Legal News

Employment Rights Bill, As Amended ( Amendment Paper), 5 March 2025 Employment Rights Bill— Stages What are the implications? The Amendment Paper sets out the amendments lodged by 5 March 2025 for consideration at the report stage. There are no immediate consequences because it is still uncertain which of these proposals—if any—will be approved and trigger revisions to the ERB, although government-backed amendments remain more likely to pass. The consolidated schedule within the Amendment Paper also contains previously tabled, non-government amendments that we covered in our earlier News Analysis: Employment Rights Bill—non-government proposed amendments. The government’s suggested changes, many stemming from conclusions reached in its consultation responses, provide practitioners with an early indication of adjustments that are expected to filter into this key item of employment legislation. As a result, close monitoring of the debate remains advisable for all employment law...

The SPP indicated it was supportive of the FRC’s planned updates to its actuarial guidance, referred to as Technical Actuarial Standard 300 ( TAS 300). In December 2024, the FRC opened a consultation outlining measures intended to assist practitioners undertaking actuarial work within the new defined benefit ( DB) funding framework. The Occupational Pension Schemes ( Funding and Investment Strategy and Amendment) Regulations 2024, SI 2024/462, together with the Pensions Regulator’s updated DB Funding Code of Practice, mandate the procurement of actuarial advice across several matters and the application of actuarial judgement......

US technology giants will continue to be obliged to comply with EU digital laws Speaking after threats by US President Donald Trump to hit back at jurisdictions that levy penalties or taxes on American tech firms, the EU's competition and trade regulator, the Commission, stressed it can police digital platforms in the EU regardless of where they are headquartered. It said the EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act apply in the same way to every significant online player operating within the single market, regardless of their incorporation location or who controls them, in order to guarantee safety, fairness and a level playing field across the EU, according to commission spokesperson Thomas......

The committee would establish permanently accessible panels to expedite and effectively oversee the arbitration stage of tax dispute settlement proceedings, the ministry stated in a news release......

Deutsche Bank Ag London and another company v Provincia Di Brescia [2024] EWHC 2967 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? Opting for English law and English courts in standard ISDA arrangements continues to give banks valuable certainty when confronting Italian local authority challenges to the validity of swaps. The decision showcases the English court’s robust commitment to safeguarding the parties’ contractual bargain. Encouragingly, the ISDA Master Agreement’s jurisdiction clause was interpreted widely enough to encompass a dispute concerning the settlement agreement. The court’s conclusion that questioning the settlement agreement’s validity was, in substance, a challenge to the swaps themselves is commercially sensible, and it reassures parties that swaps disputes will not be diverted from the agreed forum by the back door... What was the background? The dispute concerned interest rate swaps entered into between Brescia and, respectively, DB and Dexia in 2006 and 2007. The...

Apple today has unveiled revisions to its child safety approach, adding fresh new controls for those under 18, while still continuing to contend that age assurance should be used in place of strict age verification by the app marketplaces. In a white paper, the firm firmly stated that rigorous age checks (such as being asked to present identification to use a service) are largely unnecessary for the majority of apps. ‘ Some services may deem it suitable, or even legally mandated, to implement age verification that confirms a user’s age with high confidence... Yet most apps do not’, the paper explains. ‘ Hence, the proper venue for tackling the risks of age-restricted material online is the smaller group of sites and applications that actually carry such content’, Apple added. The company further maintained that ‘demanding age verification at the app store level is not data...

AP Wireless v On Tower UK Ltd [2024] UKUT 00429 ( LC) What are the practical implications of this case? This decision clarifies that an assignee of an electronic communications agreement entered into by licence before 28 December 2017 will take the benefit of the Code rights granted by that arrangement, yet will not, merely by completing an assignment, become a contracting party. The rationale is that, although the benefit transfers on assignment, the corresponding burden under the agreement does not automatically move with it. To attain party status, the assignee must effectively step into the assignor’s position for all purposes, in all respects, acquiring every advantage under the agreement while also assuming every burden and obligation. In practice, this requires the assignee to covenant with either the assignor or the Site Provider to perform, and to be bound by, the...

