I’ve chosen to arrange these observations. I could have made it five, or twelve, or seventeen, but opted for seven because lots of lists come in sevens, like dwarves, wonders of the world, samurai, or gunslingers led by Yul Brynner.

They are in no particular order, with two exceptions. The advice to look after yourself is deliberately first, because if you don’t do this first, you may not be in a fit state to do the other things. The advice to look after your people is deliberately last, not because it is of least importance, but because you’ll be much better at looking after your people if you’ve thought about all the other things first.

1. LOOK AFTER YOURSELF

If your organization is restructuring, and you might up with a less enjoyable job or no job at all, it’s important that you look after yourself. This is first on the list because if you don’t do it, you may not be in a fit state to do the other things, and because managers in a crisis often do forget to look after themselves.

If you don’t have any people to lead, it’s entirely reasonable to look after yourself, because looking after you may well not be a priority for anyone else, including HR or your manager. But if you do have people to lead, and are trying to be fair to them and to maintain their morale, it’s very important that you look after yourself, too. That isn’t being selfish, either. Rather, it’s because as a leader, you have a duty of care to those whom you lead. How can you fulfil that duty of care if you yourself are stressed-out and demoralized, and operating below par?

Think of it like the oxygen masks on a plane. You are told to put yours on first before helping others. If you are sitting next to a loved one, that may sound selfish. But if you’ve passed out, you won’t be able to help them.

Part of looking after yourself is remembering not to beat yourself up if you have to break bad news to others, or thinking that if something has gone wrong you must be to blame. Hand-loom weavers didn’t lose their jobs in the Industrial Revolution because they were bad weavers, but because Mr Hardwood had invented the steam-powered ‘Ravelling Nancy’ or whatever. Most of the crew of the Titanic had nothing to do with it hitting the iceberg. Redundant video or cassette tape salesmen aren’t redundant because they were bad salesmen, but because we moved to DVDs, CDs and downloads. Stuff happens, and in most cases, it’s almost certainly not your fault, so don’t go thinking that it is. You are probably just someone trying to do his or her best to cope with the fallout. This advice does not apply, of course, if you are the general who thought it would be a good idea for the Light Brigade to charge into the Valley of Death, but it does apply to most of the people most of the time.

2. REMEMBER YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

In managing one’s career, a good bit of advice is to think about your own personal brand – how you want others to perceive you. . Like any other brand, its reputation must be protected. And that seems to me to be as true during difficult times as it is in good times, though few of us remember to do it.

Many people think of a brand just in terms of a product, or a service, but it also covers people. That may be true for the likes of a politician or sports personality, you may think, but not for most people. You may think that, but you’d be wrong. Everybody is perceived by others in a certain way, and has certain attributes attributed to them, whether they like it or not. Think of your colleagues, and you will almost always think of an attribute that they have: Ben, in finance, may be known for his passionate support of Partick Thistle; Julie in HR for wearing short skirts; Bill, in marketing for being determined to get the job done; and Sandra, in sales, for being creative. Whether or not you have your own marketing campaign and registered trademark, you have a brand, i.e. a quality or qualities that people think of when your name comes up. And it’s something you should probably work on, rather than just leaving to chance. You wouldn’t do that in a job interview, and nor should you the rest of the time. And in a crisis, your brand is particularly important.

In a crisis, you will be watched by your peers, by those above and below you in the management chain, and, possibly, by potential alternative employers. How do you want them to think of you? Do you want them to think of you as someone unable to cope in a crisis, or as someone keeping his or her head in difficult circumstances? Do you want to be pitied, or respected? That last is, of course, a rhetorical question.

Make sure that they all see the image that you want to convey – the swan gliding serenely over the surface of the water, not the angst-ridden, mad paddling below the surface. Remember, most others around you, including those who appear calm in a crisis, will also be racked by internal doubt: it’s just that they don’t show it. Either that or they are from the planet Vulcan.

Your brand is particularly important when you are leading people through a crisis. Think of it as if you are the captain of a ship in a bad storm, and your team is the crew. The captain might say, “Look, this is a really serious situation, but our best chance is if everyone does their jobs as well as they can”. Or he might say, “We are all doomed”. One of these approaches is likely to produce a better outcome for all concerned than the other.

