Legal News

Publishing the data on 10 November 2025, the ABI has urged that cyber-insurance should form ‘a part of every organisation’s modern risk management strategy’. It noted the report’s figures were drawn from participating member firms and, as such, do not entirely reflect the complete picture for cyber-insurance across the UK. Jonathan Fong, the ABI’s head of general insurance policy, warned that cyber-threats are rapidly increasing in both scale and sophistication, adding that cyber-insurance must be ‘a critical component of every organisation’s modern risk management strategy’......

This development follows the recent snapback of all nuclear‑related sanctions on Iran at UN level, after the United Nations Security Council declined to extend sanctions relief. The EU has revived its restrictive measures through six legal instruments. Four took effect on 29 September 2025: Council Decision ( CFSP) 2025/1978, Council Implementing Decision ( CFSP) 2025/1971, Council Implementing Regulation ( EU) 2025/1980 and Council Implementing Regulation ( EU) 2025/1982. The remaining two entered into force on 30 September 2025: Council Regulation ( EU) 2025/1975 and Council Decision ( CFSP) 2025/1972. Collectively, these acts reinstate measures previously adopted by the UN Security Council and transposed into EU law, alongside additional autonomous EU restrictions. These include targeted sanctions on named individuals and entities—travel bans, asset freezes and a bar on providing funds or other economic...

See Q& A: What is the appropriate clause to include in a Will for a member of a limited liability partnership ( LLP), where the LLP qualifies for 100% Business property relief, and the members' agreement provides for a buyout of the deceased member’s interest, considering the testator has a surviving spouse and children? A partnership deed commonly stipulates, on a partner’s death, that the remaining partner or partners will acquire the testator’s stake by purchase under the agreed terms......

High Court judge Martin Spencer handed former ‘know your client’ analyst Damilare Ajao a 20-month term of imprisonment, finding that he knew his accusations of harassment, discrimination and sexual harassment were untrue. He firmly determined that a fine would not suffice for his contempt, and also expressly found that Ajao had inserted clearly fabricated entries into a diary to bolster his account. Judge Spencer concluded that Ajao had purposefully sought to deceive the court, noting that the German bank had established all of the allegations it brought. Ajao had faced proceedings for contempt of......

What was the background? The claimant, Field Industrial Supplies WLL, a Qatari supplier of industrial utility products, hired the defendant, Fredy Thomas, in 2006, as an employee. The defendant, a first cousin of Mr Francis, relocated to Doha that year and, by 2013, handled a substantial part of the company’s financial administration. He left the claimant’s employ in 2016, saying he intended to emigrate to New Zealand; instead he went to India and later the UK, where he ultimately acquired British citizenship. Concerns arising in mid-2019 about a colleague, Mr Nadarajan, prompted internal enquiries by the claimant that concluded both he and the defendant had engaged in cheque fraud. On 28 February 2021, Doha's Public Prosecutor's Office commenced proceedings against both individuals in the Court of First Instance. At a preliminary hearing on 29 April 2021, a...

The statement follows. The DPC has maintained regular engagement with numerous companies leading AI innovation, concentrating on safeguarding responsible creation and roll-out of the technology for people throughout the EU/ EEA. In March 2025, Linked In notified the DPC that it intended to train its proprietary generative AI systems on the personal data of Linked In members located in the EU/ EEA, with training slated to commence in early November 2025. Following an in-depth examination of the data protection materials supplied by Linked In, alongside substantial direct interactions, the DPC pinpointed a range of risks and additional concerns linked to the company’s planned processing of personal data. The DPC set out these issues and issued several recommendations to Linked In, aimed at mitigating the potential adverse effects its proposal could have on individuals’ data protection rights. These steps reflect the DPC’s continued...

The pre-budget report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change urged a ‘course correction’ in employment policy, issued a day after MPs voted down a second push by the House of Lords to introduce a six-month shield. The existing two-year service threshold to pursue an unfair dismissal claim is among the longest qualifying periods across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; yet moving to a day-one entitlement, as proposed in the bill, would take the UK to ‘the opposite extreme’, the report cautions......

