I am delighted to report a successful in-person Conference, which was attended by a range of delegates including academics, solicitors, barristers, paralegals, journalists, and representatives of BEIS, the Law Commission and HMRC. The speakers were Roderick I’Anson Banks, senior barrister in partnership law and editor of the leading partnership text (regularly quoted by the courts) Lindley and Banks on Partnership; Professor Geoffrey Morse of the University of Birmingham, author of the leading academic partnership text; Jeremy Callman, barrister in partnership law and author of many Practical Law sources on partnership law; Mark Baldwin, tax partner in a leading City firm and co-author of a forthcoming text on investment partnerships; Dr Lida Pitsillidou of UCLAN Cyprus; Luke Burgin, paralegal at a Newcastle law firm; and Oliver Bullough, investigative journalist and author of Moneyland. This reflects the Forum’s mission to promote debate on partnership law and the law relating to other business vehicles which provide alternatives to the limited company and to develop collaboration between academics and practitioners researching and teaching in these areas of law and connected areas.
The round table discussion which concluded the event considered:
i) That this was the best Conference yet.
ii) Early/mid September was a good time for the Conference to be held in the future.
iii) a blended approach to attendance, with both in-person and online attendance, would not work. The Conference should therefore continue to be an in-person only event, unless Covid restrictions require it to be moved entirely online as in 2020.
iv) The Conference should continue to include a range of speakers – from the profession, from academia, and from the 4th estate. I have already asked the Law Commission to speak at the next available Conference after their current informal consultations result in more concrete consultations. The delegate from HMRC also offered a paper from either himself or one of his team.
v) Other possible speakers or delegates who should be contacted (in addition to the current mailing list of past speakers/delegates, APP/SLS/SLSA/ALT members) included anyone who had contributed to a relevant BEIS consultation in recent years. included partnership tax advisers, partnership accountants and partnership mediators.
vi) Consideration should be given as to how students might be encouraged to attend.
Feedback from delegates has suggested the following topics for future Conferences – so if you have an interest in any of these areas, please do considering submitting a proposal when the Call for Papers for the 2022 Conference is made (though we will of course welcome proposals on any topics relating to partnerships, LLPs or other business vehicles which provide alternatives to the limited company).
• Partnership insolvency
• Law reform
• LLPs and the structure of partnership firms
• Restrictive covenants in partnership context (2 requests)
• Dealing with negotiated partner exits (leverage and strategy).
• PFLPs
• Team moves