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Law Society of England and Wales

LSEW

The Law Society is the representative body for over 200,000 solicitors in England and Wales.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Peter Sandler (Director Trade)

21 Mar 2025 · The short discussion covered international developments with regard to the US and China, the prospects for the continuation of sanctions against Russia, the prospects for WTO Reform and the role of the MPIA (where they were favourable to UK participa

Response to Commission Implementing Decision on standard contractual clauses for the transfer of personal data to third countries

10 Dec 2020

Thank you for the opportunity to provide input to this consultation. We provide a detailed view on the proposed SCCs in the attached document.
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Response to Accession to the Judgments Convention

5 Mar 2020

We: The Law Society of England & Wales is the independent professional body for solicitors in England and Wales. We are run by and for our members. Our role is to be the voice of solicitors, to drive excellence in the profession and to safeguard the rule of law. On behalf of the profession, we influence the legislative and regulatory environment in the public interest. At home we promote the profession and the vital role legal services play in our economy. Around the world we promote England and Wales as a global legal centre, open new markets for our members and defend human rights. The Law Society of Scotland is the professional body for over 12,000 Scottish solicitors and was established in 1949. We have an overarching objective of leading legal excellence, and strive to excel and to be a world-class professional body, understanding and serving the needs of our members and the public. We set and uphold standards to ensure the provision of excellent legal services and ensure the public can have confidence in Scotland’s legal profession. The Law Society of Northern Ireland is the professional body for the solicitors' profession in Northern Ireland with the aim of protecting the public. The Law Society acts as the regulatory authority governing the education, accounts, discipline and professional conduct of solicitors in order to maintain the independence, ethical standards, professional competence and quality of services offered to the public. Noting that: There is currently no comprehensive international framework for the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgements in civil and commercial matters. The difficulty enforcing judgments given by EU courts outside the EU infringes individuals and citizens right of access to justice and may deter them from engaging with trade and investment opportunities abroad. Accession to the Hague Judgments Convention would • Enhance access to justice for EU citizens and businesses. • Encourage more international trade and transactions • Reduce the costs for EU businesses and citizens involved in International transactions and would also provide legal certainty when disputes arise between parties. Strongly support the European Commission proposal to access the Hague Judgments Convention.
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Response to A New Deal for Consumers – revision of the Injunctions Directive

28 Nov 2017

Feedback on the Revision of Directive 2009/22/EC on injunctions for the protection of consumer’ interest – Law Society of England & Wales The Law Society is the representative body of over 160,000 solicitors in England and Wales. The Law Society negotiates on behalf of the profession and makes representations to regulators and Government in both a Domestic and European arena The Law Society of England & Wales welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to ask for feedback on the inception impact assessment on possible proposals to strengthen procedural rules on breaches of consumer law which harm the collective interests of consumers. The Law Society agrees with the aims of: • Improving public enforcement through more effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for breaches of EU consumer law • Improving the procedural means for stopping infringements harming the collective interests of consumers, including the provision of consumers ‘collective redress. Products, goods and services of all kinds are sold all over Europe, and mass-harm situations include a cross-border element in many cases. Damage arising from the violation of consumer contracts or defective products may entitle many people from different countries to claim compensation. Cross-border collective redress proceedings could offer a way of pooling a large number of claims, but at the moment there is no uniform set of instruments of collective redress in Europe. Looking forward The Law Society of England & Wales is broadly sympathetic with the Recommendation dated 11 June 2013, which sets out common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms for Member States, concerning violations of rights granted under Union Law. However, mere injunctive relief is not enough, there must be compensatory relief as well. The LSEW errs in favour continuing the wider horizontal approach, rather than picking out specific sectors. In addition the Society favours EU intervention limited to cross-border situations to facilitate access to justice in such cases. There should be some form of authorised body to take forward the action, or some wider system of certification. The limit to a handful of consumer organisations is overly restrictive and burdensome on them in terms of administration and funding. A more coherent relationship with ADR/ODR systems would be helpful. ADR entities (pursuant the Directive on consumer ADR 2013/11/EU) may provide generic information about any abusive corporate behaviour. One of the provisions of the 2013 Recommendation, which has not been actioned, is the setting up of an information system or register to share information cross-border on collective claims. There could be some relationship (subject to data protection requirements) between these two EU instruments.
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Meeting with Antoine Colombani (Cabinet of First Vice-President Frans Timmermans), Michelle Sutton (Cabinet of First Vice-President Frans Timmermans)

20 Sept 2016 · Transparency

Meeting with Věra Jourová (Commissioner) and

23 Feb 2016 · Equal pay, Work life balance

Meeting with Vivian Loonela (Cabinet of Vice-President Andrus Ansip)

15 Jan 2016 · DSM - European Contract Sale Law - e-commerce