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R (Greyhound Board of Great Britain Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2026] EWHC 670 (Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling reinforces the constitutional divide between the courts and the legislature. It explains that the scheme and framework of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (GWA 2006) embody that separation of powers, and that any judicial attempt to recognise and enforce a common law obligation on Welsh Ministers to consult prior to introducing legislation in the Senedd would trespass upon that boundary. This is not a departure from established principle; case law has already upheld comparable rules for lawmakers in Scotland and at Westminster. However, this is the first express confirmation of the position for Welsh lawmakers, and the first time this dimension of the GWA 2006 has been analysed in such depth. The court examined earlier
The solution arrived through the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), a quasi‑judicial body handling mass claims, created under UN Security Council Resolution 687. By addressing environmental harm—most notably via its ‘F4’ claim class—the UNCC set a seminal benchmark shaping how international law and contemporary arbitral panels allocate financial responsibility for wartime ecological devastation. With present-day wars in areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East bringing dam breaches, strikes on chemical facilities, and the burning of farmland, the UNCC’s legacy endures as an essential reference point for states, global investors, and companies engaged in post‑conflict arbitration. The F4 claims: Quantifying the unquantifiable Prior to the 1990s, mechanisms in international law for war reparations overwhelmingly favoured property loss, foregone earnings, and bodily injury. The natural world was commonly treated as a mute, non-compensable victim of armed hostilities...
Understanding the farming business as a business Many farms still use long-standing structures that arose by habit, not strategy. Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common. While once effective, such setups can cause major issues around succession, tax planning and involving the next generation. A corporate team can take a fresh, business-led view of the farm, asking: Who owns the land and other critical assets? Who manages daily operations? Who carries the risk and who enjoys the return? What is the enduring plan for succession? From this review, the team can confirm whether the current setup is fit for purpose or if an alternative — for example an updated partnership agreement, a company, a limited liability partnership, or a blended model — would better meet the family’s aims. Tax efficiency through joined-up advice Tax sits at the centre of most
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Privacy International v Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and others Case C‑623/17 What are the practical implications of this case? From a legal standpoint, the ruling requires the UK to re‑evaluate how and when it acquires bulk communications data from internet and telecoms providers, and to define firmer constraints on its monitoring powers. Existing approaches that involve transferring such data on a blanket and non‑targeted basis are at odds with EU law. Careful consideration must be given to the thresholds that must be satisfied before issuing notices to transfer data under the Telecommunications Act 1984 ( TA 1984), together with the material and procedural safeguards that will regulate the onward transfer and use of that information. Notably, there will probably need to be an explicit nexus between the necessity for the particular datasets sought and the protection of National...
Two foreign exchange agents banned for 24 years The Insolvency Service revealed that two currency brokers are prohibited for a combined 24 years after obtaining over £9m from customers, then using the money to reimburse earlier clients and previous customers too. Both Peter John Roebuck (65), of Berkhamsted, Buckinghamshire, and Preston-based Francis Edward Tarling (75) each received 12-year disqualifications, with their bans taking effect from 1 October 2020 respectively. The foreign exchange agents are now barred from serving as directors or from directly or indirectly taking part, without the permission of......
What are the legal implications of audiovisual manipulation and deepfakes and what challenges do they pose to intellectual property rights, rights in personal information and image rights? ‘ Deepfake’ describes a face-swapping method in which AI-driven tools process images of a person to create a digital double, then overlay that likeness onto other bodies in video or stills. Creations built from a lone source image are usually easy to dismiss, but those trained on thousands of photos or clips can appear highly convincing. In contrast, audiovisual edits that do not employ AI are often labelled ‘shallow fakes’ or ‘cheap fakes’. Deepfakes present broad socio-political threats: they can skew public debate, disrupt elections and national security, and undermine confidence in journalism and public institutions. The risks to individuals and organisations are just as significant, ranging from fake endorsements and forged documentary evidence to loss of creative control over...
