Businesses often complain that new rules and regulations benefit no one other than the lawyers. Well, in a period during which new law has been coming thick and fast, we are getting a taste of our own medicine.

The legal services sector is in line for a major shake-up following publication of the draft Legal Services Bill at the end of May.

The bill is intended to improve consumer choice while, at the same time, completely reforming regulation of the sector.

Lawyers - both solicitors and barristers - are currently self-regulating; the same groups that represent members' interests are also responsible for dealing with customer complaints.

The bill would establish the Legal Services Board as an independent regulator of the legal services sector, and create a new complaints-handling body called the Office for Legal Complaints.

Many areas of legal practice, such as litigation, are currently reserved to lawyers.

The new rules would open the way for a greater range of businesses to provide legal advice directly to clients (disparagingly called 'Tesco law') and may allow lawyers and non-lawyers the flexibility to work together in partnership.

 *

Even the Crown itself is subject to regulatory reform under new legislation bringing an end to its immunity from mainstream planning law.

The Crown, which includes government departments, executive agencies and Her Majesty's private estates, currently operates under a parallel system of development control.

The changes will require the Crown to apply for planning permission to the local planning authority and be subject to the same right of appeal as other applications.

The new regime will also have to comply with the EU environmental impact assessment directive, which screens proposed developments for their effect on the environment.

The new law, which came into effect last Wednesday, also makes provision for the "unique" nature of certain Crown developments; where a Crown body can demonstrate that a development is of national importance, it will be able to apply directly to the secretary of state for planning permission.

 *

It's not just the UK Parliament that has been busy. In the EU, ministers have finally reached agreement on the terms of the long-awaited services directive.

The draft directive aims to develop a single market in services similar to the free market in goods that already exists in the EU.

Unjustified legal and administrative barriers will be removed, allowing service companies to set up shop wherever is most convenient and ply their trade freely across borders.

Some countries and trade unions have voiced concerns that this will tempt businesses, in an effort to reduce costs, to relocate to EU countries which they perceive will provide the weakest protection for employees, consumers and the environment.

To address this, the current draft requires service providers to comply with the laws in whichever country they operate.

Member states will still be able to restrict access by foreign service providers in certain sectors but the European Parliament has agreed a list of legitimate reasons that a country can cite for restricting the operations of a foreign business within its borders.

The directive's final form is still to be decided and it is unlikely to become law before 2009.

 *

Greg Gibson is a partner at Mills & Reeve and leads the firm's commercial services team.

LOAD-DATE:

June 14, 2006

Copyright 2006 Eastern Daily Press (EDP)