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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 Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common.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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In this issue: New technologies Internet Data protection Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Reputation management Telecommunications Lex Talk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information New technologies DSIT releases report and impact assessment on copyright and artificial intelligence DSIT, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport ( DCMS) and the Intellectual Property Office have jointly issued a report and an impact assessment exploring the use of works protected by copyright in the training and development of AI systems. These have been published pursuant to sections 135 and 136 of the Data ( Use and Access) Act 2025. See: LNB News 18/03/2026 44. EDPS unveils Compass on supervision and enforcement under the EU AI Act The European Data Protection Supervisor ( EDPS) has...
Under envisaged enforcement procedures for the EU's flagship AI legislation, the European Commission would be empowered to probe thoroughly the internals of general-purpose AI models, including their weights and the hosting infrastructure, and to also examine and alter system-state interactions. The EU AI Act authorises the Commission to run model evaluations to judge whether providers meet their legal duties and to look into potential systemic risks, in particular after a warning from an independent panel of scientific experts. As the sole authority charged with supervising the EU AI Act's provisions for general-purpose AI models ( GPAI), the Commission on 13 March 2026 issued secondary legislation defining the procedural framework for such evaluations and for related infringement proceedings......
On 9 March 2026, the CMA released guidance titled ‘ Complying with consumer law when using AI agents’, together with research called ‘ Agentic AI and consumers’. These publications signal rising regulatory focus on the impact of autonomous AI in consumer markets and examine how existing consumer legislation applies to agentic AI. The CMA sets out a policy overview of agentic AI, considers potential future developments, identifies likely benefits and risks for consumers, and outlines actions for businesses building or using agentic AI to ensure compliance with consumer law and to cultivate trust in their systems. This commentary summarises: the scope of the CMA’s analysis key takeaways for practitioners practical steps businesses can take now to meet consumer protection expectations What the publications covers From tools to autonomous agents A central theme is the movement of...
A refreshed second version of the EU code of practice for generative AI has been presented to developers and users, featuring milder, adaptable pledges and generally softer, more flexible commitments overall. Under the EU’s AI Act, makers of tools such as Open AI’s Chat GPT and Anthropic’s Claude must tag synthetic outputs in machine-readable form, while users must flag deepfakes and other material of public significance. This updated voluntary code, intended to help meet the Act’s transparency rules and facilitate compliance, scales back several proposals, recasting elements judged to exceed the AI Act’s remit as optional actions rather than firm obligations. The text adds that the European Commission will further define the reach of transparency duties and any exceptions in forthcoming guidance to accompany the code, clarifying how scope and related carve-outs should apply in...
Stephen Thaler maintained in his October 2025 certiorari petition that the government agency had significantly exceeded its remit by implying a human-authorship rule that the statute does not explicitly contain. The D. C. Circuit upheld the Copyright Office’s stance last year, concluding that, although the Copyright Act leaves ‘author’ undefined, several sections suggest authors must be human, including provisions allowing an author to pass ownership interests to a spouse or heirs. The justices offered no explanation for turning down the petition. Thaler has sought to register a two-dimensional image titled ‘ A Recent Entrance to Paradise’, generated by an AI he designed and refers to as the ‘ Creativity Machine’......
The review extends the FCA's Artificial Intelligence Lab work and reiterates its often-stated view that current regulatory regimes strike a fair balance: granting firms room to innovate and compete through AI, while retaining enough supervisory bite to control risks arising from deployment. The call for input sets out four linked themes that interrelate closely: the trajectory of AI technology, encompassing more capable, autonomous and agentic systems the prospective effects of AI on markets and firms, including shifts in competition and market structure and dynamics emerging consumer patterns, covering how AI might enhance outcomes, introduce novel risks, influence behaviours and reshape the demand and delivery of financial services, and future regulatory responses, including how regulators may need to adapt to keep retail markets functioning well That last theme is, by some distance, the most contentious point raised. While the financial regulators appear presently committed to a...
In this issue: Information technology Internet Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Reputation management Telecommunications Lex Talk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Information technology Commission consults on draft Guidance on EU Cyber Resilience Act The European Commission has opened a consultation on a draft Communication offering direction on how to interpret and apply in practice Regulation ( EU) 2024/2847, the EU Cyber Resilience Act ( EU CRA). In line with Article 26(1) EU CRA, this non-binding guidance seeks to support manufacturers, developers and other stakeholders in understanding their obligations and fostering a harmonised approach across the EU, with a particular emphasis on helping microenterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises meet compliance needs. the scope of the EU CRA,...