Should compliant, ordinary individuals enjoy confidentiality over what they own? And does pushing that confidentiality into full anonymity heighten the chance of misuse by organised criminals and terrorist groups? The question of asset privacy is hotly disputed. Its position is unambiguous and forceful. The EU’s Fifth Money Laundering Directive ( Directive ( EU) 2018/843, known as 5MLD) plants its flag by aiming to dismantle the anonymity embedded in ownership frameworks: notably within certain trusts and corporate bodies. Unsurprisingly, the Directive also focuses on the anonymity surrounding cryptoassets, though the EU favours the label ‘virtual currencies’. It proposes to achieve this through the novel application of rules to crypto exchanges and custodian wallet providers offering services relating to cryptoassets, as such providers operate today. Exchange providers— SI 2017/692, reg 14( A)(1) vs article 1(1)(c) of MLD5 Under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds...
On 29 April 2020, the Fire Safety Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons and was also referred to a Public Bill Committee. The Bill will amend the Regulatory Reform ( Fire Safety) Order 2005, SI 2005/1541, to provide clearer guidance on the duties of the Responsible Person or duty-holder in multi-occupied, residential premises. Currently, under the Fire Safety Order, fire and rescue authorities hold enforcement powers over the shared parts of blocks of flats, for example entrance halls and landings. They do not possess such powers beyond the front doors of flats to act within individual homes, nor do they also have powers concerning the exterior of buildings. The Fire Safety Bill proposes amendments to the scope of the Fire Safety Order to make clear that the responsible person or duty-holder for multi-occupied residential buildings must manage and reduce fire risk relating to the...
Day v Womble Dickinson ( UK) LLP [2020] EWCA Civ 447 What are the practical implications of this case? In essence, any action for damages for breach of contract or negligence that relies, as a necessary component, on pleading that the ultimate outcome of criminal proceedings would have been different and more advantageous to the claimant if the contract had been honoured or no negligence had occurred, is at risk of being struck out as an abuse of process in such circumstances. The proper route for a defendant, indeed, discontented with the result of a criminal case is to take up every opportunity to appeal the decision. In practice, only where an appeal overturns or varies the decision in the claimant’s favour will there be room for a viable civil claim asserting that the original outcome would not have been reached but for the...
At Croydon Crown Court, Tommy Adams has been directed to return £1,243,270.75m by 26 May 2020 for his role in a money-laundering operation he ran with his associates. If......
Gaughran v United Kingdom ( App No 45245/15) [2020] ECHR 45245/15 What are the practical implications of this case? Confirming Lord Kerr’s dissent in the Supreme Court ( Gaughran v Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland [2015] UKSC 29), [2015] 2 WLR 1303, the ECt HR concluded that the policy amounted to an unjustified interference with Mr Gaughran’s Article 8 rights. The court did not, though, propose any new overarching principles for such policies. It remains apparent that evaluation is fact dependent; the more calibrated and precise a policy, the more likely it is to withstand examination. The ECt HR’s divergence from the Supreme Court stemmed largely from its reliance on slightly different factual foundations. Notably, in assessing proportionality under Article 8, the ECt HR placed significant weight on the lack of adequate procedural safeguards allowing an individual to apply for...
At Woolwich Crown Court in London, Edward Camborne De Lucy was directed to repay £33,410 to Aviva, together with £6,590 in court costs. On 14 January 2020, the court found him guilty of one count of fraud by false representation and a separate count of making or supplying an article for use in fraud. He also received an 18-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, and was instructed to pay a £114 victim surcharge. The case was brought before the court by the police force’s insurance fraud enforcement department following a complaint from the insurer regarding the case......
What is FRT and which laws presently govern it in the UK? Are there any plans for regulation? FRT is a type of biometric identification that relies on facial characteristics, typically matching them with images in a database, to confirm someone’s identity (for example, e Passport gates at airports, spotting ‘persons of interest’ on a busy street, or identifying recipients of football banning orders at a football match). While implementations vary, the usual workflow starts by detecting and capturing a face, often from CCTV footage. A recognition algorithm then normalises the captured image—adjusting size, rotation and similar factors—so it aligns with the format of images stored on a database or ‘watchlist’ of known individuals. The normalised image is statistically compared with entries on the watchlist. If the similarity score set by the FRT operator meets the required threshold, a ‘match’ is registered between the...
