Line sharing meaning

Home Office enforcement and licence revocations In recent years, compliance and enforcement activity has intensified, with more suspensions and revocations. According to the Home Office, last summer it recorded 1,948 sponsor licence revocations between July 2024 and June 2025—over twice the 937 in the prior year, and far above the 261 and 247 recorded in earlier years. This sharp rise is linked to the expansion of digital compliance checks, underpinned by broader data sharing with HMRC on PAYE records, which enables the Home Office to spot more swiftly and accurately when a sponsored worker is not being paid in line with their CoS. This information exchange is expected to scale up further, with revocations likely to climb as a result. Collaboration with other government departments has also enhanced the Home Office’s ability to oversee sponsor obligations remotely, reflected in the shift from traditional in-person compliance audits to predominantly digital reviews for sponsors...

Financial services developments FCA updates Consumer Duty guidance with additional insights for smaller firms The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has refreshed its Consumer Duty board reporting guidance, adding targeted insights for smaller firms. Based on its review of the first annual board reports from 180 firms, the update offers tailored recommendations for smaller firms across four areas: governance, monitoring and outcomes, compliance actions, and future business strategy, respectively. The FCA indicates smaller firms can appoint ‘critical friends’ to bolster governance oversight, draw on external data, including trade bodies, for benchmarking, and adopt proportionate methods to monitor customer outcomes. It reiterates that all firms, irrespective of size, must evidence delivery of good outcomes for customers under the Consumer Duty, while recognising the distinct challenges smaller firms face with limited resources. These points reflect themes identified across the submissions assessed. Source: Consumer Duty board reports: good practice and areas for improvement FCA publishes new Consumer Duty guidance webpage The FCA has launched a new Consumer Duty webpage...

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) says its refreshed approach is designed to help UK Plc steer through new legislation that lowers the bar for prosecuting companies over fraud and bribery. It seeks to recruit the private sector as the first line of defence against financial crime, the authority added. Michael Gallagher, the specialist prosecutor’s chief investigator, said the SFO is providing firms with complimentary data-sharing, trend insights and analysis, plus events and training on mitigating risks so they do not breach anti-bribery rules. The organisation, he noted, aims to balance the carrot with the stick as part of the UK’s growth agenda. The SFO, in particular, is often seen as purely an investigative and prosecuting body, Gallagher said. That remains accurate, but it is not our only purpose. We also prioritise preventing harm to the public. We also place emphasis on UK regulation and integrity as key priorities too...

This practice note addresses the 2nd Edition of the Burgundy Book, released in 2013, with particular emphasis on its role as a target cost form. In line with all IChemE agreements, the Burgundy Book contains thorough requirements for testing at completion and for commissioning, making it especially well suited to process engineering sectors such as nuclear, water, petrochemicals, and food. The suite adopts an almost entirely uniform structure across clauses, presentation and schedules. Departure from the standard drafting occurs only where needed to set out the mechanism delivering the risk/reward regime—in this instance, remuneration on a target cost footing. See also Practice Notes: IChemE Conditions 5th Edition—‘Red Book’ and IChemE Conditions ‘Green Book’ 4th Edition. Nature of Target Cost Contracts Target cost denotes that the contractor receives payment of the ‘actual cost’ it incurs (as defined), akin to a reimbursable arrangement but constrained by an agreed target cost. Where the actual cost surpasses the target, any additional sum payable to the contractor is reduced—often to nil. If the...

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...

FORTHCOMING CHANGE : On 13 October 2025, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) opened a consultation on proposed reforms to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) in England and Wales. A central strand is a substantial reset of Fair Deal protections, bringing the scheme into line with the 2013 Fair Deal guidance and phasing out admission body agreements and the use of ‘broadly comparable’ schemes for future outsourcing, other than in limited, exceptional cases. In their place, a new default ‘deemed employer’ approach would mean staff compulsorily moved under TUPE keep unbroken LGPS membership, with the original Fair Deal employer retaining pension responsibility rather than relying on admission bodies. These safeguards would carry through re-tenders and later transfers, preserving access for ‘protected transferees’ and, at the employer’s option, extending to new starters on the contract. Draft regulations to deliver these Fair Deal measures accompanied the consultation, underlining the government’s plan to reinforce long-term pension security for outsourced local government employees. For further information, see Practice Note:...

1 Introduction Proof of identity may arise in various formats and be drawn from multiple origins. Whichever materials you rely upon, they must leave you reasonably confident of an individual’s identity. Whatever approach you adopt must provide reasonable assurance of the client’s identity, in line with the risks to your business. The papers you seek from clients will vary according to the client’s profile and your appraisal of the risk they pose to your practice. That may mean accepting a variety of documents. The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 (MLR 2017), SI 2017/692, as amended, outline the risk indicators to consider when undertaking client due diligence, alongside the AML Guidance for the Legal Sector, issued by the Legal Sector Affinity Group and endorsed by HM Treasury. This Group consists of AML supervisors for the legal profession. The Guidance applies throughout legal services and supersedes earlier versions. This is particularly pertinent to politically exposed persons (PEPs) and to breaches of the...

Defined terms : In addition to the definitions set out below, this Precedent also uses the defined terms ‘Agreement’, ‘Business Day’, ‘Customer’, ‘party’ / ‘parties’, ‘Services’ and ‘Supplier’, which are general rather than specific to data processing and are assumed to be defined separately in the relevant agreement. Refer to the drafting notes for further guidance. The Schedule 1 Definitions and interpretation 1.1 In this Schedule: Adequacy Regulation means any valid adequacy regulation referenced in Article 45A of the GDPR; Attached Standard Contractual Clauses means the provisions set out in [ Annex [ insert ] to ] Appendix 7; Binding Corporate Rules means the binding corporate rules referred to in Appendix 6; Controller has the meaning given in Data Protection Laws; Data Protection Impact Assessment shall be interpreted in line with Data Protection Laws; Data Protection Laws means all applicable laws relating to the processing, privacy and/or use of Personal Data, as applicable to either party or the Services,...