News / 2001

The Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission has issued a joint Consultation Paper No.161 and No.118. The purpose is “ to update the law and to remove doubts which have caused concern to users of limited partnerships and their advisers”

Those who are interested in legal history may like to note that the Stair Society now has a website linked into the SCAN site (those who attended the AGM will remember the lecture and demonstration of the Scottish Archives Network site).

The draft harmonises procedural law measures such as search and seizure of computer data, retention of traffic data and interception. As well as tackling aspects of substantive law in relation to the crimes of “hacking”, copyright infringements and child pornography.

The initial phase for the introduction of the Data Protection Act of 1998 came to an end on 24th October. Most businesses must now comply with the Act. in full. Those who have not already done so, should now carry out an audit to ensure that there is compliance.

The October issue of the Gazette is now available for download as a PDF format file from this site.

ActiveLawyer version 3.0 has been released. The latest version of this dynamic intranet/website solution designed specifically for the needs of the law community features categorisation, so you can classify all the data on your site.

It was noted that the Commission intended promulgating further directives intended to encourage e-commerce cross border transactions.

The terms of the Executive announcement were noted whereby when a legislative opportunity arose the functions of SCESB would be transferred to the Law Society, at which time no licensed conveyancer would be able to set up on his own account.

It should be remembered that the deadline for compliance with the Act is 24th October, but are firms ready for it? It has been suggested that organisations which normally keep client’s records confidential, such as law firms, are going to be most at risk of non-compliance with the Act.

It has been announced that professional Trustees are to be exempted from the mortgage regulations.