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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 Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common.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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Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill Addressing the House of Lords late on 13 March 2024, Department for Culture, Media and Sport minister Stephen Parkinson outlined forthcoming changes to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill, set to be tabled at its third reading in the Upper House on 26 March 2024. The revisions would block ownership of UK newspapers and news magazines by foreign governments. Parkinson cautioned that allowing state-backed takeovers of British news outlets could undermine public confidence in those vital institutions, noting that every foreign state pursues its own interests, which may not align with the UK’s priorities or values. The first high-profile case likely to be caught by the new provisions is Red Bird IMI’s bid for the Telegraph Media Group, publisher of the daily and Sunday titles. Red Bird IMI is 75% financed by the United Arab Emirates and...
Following the close of submissions on 14 March 2024, High Court judge James Mellor said he would deliver a full judgment in due course, but made clear he was satisfied that Wright’s assertions that he is Satoshi were untrue. ' I'm prepared to say this: Dr Wright is not the inventor of bitcoin,' Judge Mellor stated. ' Dr Wright is not the author of the bitcoin white paper. He is not the person who adopted the name Satoshi Nakamoto.' He explained he was content to reach these provisional conclusions immediately, without any hesitation, because 'the evidence is clear'. The Crypto Open Patent Alliance ( COPA), a coalition of cryptographers, brought the case seeking to prevent Wright from asserting that he created Bitcoin. At the outset of the trial, COPA told the court that Wright is lying and engaging in forgery when he claims to be...
In this issue: New technologies Internet Data protection Telecommunications 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 New technologies IPO publishes internal and external metaverse reports The Intellectual Property Office ( IPO) has released two studies: an internal landscape analysis mapping the metaverse’s patent and trade mark terrain, and an external review drawing on diverse sources to illuminate intellectual property ( IP) questions and obstacles arising as the metaverse evolves. The internal paper notes that surging interest in the metaverse is mirrored in IP activity, offering an evidential foundation for monitoring nascent technologies. It also sets out a panorama of the metaverse IP environment, examining patenting trajectories and international patent families alongside trade marks, employing keywords and...
To get a head start on putting the draft EU AI Act into practice, the European Commission chose to set up the EU AI Office before the Act’s formal adoption. This early move was intended to begin preparing for implementation of the draft EU AI Act without delay. The decision creating the EU AI Office took effect on 21 February 2024, though it could be amended once the EU AI Act is passed. Housed within the Commission, the EU AI Office sits in the administrative framework of the Directorate- General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology and follows its yearly management plan. It has been purpose-built to carry out and police the EU AI Act. The EU AI Office has a major remit in relation to general-purpose AI ( GPAI) models, with duties that cover assessing capabilities, overseeing GPAI models, and probing...
In this issue: Key developments and materials New technologies Internet Media Data protection Telecommunications Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Reputation management Lex Talk®TMT: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Latest Q& A Useful information Key developments and materials Spring Budget 2024—key TMT announcements During the Spring Budget 2024 on 6 March 2024, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, set out a series of measures impacting the TMT sector. These include backing the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises ( SMEs) through government investment in artificial intelligence ( AI), establishing an SME Digital Adoption Taskforce, funding digital transformation across the NHS, and support for quantum computing. Hunt also confirmed the government’s commitment to the creative...
Although Stability AI Ltd. accepts that ‘at least some’ images from the stock photography giant’s site were used to ‘train’ its generative art system, the company — in a defence newly made public at the High Court on Wednesday — again asserted that no training occurred within the UK. ‘ Stable Diffusion was not trained in the UK and we expect to be fully vindicated at trial’, a Stability AI spokesperson told Law360 on 1 March 2024. Getty brought proceedings against Stability AI in the High Court in May 2023, alleging copyright infringement for training Stable Diffusion on millions of its works via an online data set compiled by ‘scraping’ links to photographs and videos, together with their captions, from across the web, including websites such as Getty Images, Flickr and Tumblr. In certain instances, outputs from Stable Diffusion allegedly contained a...
Farley (formerly CR) and others v Paymaster (1836) Ltd [2024] EWHC 383 ( KB) What are the practical implications of this case? The court’s move to strike out a large tranche of claims underscores how hard it is to surmount the stringent evidential thresholds in data breach litigation. Claimants must prove tangible loss, and cannot simply lean on inference—no matter how compelling—or on the fact of distress alone. The onus remains with the claimant to establish that an unauthorised third party actually accessed the personal data. Conduct that does not lead to unauthorised access is treated differently by regulators than by the civil courts. For instance, if documents with personal data are mistakenly left on public transport, a regulator might act over security failings, yet a civil claim may falter if the papers were swiftly recovered and not read by...