3. DON’T GET MAD, AND DON’T TRY TO GET EVEN; THINK INSTEAD WHAT YOU CAN LEARN

Restructuring very often involves a breaking of what we see as the unwritten moral contract between an organisation and its employees. That contract is that if you work hard and conscientiously, and deliver what you are reasonably asked to do, the organisation will do right by you in return. Sometimes, the organisation can’t deliver its part of the bargain. That’s not necessarily because management is stupid, or doesn’t care, or is trying to exploit you: sometimes, an organisation and its managers are simply overtaken by events.

Whatever the causes of the breakdown, two possible reactions to it are: first, a sense that it is unfair; and, second, a desire to lash out in anger at the party that has ‘betrayed your trust’. These are perfectly normal, understandable human reactions. The problem with them is that you can expend a vast amount of time and, more importantly, emotional energy thinking about the injustice that’s been done to you and working out how to get revenge. But that doesn’t really get you very far in improving your situation. It’s easier said than done, but when you feel let down and angry, don’t get mad, don’t waste time trying to work out how to get even, just accept the situation you are in, and try to work out how to make the best of it.

The main thing is this. Imagine yourself in a job interview, six months or a year from now. The interviewer asks something like “So, you were in the midst of this awful restructuring. What did you learn from it?” And you answer “Well, I learnt X, Y, and Z. And I can now apply that learning in this role we are discussing now”. So, despite all the crap going on around you, ask yourself at the end of each day or each week what you have learned and how that enhances your CV.

I said earlier that bad stuff happens, and in most cases, it’s almost certainly not your fault. While that’s true, it doesn’t mean that you have no responsibility for anything, or that you won’t make mistakes. You do, and you will. Just remember to learn from them – a lesson that applies at all times, not just in restructuring. “Mistakes”, said James Joyce, “are the portals of discovery”. Or, as Plutarch put it “to make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes, the wise and the good learn wisdom for the future”. At least that was the gist of it, as he was talking Ancient Greek, obviously.

4. BE TRUE TO YOURSELF

During difficult restructuring, simply surviving may well represent success, and it has a lot to be said for it. However as Jimmy Reid said in his inaugural address as Rector of Glasgow University, in 1972:

“Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts, and before you know where you are, you’re a fully paid-up member of the rat-pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ put it, “What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?”

Few of us are lucky enough to have our ideal job, and life is often about some compromises at the best of times. So we should be particularly willing to compromise in a restructuring. Compromise may be essential if you are to be able to feed and clothe your loved ones, or indeed yourself. But whatever you do, don’t compromise your core principles or core values. If you do, you’ll end up disliking yourself, and that will inevitably turn into a downward spiral of low self-esteem, low achievement, failure and despair. Just don’t go down that route. Remember Jimmy Reid’s advice.

5. DON’T STRETCH YOURSELF TOO THINLY

If you are the manager working out how to do stuff with fewer people or less money, be realistic about what you can achieve.

There’s always a bit of waste in any organisation, so you should look for maximum efficiency, but ‘efficiency savings’, much beloved of all politicians everywhere, will only get you so far. You need to avoid overstretch. It’s much better to do a few important things and do them well, rather than trying to do too much and doing it all badly. With the former you’ll please some of the people, and the rest will understand if you explain it to them. If they don’t, that’s tough. And you will have by then agreed with your line manager what’s most important.

If something is a statutory obligation, you’ve no choice but to do it. For everything else, you do have a choice. So ask yourself, “is this activity critical to our success, and would the sky fall in if we stopped doing it?” If yes, keep doing it. If no, it’s a candidate for the chop.

In doing this exercise, be ruthless in considering what’s critical. ‘Critical’ means ‘critical’. It doesn’t mean ‘handy’, or ‘useful’, or ‘desirable’ or something that must be done ‘because we’ve always done it that way’ or because the Head of Paperclips requires a weekly report on it.

You will win no friends and do nothing to further your career if you meekly accept being told to do the impossible, and then fail to deliver the required miracle.

