Member meaning

Legislation safeguards the pension entitlements of members of occupational pension schemes and other employment‑related benefit arrangements, including workplace personal pension schemes that receive employer contributions, while they are away from work on statutory family leave. Statutory family leave encompasses: maternity leave paternity leave adoption leave parental leave shared parental leave parental bereavement leave carer’s leave Maternity leave Occupational pension schemes are taken to include a maternity equality rule requiring periods when a member is on maternity leave to be treated in the same manner as periods when they are not on maternity leave. This maternity equality rule applies to both paid and unpaid ordinary maternity leave (OML), as well as to paid additional maternity leave (AML). As a result, under this rule, time spent on OML and paid AML in a defined benefit (DB) scheme is recognised as pensionable service...

ARCHIVED: This Checklist has been archived and is no longer maintained. For up-to-date guidance, please refer to: Governing law and jurisdiction clauses in commercial contracts―checklist. Brexit: As of exit day (11pm on 31 January 2020) the UK is no longer an EU Member State. However, in line with the Withdrawal Agreement, the UK entered an implementation period, during which it continues to be subject to EU law. This affects this Checklist. For further guidance, see Brexit Bulletin—key updates, research tips and resources, and the Brexit collection. This Checklist assesses the implications of Brexit for drafting and negotiating dispute resolution clauses. It looks at the position regarding: Applicable law clauses (also referred to as governing law clauses or choice of law clauses) Jurisdiction clauses The enforcement of judgments The service of documents...

Set out below are the key practical competition law considerations when preparing and submitting the Form CO to the European Commission (the Commission): Confirm eligibility for a Short Form CO to reduce disclosures. Build in time; a full Form demands extensive data, including Member State market shares. For turnover, use the Commission’s official ECB exchange rate and support the filing with economic analysis. If information is unavailable, explain why and estimate; if requests seem irrelevant, justify and obtain a waiver with the case team. Check accuracy; inaccuracies render the Form CO ineffective until the Commission is satisfied. Provide precise contact details for customers, competitors and suppliers, and include caveats for any assumptions. Allow time for authorisations and, where required, signature of the declaration by the relevant business person or in-house lawyers. Prepare required copies (one original, three paper, two CD or DVD) and translate supporting documents not in an EU official language. Review supporting documents for any “anti-competitive” language...

ARCHIVED: 11 pm (GMT) on 31 December 2020 signalled the conclusion of the Brexit transition/implementation phase that followed the UK’s exit from the EU. At that moment in time (known in UK legislation as ‘IP completion day’), the principal transitional provisions finally ceased. From IP completion day, the UK is unable to take an active role in the European Arrest Warrant (EAW), as EAWs apply solely to Member States...

Interim payment process in the NEC4 Engineering and Construction contract—flowchart HGCRA 1996 applies — option Y(UK)2 selected...

Medicinal products cannot be marketed without prior approval in place. This Flowchart sets out the steps and requirements to obtain approval, referred to as a marketing authorisation (MA), through the EU decentralised route. The decentralised pathway allows marketing authorisations for medicinal products to be granted concurrently across EU Member States in parallel and simultaneously...

Antitrust Commission penalises Eurofield and Unanime Sport €172,000 for incomplete information in synthetic turf sector probe The Commission stated it has imposed fines totalling about €172,000 on Eurofield SAS (Eurofield) and Unanime Sport SAS (Unanime Sport), the ultimate parent of Eurofield at the time of the infringement, for submitting an incomplete response to an information request issued as part of its ongoing inquiry into a possible infringement of Article 101(1) TFEU. Background On 7 June 2023, the Commission revealed that it had carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of companies active in the synthetic turf sector across several Member States. It explained that the inquiry concerns synthetic turf for sports use and noted its concerns that the inspected companies may have breached Article 101 TFEU. In the course of this investigation, the Commission also sent requests for information to the companies under investigation, including Eurofield...

