A LAW firm that counts US president Donald Trump among its clients set aside an additional £135,000 in the last financial year to settle potential professional negligence claims.
Balfour & Manson, which in 2015 represented the Trump International Golf Club Scotland in the UK Supreme Court, said it had increased its provision for liabilities in the year to the end of October 2016 because “potential claims have been made against the [partnership] over advice given”.
In accounts filed with Companies House this week the firm disclosed that its provision fund increased from £201,223 at the start of the year to £315,000 at the end, with almost £10,000 being paid out during the 12 months.
The firm, which said it is appealing the claims against it, said it could not disclose information about them “on the grounds that it can be expected to seriously prejudice” their outcome.
The accounts also reveal that while the firm’s turnover for the year increased by five per cent to £8.8 million, the amount of profit available for partner pay fell by seven per cent to £2.9m.
The firm, which specialises in cash-intensive personal injury and medical negligence claims, took on additional short-term debt during the year, taking its total borrowings to just under £2m.
In 2015 Balfour & Manson inherited Mr Trump as a client from Dundas & Wilson, which was taken over by UK firm CMS that year.
Chairman Elaine Motion represented the then tycoon as he took a challenge against a wind farm near his Aberdeenshire golf course to the Supreme Court. The claim was ultimately unsuccessful.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here