Original News R v Alstom Network UK Ltd [2019] EWCA Crim 1318, [2019] All ER ( D) 133 ( Jul) Court of Appeal’s decision The Court of Appeal has rejected Alstom Network UK Ltd’s assertion that its 2018 conviction on a single count of conspiracy to corrupt followed an unfair trial. The appellate court dismissed the company’s challenge, which related to a €2.4m payment to Canadian shell company Construction et Gestion Nevco Inc to obtain a contract for infrastructure and trams in Tunisia. Alstom contended the proceedings were unfair as the directors central to the allegations were absent. The energy firm also argued the judge failed to give the jury adequate guidance on the basis for convicting a corporate entity where its ‘directing minds’—who could speak to their own knowledge and actions—were unable to attend the trial. Delivering the ruling, Lord Justice Peter Gross,...
R (on the application of Hallam and another) v Secretary of State for Justice [2019] UKSC 2, [2019] All ER ( D) 143 ( Jan) What are the practical implications of this decision? The judgment exposes a wider concern about the treatment of those wrongfully convicted in England and Wales. After years in custody on unsafe convictions, many are released to minimal assistance and face significant barriers to rebuilding their lives, including: little structured support on release no automatic access to living allowances or specialist psychological care a requirement to apply to have their criminal record removed no apology or account of what went wrong an even lower likelihood of securing compensation CJA 1988, s 133(1ZA) prescribes the eligibility test for compensation following a miscarriage of justice. Inserted into the CJA in 2014 to define the meaning of miscarriage of justice, it requires applicants whose convictions have been quashed to...
Innsworth Litigation Funding and a law firm, Keystone Law, are assembling institutional shareholders who bought or held shares in Petrofac starting from October 2010 Innsworth said in a statement that its assessment of potential claims is already well progressed. Claims against Petrofac, registered in the offshore UK dependency of Jersey, are understood to potentially surpass £400m ($516m). Lawyers intend to issue proceedings in April or May, once their investigations have been completed. It is claimed shareholders sustained substantial losses linked to Petrofac’s alleged involvement in bribery, corruption and money laundering, with Petrofac [allegedly] making false and misleading statements......
WH Holding Ltd and another company v E20 Stadium LLP [2018] EWCA Civ 2652, [2018] All ER ( D) 17 ( Dec) What are the practical implications of this case? The decision carries significant consequences across commercial litigation, particularly matters where board minute records, litigation-related emails, or other confidential or off-the-record exchanges sit at the heart of the dispute. It reshapes practitioners’ approach to disclosure and tightens the reins on attempts to hide unhelpful material behind vague assertions of privilege. Practically, the Court of Appeal’s ruling demands much closer examination of litigation privilege by contentious lawyers. As a result, parties cannot automatically cloak minutes of internal meetings—where directors or staff debate commercial settlement—with litigation privilege if the conversation neither seeks evidence or advice for the case nor expressly or by necessary inference discloses the substance of legal advice. Put plainly, minutes of...
Average fine for data breaches doubles to £146,000 in just a year What is this development about? Average penalties issued by the ICO have risen to £146,000 ($185,888), up from £73,000 in the equivalent 12‑month period, research from RPC indicates. The aggregate value of sanctions increased by 24% to £4.98m, compared with £4m a year earlier. Richard Breavington, a partner at the firm, said the regulator is showing more bite and a readiness to echo public sentiment, noting that the necessary mindset and authority are in place and that there has been a marked shift. The GDPR took effect in May 2018 and permits fines of €20m ($22.7m) or 4% of annual global turnover, whichever is greater. Before May 2018......
Director of the Serious Fraud Office v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited and another [2018] EWCA Civ 2006, [2018] All ER ( D) 05 ( Sep) For our earlier report on this ruling, see News Analysis: Privilege in internal investigations restored ( SFO v ENRC). What does this mean in practice? The Court of Appeal has brought welcome certainty to the scope of litigation privilege. It also marks an important ruling on legal advice privilege, advancing the troubled debate over who can amount to ‘the client’ for the purposes of that protection. At first instance, ENRC’s assertion of litigation privilege was rejected. The judge decided, among other matters, that a criminal prosecution was not reasonably in contemplation at the material time, because ENRC had not produced evidence showing it knew enough about its own potential misconduct to believe that a prosecutor would be likely to...
