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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 Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common.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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Right to repair: Making repair easier and more appealing to consumers Press release follows. the manufacturer must repair a product at a fair price and within an appropriate timeframe after the legal guarantee period consumers should have access to spare parts, tools and repair information incentives to choose repair, including repair vouchers and funds online platforms will help consumers find local repair services and shops offering refurbished goods The updated rules strengthen the right to repair, seek to cut waste and support the repair sector by making goods easier and more economical to fix. On 23 April 2024, Parliament approved the directive on the so‑called ‘right to repair’ for consumers with 584 votes in favour, 3 against and 14 abstentions. The rules set out manufacturers’ repair duties and encourage consumers to extend a product’s life cycle through...
In this matter, the claimant created an image using the DALL- E software application. The instruction read: 'produce a depiction of two parties signing a commercial contract in a formal environment, such as a conference room or a law firm office in Prague. Show only hands'. The claimant subsequently uploaded the resulting image to their own website. The defendant took the image from the claimant’s site and published it on their own. The claimant objected and, asserting authorship of the AI-generated picture, thereafter required that it be removed and not any longer shared or distributed or otherwise made available without their permission as author......
The Commission engaged with firms on a set of eight principles designed to curb the prevalence of cookie banners shown to people on their first visit to sites, aiming to make cookie choices more straightforward for users. EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders unveiled the pledge in March 2023 and was due to confirm which companies would sign up at a consumer summit in Brussels. Although businesses broadly embraced the initiative, a Commission spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement that most stakeholders involved judged a voluntary path on digital advertising to be premature, given the very recent roll-out of new rules in this area, including the Digital Markets Act and the Digital Services Act......
The German e-commerce company was labelled a VLOP a year back, together with platforms such as Facebook, You Tube and Tik Tok. Roughly 20 services have to date been identified as VLOPs, placing them under the toughest obligations. It further means they fall under direct commission enforcement, and they are required to pay a levy that funds the commission’s policing of the rules. The bar for being named a VLOP is at least 45 million average monthly users. The commission stated last year that Zalando counts 83 million, a figure the company is challenging at the EU’s lower-tier General Court, arguing it wrongly captures visitors to its retail operation. Zalando has since submitted a new legal action at the General Court. The latest filing, entered on 15 April 2024, relates to the method by which the commission has computed Zalando’s...
Allowing the board to order new inquiries, as happened in a case involving Meta, is at odds with the purpose of the GDPR, Brian Kennelly, representing the Irish Data Protection Commission ( DPC), told the court. He contended that this would plainly erode the one-stop-shop — the framework that assigns a lead data protection authority based on a company’s main EU base. If other authorities, acting through the board, could compel the lead to rework every element of its probe, the lead regulator’s authority and effectiveness would be seriously undermined. He also warned of concrete risks to procedural fairness and likely challenges by the company concerned which, if upheld, could jeopardise and prejudice the investigation in its entirety... The board is the umbrella organisation for EU data protection authorities and resolves disputes between members when they cannot agree on outcomes in...
The hearing report is enclosed. References for joined cases: T-70/23, T-111/23, T-84/23...
The firm has already been unsuccessful in pausing the law’s application during provisional court proceedings, and the lower-tier General Court is now currently considering the full appeal. In November 2023, Bytedance brought a legal action against the European Commission, contesting a decision that deemed it sufficiently significant to be regulated under the DMA. The business firmly contends it is a ‘challenger’ service to the likes of Google and Meta Platforms, rather than an entrenched incumbent. Byte Dance objects to several facets of Tik Tok’s inclusion on the roster of gatekeepers, including its......
DIGITAL FINANCE AND INNOVATION— JOINT COMMITTEE The European Supervisory Authorities ( ESAs)— EBA, EIOPA and ESMA—announced on 12 April 2024 that, in the month of May 2024, they will commence a voluntary exercise to gather registers of information on relevant contractual arrangements for the use of ICT third‑party service providers by financial entities. Under the Digital Operation Resilience Act ( DORA), from the start of 2025, financial entities must maintain registers of information about their use of ICT third‑party providers. In this dry run exercise, such information will be sourced from financial entities through their......
Graham Doyle, a deputy commissioner with Ireland’s DPC, told a conference that the authority would ‘carry on the work’ undertaken by Helen Dixon, who left the commission in February after close to a decade at the helm. On whether there will be changes in approach, he said it really remains very much business as usual, Doyle said......
From our vantage point within the Irish [ Data Protection Commission], many tend to fixate on the Big Tech aspect of what we do, yet the scope of our mandate is extremely broad, remarked Mary- Bridget Donnelly at a conference. Donnelly serves as deputy commissioner and leads strategy, governance, finance, and risk at the Irish Data Protection Commission ( DPC). The authority handles complaints lodged by people in Ireland as well as citizens throughout the EU, the official noted......
