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Lucasfilm did not benefit in any way at Tyburn Film Productions Ltd's expense, counsel said to the appeals court there on 3 December 2025, in part because it already possessed rights over Cushing's likeness and an agreement and consent from the Cushing estate to 'resurrect' him as Grand Moff Tarkin. Tyburn contends it earlier made an agreement with the late actor then, at the time, granting the company a veto over any use of his image prior to his 1994 death. That contract concerns a TV series titled 'Heritage of Horror', which never aired. Tyburn further asserts the deal permits it to effectively 'resurrect' Cushing using stand-ins and CGI to ultimately finish the programme then if the actor were to die whilst filming remained in progress...
Irish telecom operator Eircom’s damages lawsuit against BT Group over a public-sector contract must be carefully managed to trial to deal with confidentiality issues and other matters, a UK judge told the parties today. At the High Court in London today, a judge said Eircom’s damages action against BT over a public-sector contract needs tight case management through to trial to address confidentiality and related concerns. Eircom brought the claim after Ofcom in 2020 penalised BT for its behaviour during a tender. Speaking to both sides, Judge Adam Johnson urged them to resolve any confidentiality flashpoints themselves and signalled he had no wish to step in unless it became unavoidable. He also expressed confidence that parties would do everything possible to keep confidential designations to a minimum, noting this was necessary to maintain control over the conduct of the trial. He framed this as the
The following document is attached: Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/274 dated 5 February 2026, revising Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1981, establishing a final anti-dumping levy on imports of ceramic tableware and kitchenware produced in...
Justice Richard Arnold granted AstraZeneca leave to appeal and permitted lorries carrying about 175,000 packs of Glenmark’s generics to move on to wholesalers, provided they did not reach pharmacy shelves while the case continued at any point during those interim proceedings. In this way, Glenmark could keep its first-to-market advantage, while causing only minimal detriment to AstraZeneca should the Court of Appeal later be persuaded to issue an injunction against supply. The judge said this approach maintained the status quo with the least possible prejudice to Glenmark’s position overall. The hearing was arranged at short notice, just days after the High Court refused AstraZeneca an injunction to block the diabetes generic from sale while the court considered whether the patents supporting the branded medicine were valid in law. Glenmark, Generics (UK) Ltd and Teva Pharmaceuticals have each begun proceedings in the UK to set...
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Gazi v Mc Kenzie [2024] EWHC 2103 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? Executors frequently become embroiled in wrangles between competing beneficiaries concerning the deceased’s assets, the rights to them, and their distribution. Yet, as this judgment demonstrates, the dispute can swiftly swell far beyond the real monetary value at issue. In such circumstances executors must take great care, especially when legal expenses start to mount while attempting to resolve the problem and complete the estate’s administration. The law provides several avenues to shield executors in scenarios like this; the appropriate safeguard will ultimately depend on the particular questions that arise and on the respective positions of the parties. Proportionality therefore matters, and unchecked contention risks eclipsing the estate’s limited stakes and rapidly depleting resources through avoidable expenditure. Although executors may view the situation as...
In this issue Practice and procedure Domestic abuse Lex Talk®Family: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts Updated content New client guide New flowcharts New Q& As Useful information Practice and procedure Revised family proceedings reporting pilot guidance has been issued by the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew Mc Farlane, with the Transparency Implementation Group, replacing the January 2023 guidance. See: LNB News 20/09/2024 34. The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary confirms the Family Mediation Council and the Family Justice Council have produced an updated version of the Family Mediation in England and Wales guidance for judges, magistrates, legal advisers and court staff, following April 2024 changes to the Family Procedure Rules 2010, SI 2010/2955, Pt 3. The updated guidance is available here. The Supreme Court Rules 2024, SI...
In this issue Employment taxes Stamp and transfer taxes Taxes management and litigation Individuals and income tax Daily and weekly news alerts Dates for your diary Trackers New and updated content Useful information Employment taxes As covered in last week’s Tax weekly highlights, in Aramark [2024] UKFTT 832 ( TC) the First-tier Tax Tribunal ( FTT) determined that the appellant was required to account for employer’s National Insurance contributions under the ‘host employer’ provisions within the Social Security ( Categorisation of Earners) Regulations, SI 1978/1689, Sch 3 para 9, as they operated before 6 April 2014. See News Analysis: FTT upholds HMRC’s application of NIC host employer provisions ( Aramark v HMRC). Also noted in last week’s Tax weekly highlights, in Professional Game Match Officials Ltd ( PGMOL) [2024] UKSC 29, the Supreme Court concluded that mutuality and control were sufficient to render referees’ contracts ones of employment, but remitted the matter to the FTT to...
In this issue: Cybersecurity Public sector information Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Cybersecurity UN backs Pact for the Future with Global Digital Compact The United Nations ( UN) has approved the Pact for the Future, together with its annex, the Global Digital Compact, marking the first worldwide accord to oversee international rules for artificial intelligence ( AI)......
In this issue: Housing Building regulations Developments of national significance/infrastructure consents in Wales Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Related Documents Housing MHCLG publishes policy paper on brownfield passports. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government ( MHCLG) has released a policy paper on ‘brownfield passports’. It outlines plans to maximise clarity and certainty around making best use of urban land, with further changes to policy at national and/or local level covering the principle, scale and form of development in different locations. Framed as a ‘brownfield passport’, policy would set clear parameters for brownfield schemes which, if satisfied, act as accepted indicators of suitability, making approval the default and accelerating decisions. The passport is intended to reduce the risk, cost and uncertainty of obtaining planning permission. These proposals sit within the...