The Office of Communications v Star China Media Ltd [2025] EWHC 2816 ( KB) What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment delivers significant direction for broadcasting practitioners and their clients on the extent and enforceability of Ofcom’s sanctioning powers. It confirms that, when imposing penalties for breaches of the fairness code ( Broadcasting Act 1996, s 107), Ofcom may properly pursue wider deterrence through financial penalties to the same level as for breaches of the standards code ( Communications Act 2003 ( CA 2003), s 319), as both sit within Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code. Practitioners should also note that Ofcom’s penalty regime operates consistently across all provisions of the Broadcasting Code. The court further held that penalties remain recoverable as civil debts even after a broadcaster’s licence has been revoked, under CA 2003, s 346(3), meaning revocation does not insulate...
The High Court found that there was no reasonable prospect of Spyros Melaris proving at trial that he had single-handedly made the pseudo-documentary, which has now been thoroughly debunked, or that he was entitled to a copyright claim for its exploitation. Judge Richard Hacon entered summary judgment for Mindhouse Productions Ltd, holding that Melaris’s assertions of title and authorship were negated by contracts in which he assigned his rights. He remarked to Melaris, “ I’m sorry the documents were against you.” The judge said it was impossible to square the director’s account with 2002 and 2006 agreements recognising that Orbital Media Ltd owned the film’s copyright. Melaris’s October claim alleged that Mindhouse misrepresented the provenance of Alien Autopsy. The company—set up by filmmakers Louis Theroux, Arron Fellows and Nancy Strang—was said to have downplayed Melaris’s ownership while advancing producer Ray Santilli’s false tale that the film was a...
In this issue: New technologies Internet Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Telecommunications Lex Talk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information New technologies Tenets of patentability affected by the UK Supreme Court ( Emotional Perception v Comptroller of Patents UKIPO) In Emotional Perception AI Ltd v Comptroller- General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks [2026] UKSC 3, the Supreme Court has shaken the bedrock of UK patent law by resetting how exclusions from patentability—namely non‑patentable subject matter—are assessed. In addition, the Court clarifies what constitutes an invention and offers steer on evaluating inventive step/obviousness. This is a landmark for a generation: it will endure while driving immediate changes in patent practice. The ruling removes long‑standing UK obstacles to protecting advances across ‘all fields of...
Statement follows: The British Equity Collecting Society ( BECS) is moving to shield audiovisual performers’ rights against unauthorised AI training. BECS has unveiled firm measures to protect its membership, audiovisual performers, whose recorded performances are now being exploited, without consent or remuneration, to develop artificial intelligence tools. Developers of AI have drawn on performers’ recorded material to train their models and to output new content. In the UK, such activity violates performers’ exclusive rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Throughout the EU, it likewise infringes those exclusive rights. Nevertheless, certain AI companies have sought to defend this conduct by invoking the EU text and data mining exception in Article 4 of Directive ( EU) 2019/790 and related national implementations......
Emotional Perception vs Comptroller of Patents UKIPO [2026] UKSC 3 What are the practical Implications of the case? To displace what had been viewed as an arbitrarily administered and subjective assessment (the now disapproved Aerotel approach that muddles the inquiry into inventiveness), the ruling holds that a claim need only specify any form of hardware — for example, the use of a computer, a computer-readable storage medium, or another technical means — to avoid the statutory bar in s.1(2) UK Patents Act ‘ UKPA’. That threshold is strikingly low. This wholesale shift in method opens avenues to secure protection for innovations across other fields, provided there is a technical consideration that yields some kind of technical advantage. Yet what counts as ‘technical’ or ‘technology’ still demands careful articulation within the application’s description when setting out the invention. Where the technical...
Fiona Ghosh, Patricia Wade and Nilesh Ray of Ashurst delve into each of these matters in greater depth below. Overview The draft Code takes a decisive stride towards turning the broad transparency duties in Article 50 of the Act into concrete, operational expectations for both providers and deployers of generative AI. Shaped by extensive engagement with stakeholders, it offers the first coherent roadmap for how organisations should handle the marking and detection of AI-generated or manipulated content, alongside the labelling of deepfakes, from here on. The Article 50 transparency duties take effect on 2 August 2026. As that date draws nearer, adherence to the steps in the draft Code is poised to serve as a key yardstick for assessing day-to-day compliance. In practice, it will set clear expectations across the market. Who's covered? The draft Code captures 'providers' (those placing Gen AI systems on the market) and...
