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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 Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common.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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On 28 May 2025, FCA chief executive Nikhil Rathi confirmed the regulator will release interim conclusions on premium finance arrangements in summer 2025. He noted a distinct report on how home and travel insurance claims are processed will follow in due course. The FCA opened its premium finance probe in October 2024, covering models where policyholders spread the cost of annual cover over monthly instalments instead of paying upfront. Under these set-ups, insurers may impose eye-wateringly steep interest charges on repayments, in these types of agreements. The......
UK developments DESNZ consults on implementing voluntary carbon and nature market integrity principles The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero ( DESNZ) has opened a consultation to gather feedback on how to put into practice the UK Government’s six principles for integrity in voluntary carbon and nature markets ( VCNMs), assessing how they fit markets at varying stages of development. The Minister for Climate Change, Kerry Mc Carthy MP, unveiled these principles at COP29 in November 2024. It further seeks to define expectations for supplier and purchaser participation in VCNMs and to consider embedding such approaches within guidance, policy and possible regulation, underpinned by market frameworks that can institutionalise and scale high‑integrity practices. The call for views closes on 10 July 2025. See: LNB News 17/04/2025 13. Sources: Voluntary carbon and nature markets: raising integrity; UK backs businesses to trade carbon credits and unlock...
In this issue: UK, EU and international regulators and bodies Authorisation, approval and supervision Prudential requirements Risk management and controls Financial crime and sanctions Consumer Protection Conduct requirements Complaints, compensation and claims Investigations, enforcement and discipline Dispute resolution for financial services lawyers Regulation of derivatives Sustainable finance and ESG Payment services and systems Fintech and cryptoassets Lex Talk® Financial Services: a Lexis®Nexis community Financial Services Enforcement Database Daily and weekly news alerts Intraday news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Latest Q& As UK, EU and international regulators and bodies FCA releases Handbook Notice No 130 The Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) has released Handbook Notice No 130, setting out amendments to the Handbook approved by the FCA board on 1 and 22 May 2025. See: LNB News 23/05/2025 11. Authorisation, approval and supervision FCA uses own‑initiative powers to curb Strowz Ltd’s regulated activities The FCA has announced, via a press release, that it has issued a First Supervisory Notice ( FSN) to Strowz Ltd,...
External guidance on corporate co-operation and enforcement in relation to corporate criminal offending External guidance on corporate co-operation and enforcement in relation to corporate criminal offending supersedes and replaces the SFO’s 2019 co-operation guidance. It underscores swift self-reporting and comprehensive co-operation with SFO investigations as pivotal factors for prosecutors when considering a DPA to conclude a corporate investigation and to refrain from formal charges, save in exceptional cases and subject to prosecutorial discretion. However, the availability of a DPA is not ruled out where a company has not self-reported, provided it has offered exemplary co-operation with the SFO’s investigation. DPAs have been deployed in the US for more than 30 years as a corporate pre-trial diversion mechanism, alongside non-prosecution agreements, with federal authorities entering approximately 327 corporate DPAs in total between 1992 and the present day. Reflecting a broader global movement in favour of...
See Checklist: FCA financial crime guidance—supporting materials. The Checklist should be consulted in tandem with...
In an 80-page judgment, Justice Peter Roth stated that consumers will have a six-month window to submit claims for compensation, with payments limited to £70 per person. The written decision follows an oral ruling that sanctioned the settlement in February 2025, despite objections from Innsworth Capital, the claim’s backer, which contended the amount was inadequate and unfair. Innsworth’s bid to block the agreement ultimately failed before the appeals tribunal in February 2025, and was dismissed there. The litigation funder had asserted that the arrangement was unfair and that it was entitled to at least £179m (see News Analysis: Mastercard deal does not need to be perfect, tribunal told). In its 20 May 2025 judgment, the CAT concluded it was ‘appropriate’ for Innsworth to receive a 1.5 return multiple on the estimated £45.5m it expended on the proceedings in question. According to the CAT, this would...
In this issue: UK/ EU and international regulators and bodies Regulated activities Authorisation, approval and supervision Prudential requirements Financial crime and sanctions Consumer protection Complaints, compensation and claims management Investigations, enforcement and discipline Regulation of benchmarks and IBOR reform Regulation of capital markets Sustainable finance and ESG Banks and mutuals Investment funds and asset management EU Mi FID II Consumer credit, mortgage and home finance Regulation of insurance FSMA regulated pensions activity Payment services and systems Fintech and cryptoassets Regulation of AI in FS Dispute resolution for financial services lawyers Lex Talk®Financial Services: a Lexis®Nexis community Financial Services Enforcement Database Intraday news alerts Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary ...