6. THE WESTERN FRONT AND ERIC CANTONA

In case the title of this bit isn’t self-explanatory, let me elaborate. There are two parts to it. The first is to remember that there’s always someone worse off than you. The second is to remember Eric Cantona, and I’ll get to him in a minute.

One of the most excruciatingly irritating things to be told when you are in a painful or stressful or upsetting situation is that someone else is experiencing something similar or worse. When I’ve broken a finger, or have had toothache, I haven’t felt less pain if someone told me that it’s not nearly as bad as childbirth or whatever. One reason someone else telling you this sort of thing is so annoying is that you might recognize more than a grain of truth in the argument. And if you tell yourself that someone is worse off than you are, that can help.

I’ll tell you what has sometimes worked for me.

That has been to remember that, though I may, at times, have been unhappy with aspects of my job, or my then manager, or facing potential redundancy, if I’d been born in a different generation, it could have been worse: I might have been in a hole in the ground in northern France, covered in mud, and being shelled. That sometimes works for me, because it happened to my grandfather when he was a young man serving in the Gordon Highlanders, and I have fond memories of him. Not that he ever really talked about it, but I do have a photo of him on my mantelpiece. Find an image that resonates with you, assuming that you don’t also remember my granddad. It might be something that you’ve read about or seen on TV: the image of a starving child in the Horn of Africa does rather put a different perspective on a slightly lower than expected pay rise or missed promotion.

Now let me turn to Eric Cantona.

Let’s suppose that you are facing redundancy. It happens. Redundancy and unemployment are bad. They are scary, demoralising, can lower your self-esteem and are bad for your physical and mental health. So I don’t want to play down the impact. However, lots of people who are made redundant do end up with better jobs and with happier more fulfilled lives. It is not the end of the world. It can be, especially if you let it, but it doesn’t have to be. If you do get made redundant, remember Eric.

In 1992, Eric was playing for Leeds. His then manager, Howard Wilkinson sold him to Manchester United. This wasn’t because Manchester was offering a king’s ransom of a transfer fee that Leeds just couldn’t refuse. On the contrary, they paid about £1.2million – chickenfeed in football transfer terms. It was simply that Wilkinson and Leeds thought Cantona surplus to requirements. Or, put another way, ‘redundant’. Wilkinson was not a bad manager – he guided Leeds to the English championship in 1992. If you know anything about football, the rest, as they say, is history.

However, if you don’t know football, I will explain. Man. United had spent a quarter of a century, without Eric Cantona, failing to become English champions. With Cantona as star player, they won four titles in five years, including two League and FA Cup Doubles. It wasn’t all down to Eric, of course. But Man. United is one of the world’s most famous and successful clubs, with a host of star players in its history. Among United fans, Cantona is an idol, a demigod, a legend amongst legends. Not bad for someone deemed ‘surplus to requirements’.

So if you do get made redundant, don’t automatically think that you are a worthless failure. You are simply surplus to requirements in somebody’s subjective opinion – however objective they say they’ve been in reaching that decision. Remember Eric Cantona!

7. LOOK AFTER YOUR PEOPLE

Big restructuring programmes involving, or even potentially involving, redundancies are bad for morale! They can lead to a sense of alienation and disaffection. People worry when there’s uncertainty. As a leader or manager, one of your jobs is to manage this. How you do so depends on the situation, but some generic tips are:

Talk to your people more than usual. Listen to them even more so. Don’t assume what they are thinking or feeling. Don’t think “if I were so and so, I’d want X to happen/the logical course would be Y”. For one thing, logic often flies out of the window at times of stress, but more fundamentally, you are not so and so, and you don’t know what’s in their mind. If in doubt, ask them.

Keep asking them, because their view might change. I recall one colleague who, in a particular restructuring, wanted redundancy. They didn’t want to work in the new set up, and they wanted the payoff. But when the letter arrived, they felt ‘rejected’ and needed support.

Pay particular attention to younger, less experienced staff members. You might think they’ve less to worry about, e.g. no kids, no mortgage, etc, but they can be hit hard by the threat of redundancy, when older hands, who’ve seen it before, may be much more relaxed.