In this issue: Horizon scanning Status and worker categories Benefits Prohibited conduct Unfair dismissal Settlement Employment tribunals Dates for your diary Trackers New Q&As Employment resources on Lexis+® LexTalk®Employment: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts Horizon scanning What to watch in Employment law this winter In 2025, the government’s suite of employment reforms has set the pace, yet noteworthy shifts in case law and workplace culture also merit close attention as winter draws in. Some updates will stem from regulators, including the Financial Conduct Authority, which is anticipated to finalise guidance on tackling non-financial misconduct. Practitioners should also be mindful of the broader adoption of artificial intelligence, alongside a rise in employees voicing politically sensitive opinions at work, both of which demand vigilance as 2026 approaches. See Law360: What to watch in employment law this winter. Status and worker categories European Parliament ready to negotiate better...

On 7 April 2026, Dyson secured an interim injunction against Chinese rival Dreame after the UPC tribunal held that the ‘Dazzle’ hair styler infringed Dyson’s patent, compelling a suspension of sales throughout all UPC Member States and Spain. The Hamburg Local Division explained that including Spain (despite it not being a UPC Member State) was warranted because Dreame’s EU-based importer was actively putting the goods on the Spanish market, thereby creating a sufficiently close jurisdictional connection to hear the claims together under EU jurisdictional rules. The panel, chaired by Sabine Klepsch, declined to stretch the order to the UK. Citing the UK–EU Windsor Framework, under which certain EU product safety requirements still apply in Northern Ireland and oblige non‑EU manufacturers to appoint an EU-based representative to place goods there, Dyson argued this regulatory nexus tied UK sales to the EU and could ground UPC jurisdiction. The judges disagreed, concluding those provisions are principally intended to smooth trade between Northern Ireland and the EU, not to create an adequate legal link...

A risk with employment cessation events is that they can be set off unintentionally, for example because the last remaining active member of an employer in a multi-employer defined benefit scheme has left. The Employer Debt Regulations, SI 2005/678 were amended with effect from 6 April 2008 to introduce grace periods, a device intended to help employers deal with accidental employment cessation events. For further information on employment cessation events and other section 75 triggers, see Practice Note: When is a section 75 debt triggered? When can a grace period be used? When can a grace period be used? An employer in a multi-employer defined benefit scheme may notify the trustees that it wishes to enter a grace period (by giving a grace period notice) if: that employer ceases to employ active members at a time when at least one other employer still employs active members, thereby creating an employment cessation event, and it intends to employ at least one individual who is an...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note is archived and not kept up to date. Practical implications of West Tankers In short, the current position arising from the West Tankers saga (so far) is: Any EU Member State court seised of proceedings must rule on its own jurisdiction to determine the dispute. Under Brussels I and Brussels I (recast), courts of another Member State cannot remove that competence from it. An arbitral tribunal has jurisdiction to award damages for breach of an obligation to arbitrate. Where jurisdiction is disputed (as it often is), consider advising clients to obtain a standalone final award addressing jurisdiction at the outset, and then seek to have it recognised and enforced by the court (the application would be made under the procedure set out in CPR 62). This should prevent a conflicting court judgment taking precedence, on the basis of issue estoppel. Thereafter, the parties can proceed to the liability and quantum issues within the arbitration. West Tankers—the...

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note has been archived and is not maintained. It is provided for background information only. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) is an independent regulatory organisation supervising the US securities market. As part of its remit, FINRA runs the securities industry’s largest dispute resolution forum. It addresses financial and commercial disagreements between investors, brokerage firms and individual brokers, as well as disputes within and between brokerage firms and brokers. Matters are resolved through FINRA’s own arbitration process. FINRA maintains two Codes of Arbitration Procedure: the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Customer Disputes (the Customer Code or Section 12000 of the FINRA Rules), which governs arbitrations between investors and industry participants, and the Code of Arbitration Procedure for Industry Disputes (the Industry Code or Section 13000 of the FINRA Rules), which governs arbitrations between industry parties This note relates to costs under both Codes. Filing fees Any party bringing a claim—including a counterclaim, a cross-claim or a...

