Application service provider meaning

In this issue: New technologies Information technology Internet Data protection Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Telecommunications LexTalk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information New technologies Automated Vehicles Act 2024 (Commencement No 1) Regulations 2025 SI 2025/1339: These Regulations bring specified parts and provisions of the Automated Vehicles Act 2024 (AVA 2024) into force on 1 January 2026. See: LNB News 18/12/2025 18. Ofcom sets out how AI chatbots are overseen under the UK Online Safety Act: Ofcom has released a guide on the application of the Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA 2023) to AI chatbots, detailing when chatbot service providers must evaluate and mitigate risks to users, with particular focus on children. It also clarifies which categories of online service fall within scope, explains where chatbots sit under the Act, describes how AI-generated material is...

In this issue: Company disclosures, records and registers Brexit Corporate governance Competition law Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Company disclosures, records and registers Companies House publishes draft Identity Verification rules Companies House has issued draft identity verification rules, exercising the power granted by regulation 5 of the Registrar (Identity Verification and Authorised Corporate Service Providers) Regulations 2024. These rules set out the contact details, personal data and categories of supporting proof an applicant must submit when seeking to confirm their identity, together with the additional actions required before an application can be determined. The draft is accompanied by two Schedules that specify the approved evidence for identity checks undertaken by the Registrar and, separately, by an Authorised Corporate Service Provider. The framework is intended to deliver a standardised and consistent approach to identity verification for individuals engaging with Companies House. See: LNB News...

In this issue: Lending Security Sustainable finance Debt capital markets Technology for banking lawyers Sanctions Daily and weekly news alerts Latest Q&A Useful information Lending Abcor Finance Securities Ltd v Binomia Ltd [2025] EWHC 2374 (Ch) The Chancery Division rejected a winding-up petition brought by Abcor Finance Securities Limited (the Petitioner) against Binomia Ltd (the Company). The court found the liability underlying the petition was genuinely and substantially contested and, as a result, it dismissed the petition. The court considered submissions about the Petitioner’s stock seizure and concluded there was a tenable case that this conduct directly increased the petition debt, thereby supporting refusal of the winding-up petition. Security Companies House issues new Register of Overseas Entities Rules 2025 Companies House has issued the Register of Overseas Entities Rules 2025, outlining compulsory processes for submitting documents and filings connected to the Register of Overseas Entities. The rules set out the necessary...

This Practice Note examines the EU’s Recast Second Wire Transfer Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 (Recast WTR2) on information accompanying transfers of funds and certain cryptoassets. Often referred to as the Recast Second Funds Transfer Regulation (Recast FTR2), it takes effect on 30 December 2024. Recast WTR2 sits at the heart of the EU’s anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) architecture, and underpins the bloc’s oversight of payments and cryptoassets. It revises and supersedes the Second Wire Transfer Regulation (EU) 2015/847 (EU WTR2) to bring EU rules into line with the latest Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, the worldwide AML/CTF rule‑setting authority. Under Recast WTR2, the information‑sharing benchmark for transfers—commonly called the ‘Travel Rule’—sets out the payer and payee details that must travel with any funds transfer, regardless of currency, to help prevent, detect and investigate money laundering and terrorist financing (ML/TF), whenever at least one of the payment service providers (PSPs) engaged in the transfer is established in the EU. It further obliges PSPs...

ARCHIVED: This tracker is archived and no longer updated. For an overview of Court of Protection cases from 2025 onwards, see: Court of Protection—table of cases. P, Re (Property & Affairs Deputyship: Jurisdiction) [2024] EWCOP 77 (T2) Court of Protection determines it has jurisdiction to consider whether P’s mother should continue as property and affairs deputy The proceedings related to P, an adult who sustained a brain injury in an accident and had a substantial personal injury claim. His mother had been appointed by the Court of Protection as his property and affairs deputy, and the present decision addressed an application seeking to revoke that appointment. The litigation had been protracted. Earlier, the court permitted ‘closed material’ to be withheld from P’s parents to facilitate capacity assessments; for a summary of that ruling, see here. Despite that step, neither the Official Solicitor nor the court gained clarity about P’s condition or even his location. It was reported that P was now residing in Italy. HHJ Burrows concluded that...

Historically, arrangements labelled ‘outsourcing’ were typically understood to involve handing over an existing in‑house operation to a specialist third‑party supplier (see: Traditional IT outsourcing below). As commercial practice has shifted, the ambit of outsourcing has expanded notably, to the point where, for certain regulated activities, it may encompass any form of arrangement (irrespective of whether there is a pre‑existing internal function) under which a firm engages a service provider to carry out a process, service or activity that the firm would otherwise perform itself. In parallel, the range of services falling within IT outsourcing has broadened as organisations have exploited—and become ever more dependent on—IT to run their businesses and to secure competitive advantage. Conventionally, outsourced IT services might have been those falling within the ‘IT department’s’ brief. These are frequently categorised in a structured manner as ‘IT service towers’, capturing, for instance, the delivery of support around desktop IT, servers, technical support, application development, networks and communications, data centre operations, cybersecurity and disaster recovery. Yet, in keeping with IT’s...