If someone is appearing to be coping well, don’t take that at face value. They may be coping well, in which case, that’s fine. But check that they aren’t in denial. It can happen, and if it does, you’ll need to work with the person to get them to address the reality of the situation.

There isn’t a golden rule about how different people will react, so treat them all as individuals. It may be that the one you think will cope best won’t, and the one you think might cope worst will be fine.

Try to be as reassuring and empathetic as possible, but don’t patronize or give them some old flannel that you don’t believe and they won’t believe either. Subject to HR constraints (ask HR for guidance on this) be as open and honest as possible. Don’t hide bad news; just try to break it gently, and do your best to help people find a way through.

Where redundancies are involved, don’t assume that those keeping their jobs are fine. Seeing friends and colleagues getting the chop can lead to ‘survivor guilt’.

Where people are being made redundant, you still need to look after them. It’s morally the right thing to do. And it could happen to you, one day, so do unto others etc. Also, remember that those left behind will see how those being made redundant are treated: their view of you and of the organisation will be affected accordingly.

Give people something positive to think about and to work towards. Give them something to learn. (See ‘Don’t get mad’, etc)

If you are in a position of authority, don’t encourage mutiny. People will grumble. That’s natural. Accept it. Letting them let off steam may help morale. But be careful to avoid being seen to agree too much with criticism of senior management, even if you think your people have a point. Think of Tom Hanks in ‘Saving Private Ryan’. In a crisis, people will cope better if they think someone in authority has at least some notion of how to fix it. If you agree too readily that the high heid yins in your organisation are a bunch of numpties who couldn’t run a whelk stall, this risks undermining morale even further. Caveats to this advice are that you should not blindly defend things that are immoral (see the Jimmy Reid quotation in ‘Be true to yourself’), or just plain daft, and also remember your brand.

John Cooke

John Cooke is chief executive of a trade association in the telecoms sector. His background is in public affairs and policy, and his career has included senior roles at HBOS, in financial services, and GlaxoSmithKline, in pharmaceuticals. A former Chair of the Scottish Government’s Financial Services Implementation Group(FiSIG) John remains passionate about creating a more successful Scotland, where sustainable growth provides opportunities for all her people to flourish. He is a regular commentator, in a personal capacity, on a range of Scottish policy and economic issues, and on other business matters. One of the Diaspora who has returned, he now lives in Edinburgh.

Inner House case concerning a clerical assistant at Kirkriggs School in Glasgow who injured herself when she fell from a toilet bowl whilst trying to open a window.

An extra division of the Inner House allowed a reclaiming motion and Ms Wallace was granted damages of £31,800 reduced by 50% in respect of contributory negligence.

The decision turned on the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 and in particular on Regulation 15(1) which says:

“No window, skylight or ventilator which is capable of being opened shall be likely to be opened, closed or adjusted in the manner which exposes any person performing such operation to a risk to his health or safety.”

The extra division of the Inner House found that regulation 15 (1) required the Council to address the question of how the window might be opened, closed or adjusted. If the Council had carried out a proper risk assessment in relation to the opening of the window they would have discovered the risk of injury to persons of Ms Wallace’s height (5’1”) if no window pole was provided in the toilets or, at least, made very readily accessible at all times nearby.

Lord Tyre had suggested that Ms Wallace should simply have refrained[1] from seeking to open the window.  However, in the Inner House, it was considered that this was to ignore the significance of the duty on the Council[2]  with regard to the ventilation of areas such as the toilet. It appeared that the only source of ventilation of the cubicle was to be obtained by opening the window.  The Court found that:

“A proper risk assessment would have pointed out the risk of someone, like [Ms Wallace], when no window pole was available, seeking to open the window for ventilation purposes either by standing and stretching, which itself could have caused injury, or, alternatively, attempting to reach the window by standing on what appears to have been the sole means of doing so, namely the toilet bowl, which itself would have been dangerous.

The full judgement is available from Scottish Courts here.

