Member Articles

Covering employee wages since 1 March 2020, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme ("furlough") is set to end on 30 September 2021, with a deadline for final claims to be made by 14 October 2021. Employers still using the scheme should be engaging with employees about its end, and may now need to make some tough decisions that have been postponed while furlough continued ...

  It will be news to few that the construction industry is experiencing a serious shortage of key materials. The Construction Leadership Council first warned of shortages (in timber, steel, pitched roofing, plastics, paints/coatings, some electronic components and cement – among other materials) early this year, and has reiterated its concerns since ...

The Scottish Government has published its route map out of lockdown, legislating five levels, each imposing increasingly tougher restrictions. As at 19 July, the whole of Scotland moved to Level 0, with cautious optimism that most legal restrictions might be removed entirely in August. However, in the meantime, the move to Level 0 does not mean that everything returns to how it was pre-pandemic – there will remain a level of restrictions and compliance points that must be met ...

Early last year the Prime Minister dropped the “E-bomb” on British motorists, announcing a ban on cars powered wholly by petrol and diesel from 2030, and on the sale of new hybrid vehicles with the capability to drive a significant distance with zero emissions (such as plug-in or full hybrids) from 2035. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the world in an unprecedented manner ...

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the Shepherd and Wedderburn private client team has been hard at work helping clients update their Wills and Powers of Attorney. While we all hope that the worst of this global pandemic is now behind us, recent weeks have brought various localised lockdowns and the expectation of a potential second wave, which may well coincide with the annual flu season ...

Article previously published in insider.co.uk Why are we not treating climate change like the pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic has received 24/7 media coverage across the globe, and with good reason. Coronavirus has had a catastrophic impact, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, devastating our economies and materially changing the lives of millions as we try to adapt to the profound societal changes it has inflicted ...

  Do I have a COVID-19 business interruption claim? Particularly if you operate in the leisure, retail or hospitality sectors, your business has likely suffered significant financial losses from the disruption caused by COVID-19. In trying to alleviate the impact of those losses, you might have identified that your business’s insurance policy offered cover for ‘business interruption’ (or ‘BI’) ...

  The UK Government believes that up to a fifth of the workforce may be off sick during the peak of a Coronavirus epidemic. It remains to be seen whether Coronavirus will affect that volume of people, but there are already clear signs of how it is disrupting the day-to-day operations of businesses in the UK and around the rest of the world ...