UnitedLex hires five ex-Big Four execs as it ramps up digital transformation expertise
10 February 2021
Quintet includes PwC s former digital strategy and innovation leader David Clarke
Funtap; Shutterstock US alternative legal services provider UnitedLex has hired five former Big Four digital transformation experts as it seeks to meet increased demand from corporate legal departments to digitise their businesses. The quintet includes David Clarke, Audra Nichols and Christian Schmitt, who join from PwC, while Bhavesh Patel – who also earlier worked at PwC – joins from West Monroe Partners and Mike Duggan joins from Deloitte. The move comes as the Big Four accountancy firms step up their own efforts to target legal departments KPMG having launched a global legal operations consultancy service in October while a month earlier Deloitte Legal hired a trio of consultants from Elevate.
5 February, 2021
On January 21, the Department of Financial Investigations at the
Committee of State Control in Belarus started an investigation of the educational
human rights defence institution “Office for the Rights of People with
Disabilities.” The director, Sergey Drozdovskiy, and lawyer Oleg
Grablevsky were brought to the Committee, the accountant Tatiana
Krishtal had her phone and computer confiscated. Unidentified people
tried to enter the flat of the former deputy director Mikhail
Matskevich. The Committee announced as the official reason for detention the appropriation of resources received as gratuitous donations and foreign aid for the purpose of providing assistance to people with disabilities
Source: Viasna Belarus Human Rights Center in English
Maryia Tarasenka and Leanid Sudalenka
Minsk – January 20, 2021
On January 18, police detained Leanid Sudalenka, human rights activist and chairman of the Homieĺ branch of the Human Rights Center “Viasna”.
He is currently a suspect in a criminal case under Art. 342 of the Criminal Code (organization or active participation in group actions which gravely breach public order) and has bene remanded in a detention center.
On January 5, the civil and political community center “Palesskaya, 52”, where Viasna’s office is located, was raided by the police. The search lasted for over 9 hours. During the entire raid, Leanid Sudalenka was in the office. After the search, he was taken to the local department for organized crime, but later released. A search was also carried out in his house.
Minsk January 16, 2021
In response to the recent sentences pronounced in a number of criminal trials involving protesters accused of using violence against or violent resistance to police officers and other officials (Articles 363, 364, and 366 of the Criminal Code), we note the following:
As evidenced by the results of observation of several trials in this category of cases, the courts failed to give a proper assessment of the legality of police-related violence. When passing sentences, the judges assumed that the law enforcement officers carried out their lawful activities to protect public order during illegal protests. Detentions of participants in such gatherings and the use of police gear against them, according to the judges, were legal. Accordingly, any kind of disobedience, resistance, and even more so the use of violence against officers of the Interior Ministry, in their opinion, were criminal. Under current law, police officers and other law enforcement officials enjo