Criminal appeal which raises an important question regarding the mens rea of murder. In 2004 Samuel Petto stabbed his flatmate to death and, as part of a scheme to dispose of the body, set fire to the flat with petrol. Mrs Donnachie, one of the other occupants of the tenement was overcome by the smoke and died in hospital the following day. Mr Petto pled guilty to the murder of Mrs Donnachie. The following definition of murder set out in Gordon’s Criminal Law was approved by an Extra Division in HMA v Purcell in 2008:

“the actual situation is that there is murder wherever death is caused with wicked intention to kill or by an act intended to cause physical injury and displaying a wicked disregard of fatal consequences”

Mr Petto claimed that, with regard to his own case, since the libel did not allege that he assaulted Mrs Donachie, or had any intention to cause injury to her or any other person, it did not instruct a relevant charge of murder. His plea of guilty had therefore been tendered in error and he argued that he should be allowed to withdraw it.

In a unanimous five bench decision the appeal was rejected.

The Lord Justice Clerk (Gill) giving the leading opinion found that Mr Petto had not shown a relevant ground on which to allow withdrawal of the guilty plea which, in itself was sufficient to dispose of the appeal. However, the Lord Justice Clerk also noted that the appeal raised an important issue of mens rea and found that the appeal was misconceived in its reliance on Purcell. Purcell was a case in which the accused had driven a car recklessly and caused the death of a child on a pedestrian crossing. This case was different as it concerned the specific act of setting fire to a tenement. Mr Petto had set fire to the building deliberately in the knowledge that there were people living in it. Tenements are densely populated with only means of escape being an internal stairway. Where a person starts a fire on the ground floor of a tenement, the inevitable conclusion is that he does so in the certain knowledge that those on the upper floors will be at grave risk of death or serious injury. The appreciation of the virtual certainty that such a risk will occur and the deliberate acceptance of it should be equated with an intention that the consequences occur.

Since the appeal could be decided on the meaning of intent within the clear cut circumstances of the case, it was not necessary to explore current position with regard to the mental element in murder and culpable homicide more generally. However, the Lord Justice Clerk made it clear that a review of the law in this area would be desirable:

 “I have the impression that other English-speaking jurisdictions may have attained greater maturity in their jurisprudence on this topic than Scotland has. In Scotland we have a definitional structure in which the mental element in homicide is defined with the use of terms such as wicked, evil, felonious, depraved and so on, which may impede rather than conduce to analytical accuracy. In recent years, the authors of the draft Criminal Code for Scotland (2003) have greatly assisted our thinking on the matter; but we remain burdened by legal principles that were shaped largely in the days of the death penalty, that are inconsistent and confused and are not yet wholly free of doctrines of constructive malice. My own view is that a comprehensive re-examination of the mental element in homicide is long overdue. That is not the sort of exercise that should be done by ad hoc decisions of this court in fact-specific appeals. It is pre-eminently an exercise to be carried out by the normal processes of law reform.”

The full text of the decision is available from Scottish courts here.

All we need is “ze fallen Madonna with ze big boobies” and it could be an episode of Allo, Allo. Instead, this is a case concerning an appeal by the Procurator Fiscal of Aberdeen against a sheriff’s decision on the grounds of bias.

The case involved Chief Inspector Thomas Forrester who was charged with dangerous driving[1] after allegedly instructing a constable driving a police car, in which he was travelling to catch a plane, to put the sirens on and move to the wrong side of the road. When the constable did so, a collision occurred between two cars travelling in the opposite direction.

During a delay in proceedings, the sheriff called the procurator fiscal’s depute and the defence counsel into chambers to inquire as to progress and was told by the procurator fiscal’s depute that, amongst other witnesses waiting to be called, were the police officers who interviewed Chief Inspector Forrester. The sheriff then remarked “Oh that will be the Gestapo!”

The sheriff ultimately found that the interview of Chief Inspector Forrester by the investigating officers was unfair and excluded it as evidence. The Procurator Fiscal appealed to the High Court on the basis that the sheriff’s remarks inferred bias and, his decision to exclude the interview as evidence, disclosed actual bias.