ICO working with FCA and National Cyber Security Centre after breach The Information Commissioner’s Office ( ICO), the national data regulator, confirmed it is working with the FCA and the National Cyber Security Centre — part of GCHQ, the national intelligence and surveillance agency — in the wake of a major data breach. An ICO spokesperson noted the probe is at an early stage and will assess both when the incident took place and when it was detected as part of its inquiries. Dixons Carphone, the high street group, said in a statement that attackers seem to have focused on credit and debit cards through a payments system used by two of its businesses, Currys PC World and Dixons Travel stores. Some 5.8......
Jones v Birmingham City Council [2018] EWCA Civ 1189, [2018] All ER ( D) 129 ( May) What are the practical implications of the judgment? There has long been debate over whether the civil standard required to obtain a gang injunction accords with Article 6 ECHR. The decision in Jones resolves that, for now, by stating unequivocally that proceedings under PCA 2009 Part 4 and ASBCPA 2014 Part 1 do not determine a criminal charge within the meaning of Article 6(1) ECHR, and that the fair trial guarantees in Article 6 more generally do not demand application of the criminal standard of proof. In essence, relying on the civil threshold to secure these injunctions is compatible with Article 6 ECHR, and practitioners may proceed on that footing unless and until the Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights decides...
The bank revealed it had reached a settlement with Paul and Nikki Turner, who were victims of a £245m ($330m) lending fraud orchestrated by six ex-staff from HBOS’s impaired assets division, all of whom were jailed earlier this year. The financial details of the deal were not made public. A Lloyds Banking Group spokesman said in a statement that the group apologises for the severe personal hardship the Turners endured and recognises their crucial contribution, over more than a decade, in campaigning relentlessly for justice for every victim of the criminal behaviour at the HBOS Reading Impaired Assets Office. To date, Lloyds has paid around £29m in compensation to 35 of the 63 businesses concerned......
What is the significance of this case? Why is it important for practitioners? On 10 August 2017, at a hearing at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, Green Live admitted two offences contrary to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, SI 2008/1277 (the Regulations). The prosecution concerned the issuing of supposed ‘licences to occupy’ when the arrangements were in fact tenancies. Thought to be the first matter of its kind in the UK, its significance lies in showing that local authorities can, and will, act where agents or landlords attempt to evade obligations to afford tenants security of tenure and to protect deposits. While tenants have long resisted possession claims and pursued statutory penalties for failures to safeguard deposits, this case makes clear that landlords and agents engaging in such conduct risk criminal prosecution as well as civil...
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When evaluating a general damages claim, the practitioner ought initially to refer to the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG)...
This Practice Note This Practice Note reviews mechanisms used in settling litigation. A Tomlin order consists of a consent order paired with a schedule. It operates to stay proceedings on terms that have been agreed. The provisions contained in the schedule may remain confidential. This Practice Note describes the scope of confidentiality attaching to the schedule and sets out how it differs from a standard consent order. Sample wording for a Tomlin order is included, alongside links to precedents, as well as guidance on court approval. It also addresses varying, setting aside and enforcing a Tomlin order, including the considerations the court will take into account when handling applications for each. Further guidance is provided on interpreting and applying the relevant provisions of the CPR; however, some courts and divisions impose very specific requirements for both drafting and approval, and for approaching the schedule and confidentiality issues. Accordingly, you must consider the particular rules and court guide provisions in the forum where your claim is proceeding when drawing up the Tomlin order...
Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...
I, [ name ], of [ address ], solemnly and sincerely state that: [ Matters to be verified, set out in numbered paragraphs ] I make this solemn statement in good conscience, believing it to be true, and pursuant to the provisions of the Statutory Declarations Act 1835. DECLARED at [ details ] this [ day ] day of [ month and year ] Before me ................................................................................ [ signature of the person before whom the declaration is made ] A [ commissioner for oaths OR [ solicitor OR [ insert other qualification ] ] authorised to administer oaths ]...
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