Enforcement against those already identified as non-compliant is coming At a privacy conference in London, Information Commissioner John Edwards warned that action is imminent. “ Our bots are coming for your bots,” he said, describing a coding challenge his office launched on 28 February 2024 with external experts, using AI to scan websites and verify cookie banner compliance. Flagged earlier in 2024, the hackathon complements established enforcement. In November 2023, the ICO wrote to 53 of the largest websites with non-compliant cookie banners. By January 2024, the ICO said 38 had complied and four more would do so within a month. That figure has not shifted, Edwards added, and enforcement now awaits the remainder. Enforcement is coming for the rest, he confirmed......
Background to the broadband Universal Service Obligation Introduced in March 2020, the broadband USO seeks to ensure every premises across the UK can access dependable, gigabit-capable broadband as standard. Acting as a ‘digital safety net’, it gives households and businesses a legal entitlement to request a connection meeting minimum speeds, supporting digital inclusion and enabling participation in society, especially for those on the wrong side of the digital divide in underserved or remote areas. Premises qualify for the USO if they: receive under 10Mbit/s download and 1Mbit/s upload would pay more than £54 per month for a service achieving these speeds, and are not scheduled to be connected by a publicly funded roll-out within 12 months The appointed Universal Service Providers ( USPs) are KCOM in Kingston upon Hull and BT for the remainder of the UK. Once an eligible request is submitted, the relevant USP must supply a...
In this issue: New technologies Internet Data protection Media Reputation management Telecommunications 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 New technologies Law Commission launches digital assets call for evidence and consultation on draft legislation The Law Commission has opened a call for evidence to support its work on private international law as it relates to digital assets and electronic trade documents, and is also consulting on draft legislation arising from its June 2023 digital assets report. It seeks input on the most acute and widespread private international law questions triggered by the digital, online and decentralised environments in which these assets operate—such as forum and jurisdiction, choice of law, and mechanisms for enforcing judgments handed down abroad. The project spotlights crypto-tokens and electronic trade documents, given their prominence in current practice and the fresh conceptual difficulties they present for orthodox private...
What are the practical implications of this case? Practitioners and industry participants engaged in negotiating SEP licences will keenly review the terms of the licence determined by the court......
While the EU AI Act is not meant to interfere with copyright matters, the leaked draft recognises data’s vital role in building AI systems and introduces tailored requirements and constraints to balance innovation with copyright and related rights. In doing so, it mirrors the EU copyright framework, particularly the ‘commercial’ text and data mining ( TDM) exception in Article 4 of Directive ( EU) 2019/790 (‘ EU DSM Copyright Directive’). Guided by the recitals and the Act’s specific provisions, the following principles apply: Adherence to copyright law—providers of general-purpose AI models in the EU market must comply with EU copyright and related rights and, in particular, identify and honour reservations of rights expressed by right holders under the EU DSM Copyright Directive, regardless of where copyright-relevant training took place (recitals 60i–j) Copyright policy—providers must adopt a policy to respect EU copyright law, including...
In this issue: New technologies Internet Data protection Reputation management Media Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Telecommunications Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Useful information New technologies Df T updates Automated Vehicles Bill 2023 scoping notes after Lords passage The Department for Transport ( Df T) has revised and updated the policy scoping notes for the Automated Vehicles Bill 2023 (the Bill) subsequent to its passage through the House of Lords in January 2023. The refreshed notes incorporate the Lords’ amendments concerning the Statement of Safety Principles. Those principles will spell out additional detail on safety expectations for self-driving vehicles and will guide and inform safety evaluations across the wider self-driving regulatory regime and framework. The Bill sets the government’s safety objective that autonomous vehicles should deliver a...
Hemming v Poulton [2023] EWHC 3001 ( KB) What are the practical implications of this case? Of particular interest is the discussion of when claimants may amend their claim to add further defamation causes that would otherwise be out of time. The ruling underscores how difficult this is—the essence of libel lies in publication, not the nature of the allegations. Claims concerning discrete publications, even if repeating the same or similar accusations, will rarely, if ever, arise from ‘the same or substantially the same facts’ already in issue. The decision likewise highlights the challenge of seeking to disapply the libel limitation period under section 32A of the Limitation Act 1980. What was the background? Factual background The case has a long and complex factual and procedural history. The claims ultimately stem from allegations that the claimant, the former MP for Birmingham Yardley, assaulted an...
