ChiefOfficers.Net

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (like the trendy lot they are they don't use the apostrophe that good grammar demands) seems utterly determined to set itself at odds with the profession it regulates. A litany of complaints against its seemingly never-ending list of demands, many of which are costly, is playing out over the requirement that solicitors' practices with a website add a so-called "badge" to their website. The SRA seems to be functioning in a dangerous state of ignorance and arrogance. Solicitors are growling but they are toothless in the face of an autocratic and often incompetent regulator.

French law, in some circumstances, prevents the transfer of evidence gathered in criminal or administrative (i.e. cases involving the state) cases to investigators or courts overseas.

Advocat Charles Simon of the Paris bar explains why this came about and how it works in practice.

Farming partnership B A L Ackroyd has been sentenced for safety breaches, following a fatal incident involving a telescopic front loader, bales of hay and a former employee.

It was announced yesterday that IndiGo, a large budget carrier in India is expanding its fleet with an additional 300 Airbus A320 Neos with a headline price of USD33,000 million. IndiGo has, unlike several of its competitors, not gone out of business. But it is under the cosh precisely because it flies A320 Neos.

When Valtteri Bottas pulled his car up to the pole position sign in the middle of the track at the Circuit of the Americas yesterday at the end of Qualifying for the 2019 US Grand Prix, there was no celebration as his crew walked around his car and prepared to push it away. After the interviews, he was left to walk back to the garage as an entirely solitary figure. Today, wasn't any better, despite him winning the race.

If you've ever visited a UK government website to make any kind of application, you've been met with the worst example of both process and design. But the UK Government is not alone - any process is designed by people who already know how to use it, so they assume everyone knows the same. Wouldn't it be nice if someone spent time looking at both the process and the forms and made them work for people who are visiting for the first time and know nothing except the objective they hope to achieve.

Well, someone did: Turkey's eVisa scheme is a model that, every company and government process and form designer should visit and learn from.

New professional standards for barristers in England and Wales - are they a reminder of long-established principles or a gag?

I've often been vocal in my criticism of Lazada.com's service. For years it's been terrible in every possible direction.

But not now. A remarkable turnaround in many aspects of the business has created a level of service that is, quite simply, the equal of the dominant force, Amazon.com.

What a difference a week makes. Formula One had barely had time to clear out of the Paddock at the Suzuka circuit when MotoGP were setting up not too far away at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit. But the weather made an appearance at both events, causing less trouble for the bikes but still enough to, in effect, nullify Saturday's practice sessions. But that wasn't the problem. Marquez having won his eighth world championship at the previous round, the Thai Grand Prix, even though there are several more coronets to collect, once the big one has gone, there seems to be more than a little desperation for the commentators trying to keep interest alive. No problem, you might say: the racing will do that. Er.. no.

The Basel Institute on Governance has had an interesting idea. Is it more than a pipedream?

It takes a special kind of b***s to continuously break one of the most widely known business laws in Australia and to keep doing it for months. Worse, when it stopped breaking it, it didn't tell anyone it was doing so and to its customers continued to act as if it was in force. What is it? Resale Price Maintenance (yes, the very thing that kept Amazon out of Aus for so long because book publishers were exempted from the law).

The Law Society of England and Wales has issued a notice criticising the policy of "release under investigation" which sees suspects in criminal cases released free of conditions. Not only is it not working, it's proving dangerous, says LawSoc.

It's said that it's impossible to overtake at the Suzuka race circuit but it's not true. There have been winners from way, way down the field. One of the last old-fashioned racing circuits where Formula One still races, this weekend has shown something fascinating: no matter what technical rules are imposed, no matter what generation of drivers is involved - it's tracks like the Honda's Twin Ring Motagi circuits that actually deliver great racing.

It's an own goal, an unforced error, an unintended consequence. Those who have pressed for what they have termed (and forced everyone else to term) "gender equality" have ended up with previously taboo and sometimes illegal matters being pushed front and centre.

Using the trendy but woefully inaccurate term "oversight" when it means supervision ( see why here), ASIC "urges companies to apply a greater focus and sense of urgency to the oversight and management of non-financial risk..particularly compliance risk. Boards cannot afford to ignore the oversight of non-financial risks." The thing is that ASIC's findings show a failure of awareness of the legal position of directors in Australian companies.