[ NAME OF PROJECT ]: REFERENCE OF A DISPUTE TO THE DAAB UNDER CLAUSE 21.4 DAAB Reference No. DAAB Reference No. [ Number of reference ] | [ Date ] Referring Party [ Name of Party 1 ] [ Address ] [ Telephone/Fax No. ] [ Email address ] [ ON THE HEADED NOTEPAPER OF THE REFERRING PARTY ] Responding Party [ Name of Party 2 ] [ Address ] [ Telephone/Fax No. ] [ Email address ] The DAAB [ Name of DAAB Chairperson ] — [ Address ] — [ Telephone/Fax No. ] — [ Email address ] [ Name of DAAB Member 2 ] — [ Address ] — [ Telephone/Fax No. ] — [ Email address ] [ Name of DAAB Member 3 ] — [ Address ] — [ Telephone/Fax No. ] — [ Email address ] ...

[Your ]Will—[ name of testator ]—[ explanatory note ] This [ explanatory note ] sets out, in clear terms, the key provisions of your Will. Please review it carefully alongside your Will. If anything fails to match your wishes, please inform [me OR [name of person to contact]] before you sign your Will. Revocation When you execute this Will, all earlier Wills or codicils concerning [your UK estate OR your worldwide estate] are revoked. Consequently, only this Will records your intentions on death. [ International aspects [ [ Your Will only covers your UK property [ and your property outside the UK will be dealt with by a separate, local Will OR and your property outside the UK has already been dealt with by a separate, local Will ] OR Your Will covers your worldwide estate ] . ] [ You state that you are domiciled in [ insert appropriate jurisdiction ]. ] [ You have chosen...

Introduction The Criminal Finances Act 2017 (CFA 2017), effective in the UK since 2017, establishes a corporate offence for failing to stop the criminal facilitation of tax evasion. Tax evasion means unlawfully not paying, or paying less than, the taxes due. It commonly occurs through non-declaration or false declaration of liabilities to the appropriate tax authority. Tax evasion is a criminal offence. Responsibility may arise for an individual, for example in respect of income tax or VAT, or for a corporate body, for instance regarding corporation tax. Enclosed, for your review and approval, is a [ n updated ] [ Group ] policy on preventing the facilitation of tax evasion. This policy, which covers all of our businesses, opens with a brief message from [ insert name of relevant individual ] underlining its significance and calling for the personal commitment of every member of staff to put it into practice. It has received formal approval from [ insert name of relevant individual and/or team ]...

Passporting provisions in the Prospectus Regulation Under the Prospectus Regulation, an issuer must publish a prospectus and have it approved by a competent authority when offering securities to the public in the EEA or when applying for admission of securities to a regulated market, where no relevant exemption applies. To streamline cross-border share offerings within the EEA, the EU prospectus regime provides passporting arrangements that permit companies to produce a single prospectus usable throughout the EEA, avoiding the preparation of multiple documents for separate jurisdictions. Articles 24 to 26 of the Prospectus Regulation (EU) 2017/1129 set out these passporting provisions, stating that a prospectus approved by the competent authority in one EEA state (the home member state) can be relied upon in another EEA state (the host member state) without requiring the prospectus to be approved again by the competent authority in the host member state. As a result, a UK issuer has been able to undertake a cross-border share offer across the EEA on the basis of...

There are a number of points to weigh up when determining if a consumer credit agreement is regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA 1974). Under the CCA 1974, s 8(1), a consumer credit agreement is described as an agreement between an individual (“the debtor”) and any other person (“the creditor”) whereby the creditor extends credit of any amount...

The Finance Act 2004 (FA 2004) sets conditions for pensions and lump sums to be authorised payments. Under FA 2004, a member’s pension from a registered pension scheme must not begin before they reach the normal minimum pension age, unless the ill-health condition is met. In the same way, most lump sums are not payable before that age. The normal minimum pension age was 50 when FA 2004 took effect on 6 April 2006, rose to 55 from 6 April 2010, and will increase to 57 from 6 April 2028, excluding uniformed services pension schemes (army, navy, air force, police and firefighters). Transitional provisions preserve members’ subsisting rights to draw scheme benefits before age 55; this is referred to as a protection pension age. The Pensions Tax Manual confirms that, to hold a protected pension age, the member must have an unqualified right to receive benefits before the normal minimum pension age, i.e. not dependent on another person’s consent (PTM062210)...