State aid General Court dismisses case referred back from the Court of Justice regarding Greek support to aluminium producer The General Court has handed down its ruling in Joined Cases T-639/14 RENV II, T-352/15 RENV and T-740/15 RENV, DEI v Commission, following a remittal after the Court of Justice’s judgment in Joined Cases C-701/21 P and C-739/21 P. Those appeals succeeded against the General Court’s earlier judgments in T-639/14 and T-740/15, which had annulled Commission decisions concluding that an arbitration award, fixing an alleged preferential electricity tariff, did not constitute State aid to the aluminium producer Mytilinaios ( SA.38101). The General Court has now rejected the appeal... Background Dimosia Epicheirisi Ilektrisimou AE ( DEI), an electricity generator and supplier based in Athens ( Greece) and controlled by the Greek State, and its principal client, Mytilinaios AE – Omilos Epicheiriseon, formerly Alouminion tis Ellados VEAE, located in...

In a globalised marketplace, conflicts in cross-border commerce are unavoidable. Traditionally, parties turned to international arbitration to settle such matters. They did so to steer clear of domestic courts seen as slow or partial. Yet arbitration brings drawbacks: fewer procedural protections, opaque processes, and patchy enforcement, which reduce trust and certainty. Hence the spread of international commercial courts ( ICCs) — a new breed of national courts tailored for cross-border cases, engineered for transnational disputes ( Gu & Tam, 2022, p. 445). Built to fuse the advantages of litigation and arbitration, ICCs are rapidly emerging as the favoured fora for intricate financial claims. This shift poses a key question: can judges drawn from disparate legal traditions produce outcomes that are consistent, fair, and predictable without common training? Judicial capability underpins confidence, and as ICCs expand in number, scale, and stature, a lack of...

Uber London Ltd v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 1282 ( TC) For numerous VAT appeals, section 84(3) of the Value Added Tax Act 1994 ( VATA 1994) means an appeal will not be entertained unless the VAT amount determined by HMRC has been paid or deposited with HMRC. In this matter, the key issue is whether supplies of private hire transport services fall within the Tour Operators’ Margin Scheme ( TOMS). HMRC assessed Uber as owing £1.446bn on the footing that the supplies do not come within TOMS. Uber placed that sum on deposit with HMRC when it appealed the assessments, but the appeal has been stayed until the final determination of an appeal involving Bolt Services UK Ltd. In HMRC v Bolt Services UK Ltd [2025] UKUT 100 ( TCC), the Upper Tribunal......

TSI Instruments v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 1278 ( TC) The taxpayer, TSI Instruments Ltd ( TSI), carried out servicing and repairs on scientific equipment, a sizeable proportion of which was sourced from outside the UK. To undertake those repairs, TSI organised the importation of the items into the UK. It was named as the importer and paid the import VAT, which it then sought to recover as input tax. HMRC refused that recovery and issued assessments of c.£8.4m, on the footing that TSI was not the owner of the relevant goods, in accordance with HMRC policy. The FTT dismissed TSI’s appeal and found in favour of HMRC......

The enclosed notice is provided...

Saunders v HMRC [2025] UKUT 374 ( TCC) The Hibernia group engaged the taxpayer in the UK from 2008 to 2016, and he lived in the UK for the whole of that employment without interruption. In April 2013, the group granted him SARs at a stated price under the plan. On vesting, the SARs gave him a right to a cash amount if at least 43% of the shares in the group’s parent company were sold. That amount was computed by the uplift in the shares’ value from grant to sale on that basis. Approximately half of his SARs vested immediately, with the balance vesting in three equal tranches in July 2013, July 2014 and July 2015 respectively. He left Hibernia’s employment on 31 July 2016 and thereafter became non- UK resident the next day. The group was subsequently sold and, in January 2017,...

CI v IU [2025] HKCFI 4397 What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling underscores the stringent bar for obtaining leave to appeal under sections 5 and 6 of Schedule 2 to the AO, reinforcing the Hong Kong court’s arbitration-friendly stance. More importantly, it delivers long-anticipated guidance on whether the court’s jurisdiction to entertain an appeal on a ‘question of law’ is restricted to Hong Kong law issues. Unlike the English regime, which expressly confines a ‘question of law’ to ‘a question of the law of England and Wales’, the Hong Kong court, albeit in obiter, adopted a broader and adaptable outlook here. Advancing a spectrum concept, the court differentiated between genuinely ‘exotic’ governing laws and foreign laws that closely resemble Hong Kong law (as in this dispute). How the Hong Kong courts will approach a question of law rooted in a...