A regulatory regime with fines for a wider range of activities than the government has potentially considered could force Big Tech to take a more active approach to prevention, advocates for reform say. Doing so would mean strengthening the Online Safety Act 2023 ( OSA 2023), in effect from 17 March 2025, and bolstering it with additional laws. The Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) is already pushing for harsher custodial terms for those promoting unauthorised online financial products. Yet regulatory lawyers contend that maximising expectations under the Act, which captures fraudulent advertising by Big Tech, alongside complementary legislation, would drive platforms to take firmer preventative steps themselves. Mark Williamson, a partner at Clyde & Co LLP, said the government should make clear to Big Tech that fraudulent advertising is treated as seriously as other online safety issues, by setting exacting standards and being willing to...
This review forms part of a broader set of FCA actions in 2025 to reshape UK private funds regulation, alongside the 7 April 2025 consultation on wider regulatory reform; the 26 February 2025 ‘ Dear CEO’ letter, which assessed how UK fund managers handle conflicts of interest; and the 8 May 2025 findings concerning the conduct of smaller managers (see ‘further reading’ below) Context of FCA review The FCA’s review arises from concerns about the distinctive characteristics of private market assets. Unlike public market assets, these holdings are not traded frequently nor subject to regular price discovery. Consequently, firms rely on judgement-led valuation techniques, creating risks such as misvaluation, conflicts of interest, or insufficient expertise. The FCA also notes that UK private fund managers operate under a range of different structures. Open-ended funds, which permit redemptions throughout the fund’s life, encounter more acute...
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme ( FSCS) On 13 May 2025, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme ( FSCS) stated it will look at a broader set of claims to pay compensation to affected Wealth Tek clients who have not obtained the £85,000 per person, per firm cap. ( See Practice Note: The Financial Services Compensation Scheme) The body, which reimburses customers of collapsed financial firms, confirmed it has already made ‘substantial progress’ in paying back claims linked to Wealth Tek. The firm is in special administration—a specialised insolvency process—see News Analysis: Distribution plan approval under the Investment Bank Special Administration Regime ( Re Wealthtek LLP). FSCS added that it now wishes to begin assessing whether investors could have further categories of claim......
The revisions signal a broader reset towards 'focus, fairness, and efficiency', highlighting the DOJ’s intention to collaborate with law-abiding companies rather than penalise them indiscriminately. This shift is intended to foster cooperation, not blanket punishment. Galeotti detailed updates across three corporate enforcement frameworks: a simplified voluntary self-disclosure policy; stricter limits on corporate monitorships; new whistleblower priorities linked to national security and financial crime. Each change underscores the DOJ’s ongoing concentration on serious criminal conduct - especially links to cartels and other transnational criminal organisations, state actors, and fraud against Americans - while giving companies clearer incentives and guardrails to navigate enforcement. As Galeotti put it, the mission is to prosecute criminals, not compliant businesses. Effective white-collar work, he noted, depends on focus, fairness, and efficiency - principles that will guide Criminal Division prosecutors going...
Background The narrative in Santander UK Plc v CCP Graduate School Ltd [2025] EWHC 667 ( KB) is a textbook example of APP fraud. CCP moved just under £416,000 from its Nat West Bank Plc account to an account at Santander. It asserted that it had fallen prey to an APP fraud, whereby payers are duped into approving transfers to an impostor’s account masquerading as a genuine beneficiary. During September and October 2016, CCP executed 15 transfers from its account to a Santander account in the name of PGW Consultants Ltd, believing PGW to be an authentic recipient. Each payment was sent in line with directions supplied to CCP by the fraudsters. After the monies landed in the Santander account, the fraudsters then swept the funds out. In its defence, Santander explained that, after PGW made a further transfer to an account at Lloyds Bank Plc,...
In this issue: Key developments and horizon scanning UK, EU and international regulators and bodies Prudential requirements Risk management and controls Financial crime and sanctions Investigations, enforcement and discipline Regulation of capital markets Banks and mutuals Investment funds and asset management UK Mi FID II Regulation of insurance Payment services and systems Lex Talk®Financial Services: a Lexis®Nexis community Financial Services Enforcement Database Daily and weekly news alerts Intraday news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Key developments and horizon scanning Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 ( Commencement No 9) Regulations 2025 SI 2025/572: Specified elements of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 take effect on 14 May 2025 and 31 July 2025. See: LNB News 14/05/2025 5. UK, EU and...
