The City needs to lay down the law

It is the Lord Mayor’s annual dinner for the judges tonight, an evening he should enjoy given that the judges are so much more interesting than the bankers he so often has to rub shoulders with, and the speeches certainly much better.

And it is fitting that in his own remarks he plans to say some nice but true things about the importance of English law in the global business world, and the contribution made by the UK courts and British legal services to the global success of the City. 

There is, however, a dangerous tendency to take this position for granted and a risk that as in so many other areas where Britain once led the world, English law will become a casualty of complacency.

Guy Beringer, a former senior partner of magic circle firm Allen & Overy, is hot on this point. He laments that government and business have done so little actively to sustain English law to support its use in financial markets.

He thinks our national economic interest requires us to develop a strategy to nurture the brand.

Read full Evening Standard article – Anthony Hilton: Brace yourself, QE may end with quite a bump