The High Court dismissed the anonymised company’s judicial review application on 23 October 2025, concluding that the FCA’s decision-making process, and its ultimate outcome in the matter, were reasonable when consumer protection was taken into account. Judge Michael Fordham endorsed the regulator’s choice to name and shame the firm in exceptional circumstances, although he observed that some strands of the reasoning were not especially robust. As the judgment in The King ( CIT (an anonymised company)) v The Financial Conduct Authority explained, the FCA had determined that promptly identifying the company was required to inform and protect its customers at the earliest opportunity. That consideration carried considerable weight with the court. ‘ In-house compliance and legal officers should keep this firmly in mind when handling an FCA investigation and may wish to consider early engagement with affected customers to...head off a similar naming...

Mergers The CMA has opened a consultation on potential remedies to address the provisional competition concerns identified in its phase 2 investigation into Aramark/ Entier—see further, case page Following a phase 1 review, the CMA cleared the completed purchase of Macquarie Rotorcraft Limited by SMFL LCI Helicopters Limited—see further, case page The CMA released the full text of its phase 1 clearance decision concerning the anticipated acquisition of ORBCOMM AIS LLC by S& P Global Market Intelligence Inc.—see further, decision Note— For all live mergers before the CMA, see further, UK mergers—ongoing cases tracker Upcoming dates For dates of upcoming UK competition developments, see further, UK Competition calendar......

Bali v 1-2 Couriers Ltd [2025] EWCA Civ 1413 Note: In the judgment, any mention of the appellant’s solicitors refers to her former representatives. Her present solicitors were instructed after the events to which this appeal relates had occurred. What was the background? This was a personal injury damages claim by Mrs Bali arising from a road traffic collision on 2 December 2019; the primary limitation period, under section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980, expired on 2 December 2022. The appellant engaged solicitors very near the end of that period, on 22 November 2022. On 29 or 30 November 2022, those solicitors sent a claim form to the County Court Money Claims Centre ( CMCC) together with a Help with Fees application; it was received on 2 December 2022, the final day of the limitation period. The court then sought further details for the Help with Fees...

Analysts say a statutory complaint lodged in September 2025 by a consumer advocacy organisation, acting for millions of policyholders, has left the FCA in an awkward spot. The submission branded the UK insurance market fundamentally ‘broken’, alleging the regulator has taken a soft‑touch approach while insurers oversee sharply rising claim refusals. It places the regulator under scrutiny from both consumers and firms as it weighs its next steps. Its choices now will be closely watched by many. The previous super‑complaint about malpractice across insurance triggered the most significant shake‑up of pricing practices in a generation. Yet commentators warn that political headwinds might limit how far the FCA can go this time. Branko Bjelobaba, director of insurance regulatory compliance firm Branko, said the watchdog must tread a careful line: safeguarding customers through rules while easing burdens so firms can innovate and compete. That, he added, does not grant the...

According to Home Office data released on 6 November 2025, the figure is up 13% on the prior quarter and 35% higher than the equivalent period in 2024. The statistics indicate UK nationals made up 20% of referrals this quarter, with Eritrean people comprising 16% and Somali nationals 10% during the period under review, according to the official release. The NRM is the UK’s mechanism for identifying and assisting potential victims of modern slavery. It enables authorised first responders to submit referrals for an official decision on whether someone has been trafficked, which in turn governs their entitlement to support and protection......

Meta Platforms warned of ‘increasing headwinds’ On 29 October 2025, Meta Platforms cautioned of ‘increasing headwinds’ tied to legal and regulatory pressures, warning it could suffer ‘a material loss’ amid a wave of US cases in 2026 alleging Instagram and Facebook were engineered to be addictive for young users. Announcing third-quarter results, Chief Financial Officer Susan Li told investors Meta is continuing to monitor active legal and regulatory matters, with mounting challenges in the EU and the US that could meaningfully affect its business and financial performance. Li noted that several youth-related trials set for 2026 may ultimately lead to a material loss. Meta also flagged a possible revenue impact before the end of 2025 stemming from action by the Commission regarding the ‘less personalised’ targeted-ads product launched in the EU last year, a ‘pay or consent’ model that has likewise drawn scrutiny from the...