A group of nine EU lawmakers in the European Parliament have written to the European Commission, backing its move to scrap a proposal to regulate licensing of standard-essential patents made by it According to the letter, the Commission should stand firm in its resolve and complete the withdrawal of the measure in full, while anticipating workable, pragmatic alternatives that benefit every stakeholder; it was addressed to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, who is responsible for the EU’s industrial strategy as such MLex reports the letter was led by Finnish MEP Aura Salla of the parliament’s right-wing European People’s Party therein......

BB and others v Al Khayyat and other [2025] EWHC 379 ( KB) What are the practical implications of this case? This notable ruling explores the tension between the default costs position on discontinuance and the court’s imperative to uphold the integrity of its own process. Here, the claimants who discontinued levelled serious accusations at a particular defendant and a connected state actor. If established, they would signify a grave attempt by a defendant, or those acting for them, to interfere with the administration of justice. Nonetheless, merely advancing such charges—even if cogent and prima facie arguable—does not, without more, dislodge the relevant presumption. Integrity-based concerns alone do not supplant that starting point; the court must be satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that the allegations are well-founded. Only then will it depart from the norm in CPR 38.6, under which a claimant who...

Foreign Subsidies Regulation Commission launches consultations on guidelines under the Foreign Subsidies Regulation The Commission has issued a Call for Evidence inviting feedback from interested parties on the principal objectives, scope, and context of forthcoming guidelines for applying the Foreign Subsidies Regulation ( FSR). In parallel, it is conducting targeted consultations directly with Member States and stakeholders. The FSR lays down rules to address distortions caused by foreign subsidies. These new provisions empower the Commission to investigate financial contributions granted by non- EU countries to companies undertaking economic activity in the EU and, where necessary, to remedy their distortive effects on the internal market. These efforts inform the upcoming guidance in detail......

Business and Trade Committee— Make Work Pay: Employment Rights Bill ( Third Report of Session 2024–24, HC 370) The government should “speed up, not stall” its programme to clarify employment status, mandate modern slavery statements, and tackle pay shortfalls linked to “umbrella” companies, the Business and Trade Committee has urged. The report also calls for sanctions where organisations fail to publish their modern slavery statements, and to “name and shame” employers that do not comply with a proposed duty to set out a plan to narrow their gender pay gap. Measures to curb zero-hours contracts must be very precisely set out in regulations “as soon as possible” to give employers legal certainty and to prevent avoidance by engaging agency labour or nominally self-employed contractors instead, the committee said. It added that the Bill lacks provisions to ensure the proposed Fair Work Agency is...

Original news Mrs S ( CAS-56106- J4K1)– 23 October 2024.. Summary The Deputy Pensions Ombudsman has upheld the complaint only in part, in relation to a delay in issuing a retirement illustration arising from the member’s redundancy. There was no financial loss to the complainant. She ought not to have declined an alternative role before seeing the retirement figures and fully considering them. Even so, the lag in sending the illustration amounted to maladministration and caused distress. The case underlines the need for schemes to provide information promptly to members, especially where significant decisions are in play and being considered. What were the facts? Mrs S was a member of the East Sussex Pension Fund within the Local Government Pension Scheme (the Scheme). The Scheme was administered by Swale Academies Trust ( SAT). On redundancy, the Scheme paid an unreduced pension, but it did not augment...

Government response— Making Work Pay: Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay What are the implications? The change to the method by which SSP is calculated will: benefit a number of lower-paid workers in particular result in an additional cost to employers, albeit relatively small in most instances The government considers setting SSP at 80% to be the right balance, shielding those on lower incomes from financial hardship and better enabling people to take the time off they need to recover, when they are unwell, which can also help stop the spread of infections and cut the overall rate of sickness absence. These changes will apply across England, Wales and Scotland......