The High Court refused the Appeal.  In coming to its conclusion, the High Court referred to Wallace v Thomson (2009):

 “[18] Humour is not without its place in the criminal courts. No doubt, when used by a judge or sheriff, it requires to be used sparingly, with caution and not inappropriately. However, a Sheriff may consider that an element of levity might be temporarily introduced for a particular purpose; perhaps to put a nervous witness at his ease or to defuse a moment of unnecessary tension between procurators. No doubt, if the Court turned a trial into something akin to a comedy, an accused would have grounds of complaint were he to be convicted. Nothing of that kind has occurred in this case. The Sheriff appears to have made one flippant remark intended to be humorous. Perhaps it was; although it seems to have lost something in its translation to the printed page. The suggestion that an informed and reasonable observer would consider that this was an element demonstrating partiality is without foundation”.

Similar considerations, held the High Court, applied with regard to the sheriff’s comments in this case.  It was “bordering on the ludicrous” to suggest that the sheriff was actually comparing the behaviour of the police officers with that of the Gestapo during the Second World War. On hearing the words used in context, there was no prospect of a fair minded individual concluding that the sheriff was biased against the procurator fiscal and, having regard to the way the sheriff approached the objection to the admissibility of the interview and the reasoning he employed, there was also no prospect that a fair minded individual would form the view that the sheriff was biased when deciding the issue.

It was noted (the court’s opinion being delivered by Lord Carloway):

“An allegation that a judicial office holder is biased against the Crown, in the form of the local procurator fiscal, and investigating police officers is an extremely serious one. It should only be made where there is evidence to support it.  Such evidence is not present in this case..”

With regard to the interview, the issue was whether the sheriff had erred in determining that the Crown had failed to demonstrate that the interview had been fair and that admissions made had been spontaneous and voluntary. The sheriff had rejected evidence of the detective chief superintendent who conducted the interview to the effect that the interviews purpose had been to allow the chief inspector to tell his side of the story. Instead the sheriff concluded, from the manner of the interview and the surrounding circumstances[2], that the true intention had been to prompt the chief inspector into making an admission. On reaching that conclusion the sheriff was bound to sustain the objection to the interview as evidence. Authority for that finding came from Chalmers v HMA (1954) and the words of Lord Justice General (Cooper):

 “It is not the function of the police… to direct their endeavours to obtaining a confession from the suspect to be used as evidence against him at the trial”

 Herr Flick would not have approved.

A full report of the decision is available from Scottish Courts here.

The First Minister announced a 6 month delay to the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill during First Minister’s questions today. It had been scheduled to be passed by the end of the month but Alex Salmond said he had listened to concerns that the new law was being rushed through parliament too quickly. It is now to be passed by the end of the year.

This order brings the Bribery Act 2010 into force on 1 July 2011.

In addition to prohibiting the offering and receiving of bribes and the bribing of foreign public officials, the Act creates a new offence which can be committed by commercial organisations which fail to prevent persons associated with them from bribing another person on their behalf.

The Ministry of Justice’s guidance on bribery prevention procedures for commercial organisations is available here.

First Minister Alex Salmond has asked a group of legal experts to look at the impact of the UK Supreme Court on Scotland’s legal system.

The First Minister has asked these legal experts to look at the roles of the High Court of Judiciary in Edinburgh and the UK Supreme Court in London, and to advise on possible options for reform.

The experts who were appointed to the expert group are Lord McCluskey, a former solicitor general; Sir Gerald Gordon, a former professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University; Charles Stoddart, who has acted as interim Sheriff Principal; and Professor Neil Walker, an expert in constitutional law.  Their initial findings will be debated at the Scottish Parliament in time for the summer recess.

The Scottish Law Commission has published a Discussion Paper on the criminal liability of partnerships.

The paper follows a fatal fire at the Rosepark nursing home in Uddingston in 2004 after which the Crown’s attempts to prosecute the partnership (for health and safety offences) failed on the basis the partnership had been dissolved and therefore no longer had any legal existence.

The paper considers ways of preventing the frustration of prosecutions of partnerships due to their dissolution and also looks at the circumstances in which individual partners may be held criminally liable for offences committed by a partnership questioning whether legislation should be introduced to make it easier to prosecute partners as individuals.

The SLC’s news release is here.

The Discussion Paper is available here.