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Thursday 24th September 2015 marked the 15th anniversary of the Expert Witness Institute (EWI) Annual Conference. The conference returned once more to the superb venue at Church House Conference Centre in Westminster and was by general acclaim a great success.

As always the conference was very well attended by EWI members, representatives from the legal profession, practising expert witnesses and members of the press. Your Expert Witness were proud to have been one of the event sponsors. Over 190 delegates were in attendance throughout the day, a record for the EWI conference.

The conference, expertly chaired by EWI governor, Mrs Amanda Stevens, covered a wide range of topics aimed at educating and informing the delegates. The conference paid special attention to the anniversary of the Magna Carta with the opening panel session, chaired by Michael Napier CBE QC, addressing the question 'Was Runnymede 1215 the first hot-tub?'.

Orthotics Experts Ltd has adopted mkryptor to encrypt sensitive case information sent via email. Orthotics Experts provides independent medical reports as evidence in legal cases and the communications that take place over email between the company and legal firms contain highly confidential information.

Chris Drake consultant orthotist and expert witness said, “There must be thousands of expert witnesses up and down the country like me that are engaged in supplying reports of a confidential nature. Whilst large legal companies with IT departments may have encryption tools I wonder how the expert witness community is addressing email confidentiality? I was delighted to find mkryptor to solve this problem, it is user-friendly and at a price point that smaller businesses and independent consultants can afford.”

Last October, Nigerian-born oil tycoon Michael Prest was ordered to pay his former wife cash and assets totalling £18m to his former wife. But after months of wrangling in the courts, with the couple running up legal bills of more than £3m, judges at the Court of Appeal handed down a written judgment on26 October saying the amount he had been asked to pay was wrong, cutting his divorce bill by £9m.

The ruling has been called 'disappointing' by lawyers for wives whose husbands might use companies to shelter their wealth.

Top London divorce lawyer Deborah Jeff, a partner at Seddons commented: "The case of Prest highlights again how family law is on the back-foot of commercial law in divorce settlements.

"In 2010, with the case of Tchenguiz and Imerman, a wife was prevented from using documents downloaded from her husband's computer when he sought to hide assets from her. We now have Mr Prest being allowed to use the corporate veil to place assets beyond his wife's control."

Almost everyone likes trees. They provide many benefits, from the aesthetic to biodiversity and from cleaning the atmosphere to providing timber.  However, they can become problematic when things go wrong.

Although relatively rare, trees can cause personal injury and death when they fail and this often results in legal proceedings. As recently as 17 June three young boys aged 9 were crushed when a tree fell on them at Wandsworth Cricket Club. There have been a number of key legal cases involving tree related injuries in recent times including Poll v Bartholomew (2006) EWHC (QB) Bristol which was the case that prompted the establishment of the National Tree Safety Group (NTSG) to develop a common sense approach to tree risk management and balance the risks posed by trees against the environmental benefits they provide.