On 11 February 2026, Fox Williams LLP confirmed it acts for independent publishers regarding prospective copyright infringement actions against multiple AI makers, among them Anthropic, Open AI and x AI. All of these major tech giants have been sent letters of claim outlining worries that copyrighted works may have been exploited to teach their large language models without any authorisation. Fox Williams added that Google, Meta and rival companies are required to clarify the ways they relied on content, including books and journals, when constructing their AI systems and tools......
The European Commission has set out this year’s slate of priorities, and what should be set aside, for secondary legislation to implement the EU AI Act, according to an internal note viewed by MLex. Secondary legal acts are commonly used in EU lawmaking to confer powers on the Commission to amend or add non‑essential elements of a law via a delegated act, or to secure uniform application through an implementing act. Where the basic law is silent, the EU executive may decide when to adopt such secondary measures, enabling it to order its own regulatory agenda. In a list compiled earlier this month, the Commission detailed its priorities for implementing the EU AI Act in 2026. It also pointed to a set of ‘de‑prioritised’ items, although it is still uncertain whether that implies they are not due to be adopted this...
Boghossian v IOP Publishing Ltd [2025] EWHC 3317 ( IPEC) What are the practical implications of this case? This case underlines the importance of keeping clear records of who contributed what, so that copyright in collaborative works can be established. The joint authorship principles explored here are not confined to scholarly articles and may extend across other sectors. Take software development: code is frequently produced collectively, both through live co-working in ‘pair programming’ (with a ‘driver’ writing code while a ‘navigator’ simultaneously reviews and advises) and through deferred collaboration using source control structures (where colleagues examine or amend proposed changes before they are accepted into the codebase). Either route can trigger questions about joint authorship. In the creative sphere, it is common for two writers to craft a screenplay together (for instance, Florence Foster Jenkins considered in Kogan v Martin [2019] EWCA Civ 1645), and books are...
Edozo Ltd v Valos ( UK) Ltd [2026] EWHC 93 ( IPEC) What are the practical implications of this case? The practical consequences of this judgment are significant and noteworthy for practitioners pursuing copyright infringement actions, particularly where the subject matter is software and its source code. Although His Honour Judge Hacon determined that the Valos Steps were not protected by copyright within the Valos source code, he nevertheless pointed to alternative routes by which the intellectual originality invested in devising them might have been safeguarded through other legal regimes. In particular, Hacon J indicated that literary or artistic copyright could have subsisted in the Valos Steps as works in their own right and, moreover, that if the Valos Steps were sufficiently inventive, Valos might have sought patent protection, provided the invention did not fall foul of Article 52(2) and (3) of the...
In this issue: Internet Data protection Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Lex Talk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Internet Ofcom provides update on X’s investigation over reported Grok-generated sexualised imagery Ofcom has issued a further update on its ongoing probe into X after reports that the platform’s Grok AI chatbot account was used to create and circulate demeaning sexual deepfakes of real people, including children. Having contacted X on 5 January 2026 and opened a formal investigation on 12 January 2026, Ofcom says X has indicated it has since introduced steps to tackle the problem. The regulator notes it is continuing to work with the Information Commissioner’s Office ( ICO), which has launched its own...
RMK Maritime ( Europe) Ltd and another company v CMB. Tech NV (formerly known as Euronav NV) [2025] EWHC 2739 ( Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? The judgment has notable consequences for commercial lawyers advising on professional services contracts, M& A advisory mandates, and restitutionary claims. Prevalence of contract over restitution The court confirmed that unjust enrichment is a fallback doctrine, ordinarily inapplicable where a binding contract regulates the parties’ dealings. Even where certain services might be said to sit beyond the precise contractual remit, a restitutionary claim will fail if it would cut across the contractually agreed allocation of risk and remuneration. Legal force of NOM clauses and variation provisions The advisory agreement required any change to scope to be recorded in writing and signed by authorised representatives. The court regarded this as compelling evidence that informal...
In this issue: Key developments and materials Internet Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Reputation management Telecommunications Lex Talk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information Key developments and materials TMT—key developments in 2025 and horizon scanning for 2026 This News Analysis offers a summary of major TMT developments across England and Wales in 2025, and casts forward to what lies ahead in 2026, setting out the landscape clearly. This instalment spotlights core themes spanning AI, advertising, automated vehicles, the internet, media and information technology, across these evolving areas. See News Analysis: TMT—key developments in 2025 and horizon scanning for 2026. Internet Commission designates Whats App as Very Large Online Platform under EU DSA Following Whats App’s ‘ Channels’ feature surpassing the EU threshold of at least 45...
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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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