Employment Rights Bill, As Amended ( Amendment Paper) Employment Rights Bill— Stages What are the implications? The Amendment Paper sets out, as at 4 March 2025, the amendments that have been tabled for debate at the report stage. For now, there are no immediate implications, because it is not yet known which of these proposals, if any, will be accepted and translated into revisions to the ERB. Even so, the suggested changes offer those following the bill’s passage a helpful early steer—an advance notice—of adjustments that could still find their way into this significant item of employment legislation in due course, should they progress......

Mergers The Commission approved the acquisition for the exclusive control of Teka Industrial, S. A. by Midea Group Co. Ltd...

Societa Italiana Lastre Sp A: Request for a preliminary ruling from the Cour de cassation ( France) lodged on 22 August 2023— Societa Italiana Lastre Sp A v Agora , Case C-537/23 In a nutshell—reinforced legal certainty but questions remain The court held that asymmetric jurisdiction clauses are to be assessed by reference to the autonomous framework in Article 25 of Regulation ( EU) 1215/2012 (the Brussels I (recast) Regulation), rather than under Member States’ national laws, and confirmed their effectiveness where the clause can be interpreted as designating courts within EU or Lugano States. This development dispels several prior uncertainties, in particular those arising from the shifting case law of the French Supreme Court. The finer points of the ruling and any practical consequences—especially the requirement that the clause be read as designating courts of EU or Lugano States—call for closer analysis;...

Summary The Pensions Ombudsman has upheld in part a complaint concerning a Guaranteed Minimum Pension ( GMP) equalisation project. It found the scheme had not been unduly slow in progressing the GMP equalisation. The matters were intricate, with a dedicated working group supported by professional advisers. Nonetheless, the complainant suffered upset because the scheme broke a promise to keep him informed and did not provide updates. The decision underlines the need for schemes to be careful and consistent in their communications with members. Overall, delay was not upheld, but poor communication was. What were the facts? Mr N previously belonged to the Volkswagen Group Pension Scheme (the Scheme). In 1991, he moved his accrued Scheme benefits, including his GMP, out of the Scheme......

PMC (a child by his mother and litigation friend FLR) v A Local Health Board [2025] EWCA Civ 176 What are the practical implications of this case? Until the substantive ruling in PMC v A Local Health Board, the landscape was unhelpfully unclear. Anyone weighing up whether to pursue an anonymity order, and on what basis, had to navigate a binding Court of Appeal authority— JXMX v Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust [2015] EWCA Civ 96—alongside a model order (court form PF10) that had drawn strong criticism from Mr Justice Nicklin. That criticism triggered a White Book note stating, in essence, that the identified errors in PF10 warranted urgent review and revision by the Civil Procedure Rules Committee. It further cautioned practitioners to heed Nicklin J’s guidance and handle the draft with care. The practical upshot was that both applicants and judges dealing with...

Original news Mr R ( CAS-54306- K6B1) – 26 October 2024. Summary The Pensions Ombudsman dismissed a complaint concerning a scheme’s delay in crystallising pension benefits during a transfer, which the member argued caused higher-rate tax on future withdrawals and used more of his lifetime allowance than would otherwise have been necessary. Although the delay was held to be maladministration, responsibility for tax liabilities arising from subsequent crystallisation events did not fall on either the transferring or the receiving scheme. In addition, any loss he said he suffered was offset by growth in his fund over the period, which produced a larger tax-free lump sum and, in total, a lower tax bill. This decision is a reminder that a professional will not be accountable for every loss flowing from a breach of duty... What were the facts? ......

See Q& A: Where a law firm represents a consumer client and an individual acts as guarantor by giving a personal guarantee for that client’s legal fees, does that guarantee fall within any statutory or regulatory requirements? Key legal issues for guarantees A guarantee is a contract and must therefore satisfy the four essential elements: offer acceptance consideration an intention to create legal relations As a general rule, past consideration will ordinarily not suffice. A firm should avoid obtaining a guarantee once it has already agreed to supply services to the client. The guarantee must also comply with section 4 of the Statute of Frauds (1677), meaning it must be in writing and signed by the guarantor. The firm should be mindful of potential allegations of misrepresentation, duress, and undue influence. It is also prudent practice to ensure the guarantor receives...