The European branch of the Computer and Communications Industry Association ( CCIA) has urged the EDPB to confer with competition authorities and the European Commission prior to settling its opinion, according to a letter reviewed by MLex. That opinion was sought by the data protection authorities of Norway, the Netherlands and the German city of Hamburg. Guidelines are expected to follow later in the year. “ CCIA Europe considers that, under Article 70(4) GDPR, a substantive open consultation must happen before the EDPB can deliver a well‑grounded opinion on the matter at hand,” the association wrote......
In its statement, the Commission added that it was directing the tech firms to ‘retain certain documents to monitor the effective implementation and compliance with their obligations’. The firms now enter a twelve‑month probe as the Commission assesses adherence and may mandate additional adjustments. Should they be judged to have breached the law, penalties can reach up to 10% of global turnover. Repeated breaches can trigger steeper fines and more intrusive measures affecting corporate structures. Under the DMA, platforms must curb how they monetise data, keep their platforms open for business customers, and guarantee interoperable services. At present, the rules cover Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Byte Dance, Google and Meta Platforms, and all of them published reports earlier this month detailing how they were meeting the law, on compliance with it......
In a submission to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, West Rock stated that the necessary merger control approvals and non-opposition decisions have been secured for the US, the UK, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Serbia and South Africa......
On 14 March 2024, the Court of Justice found that Ireland had 'failed to fulfil its obligations' under an EU directive after it allowed an extended deadline to lapse without transposing the Electronic Communications Code into domestic law. The Code outlines updated measures to oversee the internal market for telecoms networks, services and related facilities. The judgment states that 'such failures have a direct influence on the availability and deployment of very high capacity networks within the EU'. Member States had until 2020 to implement the telecoms reforms in full......
The consumer groups claim that Meta, parent company of Facebook, violated the EU's General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR) by creating a smokescreen to obscure its data harvesting. Groups within BEUC (the European Consumer Organisation) — which represents 45 independent consumer groups across 31 countries — have submitted complaints to their national data protection authorities. A ‘consent-or-pay’ paywall enables internet users to access a website free of charge if they consent to the use of cookies — blocks of data generated by a web server. Users who refuse consent can visit the site only if they pay......
Pfizer and Bio NTech maintain they reasonably depended on Moderna’s assurances that it would not litigate and argued the company had extended implicit licences to others. In 2020, as pharmaceutical companies rushed to find a route out of the global health emergency, Moderna Inc declared it would not assert its patents over a coronavirus vaccine whilst the pandemic persisted. It said it wished not to discourage other businesses from developing their own jabs. Two years on, after vaccines had been created and broadly deployed by Pfizer and Bio NTech, Moderna revised its pledge, stating it expected respect for its intellectual property in middle-income states without supply constraints. Shortly afterwards, Moderna filed an infringement action against the two competitors. Charlie French, a senior associate at Bristows LLP, noted there will be many questions about whether Pfizer and Bio NTech could rely on that...
The American software behemoth unveiled the transaction in January 2022, and by May 2023 had already obtained EU merger clearance for the acquisition. However, when Microsoft was labelled a 'gatekeeper' under the DMA on 6 September 2023, the deal had not yet been completed. The acquisition finally completed in full on 13 October 2023. The Commission has already disclosed a filing from Apple......
Answering committee questions She outlined how Ireland’s national online safety regime will dovetail with EU rules, and described preparations under way: growing staff numbers, launching a contact centre, and forming enforcement teams to manage both. Niamh Hodnett, Online Safety Commissioner at Comisiún na Meán, told the Parliament’s Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth that the era of self-regulation has ended and effective oversight is beginning. She stressed that the online safety code is not optional but binding, and must be legally robust, with each measure grounded in a strong legal basis. Hodnett added that any breach or non-compliance will attract sanctions under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, which allows for penalties of up to ten per cent of relevant turnover or €20m, as well as criminal sanctions for egregious non-compliance. Online safety in Ireland will be governed by three sets of...
The Platform Work Directive Put forward in 2021, the Platform Work Directive would set the first EU‑wide standards for algorithmic oversight and the application of artificial intelligence at work. It would bar platforms from handling specific categories of personal data, including an individual’s beliefs, private communications with colleagues, or information gathered when the worker is not on duty. Although a political deal was reached on 13 December 2023, a coalition of countries led by France rejected the measure in a vote on 22 December 2023. Backing still fell short even after Belgium, which is chairing the negotiations, moved to dilute the text. Belgium removed EU‑wide benchmarks for distinguishing when an independent......
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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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