Government goes through with ban on PI inducements

The Government is to prevent personal injury lawyers from offering incentives to potential clients, following a change to the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill.

The House of Lords has inserted a clause into the Bill which will ban the practice of offering cash or free electronic equipment, such as iPads, to claimants.

Justice minister Lord Faulks said that the move was part of the Government's focus on discouraging fraudulent and grossly exaggerated personal injury claims.

"We are determined to root out the disproportionately high costs and frankly unacceptable behaviour that has tainted the personal injury world in recent years," said Lord Faulks.

"Such incentives contribute to the so-called compensation culture by offering rewards for bringing a claim, regardless of its merits. Expenditure on these inducements might also have a detrimental effect on the quality of service provided to the client.

"Furthermore, in a significant number of cases, the client is then denied the money or benefit initially offered because of terms and conditions. This practice has no doubt developed because of the excessive legal costs in personal injury cases which have already been addressed by our reforms in Part 2 of the LASPO Act 2012, but it is a practice that we need to stop to protect consumers and, indeed, the reputation of the legal profession more widely," he added.

Mark Dugdale