In this issue: New technologies Internet Media Fintech Data protection Advertising, marketing and sponsorship Reputation management 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 introduces voluntary guidance on UK’s AI regulatory principles The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology ( DSIT) has released early, non-mandatory guidance to help regulators deliver the UK’s pro-innovation artificial intelligence ( AI) regulatory principles. Its purpose is to aid regulators in construing and implementing the five principles described in the AI regulation white paper. See: LNB News 08/02/2024 95. UK’s AI copyright code talks break down, government says MLex reports that AI developers and copyright holders have not secured agreement on a workable voluntary code of conduct to resolve copyright concerns, meaning...
Manufacturers of 'smart' products placed on the UK market are set to shoulder a sizeable administrative workload and technical obstacles to satisfy new cybersecurity obligations due to commence in under three months, with parallel duties extending to importers and distributors, according to cybersecurity adviser, Bluman. Bluman made the remarks in advance of the PSTI regulations 2023 coming into force on 29 April 2024. The UK government is empowered to impose the regulations under the PSTI Act 2022. It has recently written to industry to highlight the looming compliance date and to publicise guidance issued to support those efforts. The regulations set out granular security standards for 'relevant connectable products'—a label covering a broad range of internet-connectable and network-connectable items, including 'internet of things' devices and software. The regime, among other measures, effectively prohibits universal default passwords on in-scope products, requires the...
Tyburn Film Productions Ltd v Broughton and others (transcript) [2023] EWHC 3247 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? This case spotlights the difficulties surrounding the resurrection of deceased performers, especially the intricate web of contractual arrangements and the treatment of rights in their likeness after death. Given the novel legal issues arising on the facts—most notably unjust enrichment and performers’ rights—it is a paradigm instance of a dispute that should go to trial. Moreover, the requirement for comprehensive skeleton arguments and substantive oral submissions, in and of itself, underscores that an application of this sort raises complex issues unsuited to summary disposal. At trial, the court will have to grapple with the proper ambit of the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations and decide whether they are sufficiently expansive to encompass rights of resurrection. The dispute also promises to enrich the body of case law on...
On 9 February 2024, Europe’s General Court refused Byte Dance’s bid for interim relief that would have paused its designation while a substantive appeal proceeds. Byte Dance was named among the initial six firms identified by the European Commission as ‘gatekeepers’ under the EU DMA, obliged to meet enhanced duties intended to expand user choice and freedom. The regime compels gatekeeper platforms to inter-operate with smaller services in specified situations, bars a platform from privileging its own offerings, and requires greater transparency for business users, among other requirements. Byte Dance contended that complying with the designation could expose ‘highly strategic information’, yet the court concluded the company had not demonstrated a concrete risk of disclosure or that it would suffer irreparable harm if the designation stays in effect during its pending challenge. As a result, the designation continues to apply while the merits are...
The consultation focused on five policy areas: presentation of pricing information, hidden fees and drip pricing prohibiting bogus, misleading or deceptive reviews the function and responsibilities of online platforms and their professional diligence duties online interface orders further amendments to the list of commercial practices in all circumstances deemed unfair, and private redress, in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill ( DMCC Bill) The government has now confirmed that it will be introducing some revisions to the DMCC Bill as it moves forward through the legislative process, although certain issues will be left for additional consideration. What are the key takeaways from the Government Response for traders selling goods and services to consumers? The government plans to legislate on fake reviews, drip pricing and unit pricing. Traders should reassess how they request and publish product reviews, and ensure that overall and unit...
Misuse of private information claim based on broadbrush allegations fails ( Hussain & others v Rahman & others) Hussain and others v Rahman and others [2024] EWHC 116 ( KB) What are the practical implications of this case? An appraisal of the evidence led the court to determine that the second claimant’s choice to halt the third claimant’s proceedings against the defendants arose from the pressures of the coronavirus ( COVID-19) pandemic and his health anxieties in March 2020, decisively dismissing the claimants’ contention that intimidation by the defendants prompted the abandonment of the action. The court reaffirmed adherence to the approach articulated in Murray v Express Newspapers plc [2009] Ch 481 when assessing whether private information has been misused. On these facts, the court concluded that the first claimant—a young woman from a traditional Muslim household who had sought to shield her social...
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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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