Fraud Track 2025 BDO Global’s Fraud Track 2025 reports that £337m is recorded as having been laundered between December 2023 and November 2024, though the real total is probably higher. Money laundering from criminal proceeds made up 61% of the overall reported value of fraud and economic crime. Non-corporate fraud, covering phishing scams and identity theft, followed next, contributing around 20%. The study also notes that the value of reported fraud and economic crime in the UK remains on a long-term downward trajectory, dropping 76% to £550m over the previous twelve months, down from £2.3bn in 2023. BDO attributed this reduction to a decrease in instances of high-value fraud. Stephen Peters, a partner at BDO and its head of investigations, said in a statement that the data indicates fraud continues to evolve......
The UK Supreme Court has unanimously confirmed findings that Tradition Financial Services is liable to administrators seeking to recover tax debts due to HMRC, stemming from its part in arranging carbon credit trades over fifteen years ago. The justices determined that by sourcing purchasers for the credits, the firm came within section 213 of the Insolvency Act 1986 ( IA 1986), which permits liquidators to ask the court to order contributions from ‘any persons’ who knowingly take part in conduct intended to defraud creditors. Tradition Financial Services — the London arm of broking heavyweight Compagnie Financière Tradition SA — acted as a third party to the trades and neither directed nor controlled the companies executing them. The deals formed part of a wider €5bn carbon trading fraud that jolted global markets nearly twenty years back. Nonetheless, the court held that, in...
In this issue: UK, EU and international regulators and bodies Financial crime and sanctions Consumer protection Complaints, compensation and claims management Investigations, enforcement and discipline Regulation of capital markets Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products ( PRIIPs) Dispute resolution for financial services lawyers Regulation of derivatives Sustainable finance and ESG Banks and mutuals Investment funds and asset management UK Mi FID II EU Mi FID II Consumer credit, mortgage and home finance Payment services and systems Fintech and cryptoassets Regulation of AI in FS Lex Talk®Financial Services: a Lexis®Nexis community Financial Services Enforcement Database Daily and weekly news alerts Intraday news alerts Dates for your diary UK, EU and international regulators and bodies Treasury Select Committee publishes letter from FCA CEO following recent evidence session The House of Commons ( Ho C) Treasury Select Committee ( TSC) has issued a letter dated 30 April 2025 from Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA), arising from the recent evidence hearing on the ‘ Work of the...
In late March 2025, the UK Supreme Court considered the appeals of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo. The Libor and Euribor prosecutions emerged after the 2008 financial crisis, with the pair frequently cast by the media as symbols of a high-risk culture blamed for precipitating the collapse. Hayes, handed an 11-year custodial sentence, was labelled in court as ‘motivated by greed’. Yet did their conduct constitute a criminal offence? Although investigations and prosecutions unfolded across the globe — in France, the US, Japan, Canada, Germany and Singapore — only the UK has sustained convictions. Here, the men were prosecuted for conspiracy to defraud, a common law crime seemingly without a direct analogue in those other jurisdictions that scrutinised the same behaviour. The Libor litigation has reignited arguments about whether the offence is too expansive and should be abolished. These cases also pose...
Enhance When unveiling the Review, OFSI led with the headline, ‘ UK sanctions freeze £25bn of Russian assets’, adding that ‘over £25 billion of Russian assets [has been] reported frozen since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine’. That total derives from OFSI’s Russian Frozen Assets In‑ Year Reporting, which records the most recent known value of frozen assets said to be held at the moment of designation, as reported to the authority by those required to make such notifications. By December 2024, £25bn in assets linked to the Russia regime had been notified to OFSI as frozen since February 2022. In 2023, frozen funds reported to OFSI across every sanctions regime came to £24.5bn, with £10bn attributable to the Russia regime. The updated number appears in OFSI’s latest Annual Frozen Asset Review, which obliges anyone holding or controlling assets frozen under UK financial...
Fresh guidance for UK banks and insurers, outlining what the central bank expects as they bolster preparedness for climate-related risks, arrived amid mounting criticism of the government’s own mitigation plans. The government’s advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, cautioned that adaptation efforts are either too slow, have stalled, or are heading the wrong way, while former prime minister Tony Blair urged a reset of climate policy in a report emphasising that adapting to climate change must move up the agenda. As both warnings were delivered on 30 April 2025, the Bo E’s PRA guidance felt timely—yet it notably avoided any binding enforcement tools, prompting doubts about how much real-world effect it will achieve. Expectations, not rules In a 51-page communication, the PRA said it expects bank boards to be kept informed about climate-related risks. Boards should then set a business strategy that also...
The rise of artificial intelligence in financial services has sparked an internal discussion at the PRA over a move away from its technology-agnostic stance, according to the regulator’s chief. To date, UK financial watchdogs have favoured technology-neutral requirements for areas like model risk oversight and operational resilience, built to span multiple tools and systems. The PRA has not yet introduced rules tailored to AI. As the chief indicated, the issue is under consideration internally and no definitive position has yet been reached......
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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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