The High Court handed down the approved judgment on Monday 6 November 2023 in the case between Siemens Mobility Limited (“Siemens”) and High Speed Two (HS2) Limited (“HS2”) ...
On 16 June 2023 the High Court handed down its first instance decision in the case of Virgin Media Limited v NTL Pension Trustees II Limited and others, dealing with the impact on amendments affecting contracted out rights of failing to obtain a section 37 certificate ...
Restrictions on the placement of High in Fat, Salt and Sugar (HFSS) food in prominent locations (in store and online) are now in force with restrictions on volume price promotions delayed until October 2023. What is in force? We discussed the new measures on HFSS food including restrictions on volume offers and new rules on placement and promotion in our previous article ‘Further restrictions on HFSS (high in fat, salt or sugar) foods are coming’ ...
As an employer, are you obliged to search personal devices, personal email accounts and/or personal social media accounts belonging to employees or others such as trustees or non-executive directors when responding to a data subject access request (DSAR)? Many employers will now be familiar with undertaking a ‘reasonable and proportionate’ search when responding to an employee’s DSAR under Article 15 of the UK GDPR ...
We all know the feeling of making an online purchase and later regretting it - did I really need another kitchen gadget that I'll probably only use once? Luckily, by way of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, which form part of retained EU law, consumers in the UK have the right to a "cooling off period" for distance contracts in certain circumstances ...
In this edition: - Fire Legislation Changes - Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations Amended - Accounting for Risk - Workplace Stress - Lock up Your Ladders - Corporate Manslaughter Act Moves Closer to Reality - Vibration Regulations are Imminent
In September 2019 government announced a review of the system for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in England. The current SEND regime introduced in 2014, is considered by many to be unfit for purpose, both in terms of accountability and consistent quality of support and adequate funding to local authorities to make the system work ...
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has published an update to its guidance on misleading green claims that demonstrates its collaboration with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and their joint commitment to protect consumers from 'greenwashing'. What are green claims? We discussed green claims and the ASA’s and CMA’s guidance in our previous article “Are your green claims compliant?” ...
It seems that business disruption due to coronavirus is pretty inevitable. What should you as a company director be doing if the disruption means your business starts to suffer? What changes for me as a director? As a director, you know that you owe duties to the company ...
On 22 September 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California considered whether Warner/Chappel Music, Inc. (Warner) owned the copyright to the infamous Happy Birthday lyrics. U.S. District Judge George H. King held that Warner, which had been receiving c$2million dollars per year in royalties, failed to adduce convincing evidence that it owned the copyright to the Happy Birthday lyrics (as distinct from the melody which is already in the public domain) ...
The draft bill to implement the government’s ground rent changes finally reached the House of Lords in May 2021. This legislation had been long awaited and, largely, the provisions were as expected following the earlier consultations and government announcements and discussions. Despite the fact that legislation is still only in draft, the living sector is already pivoting in many respects to comply with the legislation ...
The government has published its much-heralded Bill to outlaw the payment of ground rents under long residential leases. Background The payment of ground rents by residential tenants of long leases has become something of a cause celebre, particularly where leases include ground rents that double every five, ten or twenty years making those leases less valuable and potentially unsaleable ...
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is at the top of the agenda for many organisations. It is a collective term for a business’s impact on the environment and wider society ...
Building on Shoosmiths’ recent insight paper, unlocking net zero strategies for business, James Wood-Robertson charts the routes to decarbonisation, while discussing the role of collaboration and partnerships in achieving net zero. After the much-anticipated COP26 climate summit, where governments across the world made their net zero commitments in a bid to tackle the challenge of limiting global warming, the prospect of setting targets became even more crucial ...
In a statement last week, the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, warned that parents who bring vexatious claims to the family courts will face financial penalties. The policy is part of plans currently being drawn up by the government to introduce new incentives and disincentives to “spare children the trauma of seeing their parents fight it out in court” ...
When the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Conditions for Transfer) Regulations 2021 came into force on 30 November 2021 the government promised to review them 18 months later. That review shows there's more work to be done. Background Back in December 2021 we wrote about the new Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Conditions for Transfer) Regulations 2021 (Transfer Regulations), which had come into force on 30 November 2021 ...
On 12 April, the Cabinet Office published the second tranche of its official guidance documents on the Procurement Act. The guidance documents cover: The National Procurement Policy statement (‘NPPS’); Technical Specifications; Pipeline Notices; Planned Procurement Notices; and Preliminary Market Engagement. Each guidance document clearly sets out the key points and the policy intent in respect of these discrete parts of the Procurement Act ...
The draft Occupational Pension Schemes (Climate Change Governance and Reporting) Regulations 2021 (‘Regulations’) have been laid before parliament and are due to come into effect on 1 October this year. The Pensions Minister announced on June 8 the final version of the Regulations which are designed to regulate how trustees of certain trust-based occupational schemes must engage with, and report on, climate change risk as part of their duties ...
On 23 May, the Procurement Act 2023 (Commencement No.3 and Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2024 were signed, setting out the confirmed go-live date of the Procurement Act of 28 October 2024. On 24 May, the Cabinet Office published the latest tranche of its official guidance on the Procurement Act. The Cabinet Office has arranged the guidance documents under the four stages of the commercial pathway: Plan; Define; Procure; Manage ...
The government has produced draft regulations which will make further changes to holiday laws in Great Britain. We look at what is planned and what it means for employers. The government has been reviewing which European Union laws to retain and has taken that opportunity to consult about changes to holiday pay, resulting in the publication of draft regulations. We look at what is planned and what it means for employers ...
The government has launched its long-awaited Energy White Paper, expanding on the government’s 10-point plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. The Energy White Paper commits to the creation and support of up to 220,000 jobs over the next decade, ranging from jobs in major power generation, carbon capture storage and hydrogen projects supported by a new £240 million net zero Hydrogen Fund, to the retrofit of homes and buildings for greater energy efficiency ...
The Government is consulting on legislative changes to introduce greater flexibility to access surplus funds in defined benefit pension schemes. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) opened consultation further to publishing a paper entitled “Options for defined benefit schemes” on 23 February 2024 ...
Today, Google have made the very interesting (but arguably provocative) move of completely rejecting the French data protection regulator's request to put a hold on the implementation of proposed changes to its privacy policies. In doing so it has become the subject of a Europe-wide investigation. What has changed? Up until today, the information collected by Google on each of its platforms, such as Gmail and YouTube, was kept separate ...
A Bill’s fate is never sealed until it has been through all the necessary approval stages and the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill is no exception. Whilst numerous concerns have been raised about the speed and impact of the Bill, there were comparatively few amendments made to it as it sped through the Commons ...
As it draws to a close, COP26 has seen world leaders aim to reach a consensus on actions to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and the adoption of electrical vehicles (EV) has been cited as a critical step in achieving that aim. According to data from the Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics published by the Scottish Government, the transport sector is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Scotland, accounting for around 30% of all emissions ...