Some suppliers have already chosen to stop supplying the EU, and, for now, we do not have the legal clarity to place goods on the market, Pitts said, adding that the consequences of those moves may become evident soon. The regulation will start to apply at the end of 2024. It will require producers and traders of key goods such as wood, cattle and soy, and derivatives including paper and furniture, to demonstrate through geolocation tracking that products are not sourced from land that was recently deforested. How it works It establishes three tiers of deforestation risk, based on countries’ deforestation and forest degradation rates, the expansion of agricultural land, and production trends for the affected commodities. Authorities will audit: 9% of producers and traders supplying these products from high-risk countries 3% from standard-risk countries 1% from low-risk...
In this issue: Probate Trusts Court of Protection UK taxes for Private Client HMRC Manuals updates Tax avoidance, evasion and non-compliance Contentious trusts and estates Pensions, insurance and tax efficient investments International Question of the week Additional Private Client updates this week Daily and weekly news alerts Lex Talk®Private Client: a Lexis+® community New and updated content Dates for your diary Trackers Latest Q& As Useful information Probate HMRC updates form IHT400 HMRC has released a revised IHT400, the form used to apply for probate ( England and Wales) or confirmation ( Scotland) where inheritance tax is payable, or where the estate is not an ‘excepted estate’. A new note at page 15 explains that once HMRC has processed the IHT400, it will issue an...
For years, the firms have sparred over who should foot the bill for data traffic. Matters escalated in May 2023 when a Cologne court held that their contract must be honoured, obliging Meta to pay Deutsche Telekom roughly €20m for 'data transport services'. It also requires Meta to cover future charges for direct interconnection. Meta has maintained it should fall under a no‑cost 'peering' arrangement and owe Deutsche Telekom nothing. The German operator counters that Meta previously delivered its traffic over paid, direct links into its network. According to Deutsche Telekom, Meta halted those payments during the coronavirus ( COVID‑19) pandemic. The company then brought legal action demanding settlement. After months of discussions following the judgment, Meta opted to send its data via a transit provider into the network instead of using the former direct path. The ruling confirmed obligations between them. Meta...
In this issue: Building safety Adjudication Procurement in construction Contract law Construction industry news Daily and weekly news alerts Construction trackers Building safety The Grenfell Tower Inquiry phase 2 report—what are the key findings? The Grenfell Tower Inquiry released its phase 2 report on 4 September 2024, probing how a supposedly fire-resistant concrete block in 21st‑century London became a fatal inferno. It exposes a mesh of institutional and individual shortcomings that together led to the catastrophe, and sets out numerous proposals to prevent a recurrence. In a two-part overview, Theresa Mohammed, partner at Watson Farley & Williams, scrutinises the report and distils the key conclusions. Part 1 traces the historical backdrop to the fire, assessing the Inquiry’s findings on earlier significant blazes that should have alerted the construction sector, and the evolution of building regulations and fire testing,...
Aramark Ltd v HMRC [2024] UKFTT 832 ( TC) Aramark ( A), the appellant, was a company established in the UK within a group led by a US corporation. Its operations encompassed catering and hospitality support for offshore oil and gas installations located in the North Sea. It supplied personnel (the ‘crew’), goods, and equipment, including food provisions and housekeeping consumables, to the operators of those installations and, from 2004, it did this by drawing upon resources supplied by a non- UK group member company ( OSI). Pursuant to the arrangement between A and OSI, employees who had previously been directly engaged by the appellant to service the operators’ contracts were transferred to OSI. The commercial purpose was to remove the cost of secondary Class 1 NICs so that A remained competitive. The question for the FTT was whether the host employer...
Original news Mr Y ( CAS-86542– P8B6) – 25 June 2024 Summary The PO dismissed a complaint concerning a decision not to pay a member’s pension into a spouse’s bank account. The trustee acted reasonably, motivated by ensuring scheme benefits reached the rightful recipient. Nothing about the trustee’s decision was perverse or illogical. The PO’s decision indicates that, where a trustee’s aim is member protection, a finding of maladministration is improbable. The trustee’s stance sought to prevent misdirection of payments. Accordingly, the refusal was upheld by the PO. What were the facts? Mr Y belonged to the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (the Scheme)......
See Q& A: Can a beneficiary who is also a co-executor of a Will make a claim pursuant to section 14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, where the property has not been transferred into the names of the executors? Section 14 of the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 ( TOLATA 1996) concerns court applications for orders. It allows any trustee of land, or any individual with an interest in property held on a trust of land, to apply to the court for an order under this provision. On such an application, the court may make whatever order it considers appropriate: regarding the exercise of any trustee functions (including an order dispensing with any duty to obtain consent from, or to consult with, any person in connection with the exercise of those...
XPS Group XPS Group, the pensions and insurance adviser, reported that 51% of LGPS schemes lack a formal strategy to curb carbon emissions. Among those that have set goals, most are targeting net zero by 2050, aligning with global climate objectives. Yet, XPS found that only five of the 97 LGPS funds are working towards a swifter 2030 deadline. The consultancy said it examined all 97 LGPS funds across England, Wales and Scotland, together with the eight asset pools, reviewing their financial disclosures on activities connected to climate change or other responsible investment approaches. XPS added that “ LGPS funds have a responsibility to manage key investment risks associated with climate change, and that could include”......
Looking ahead to the concluding phase, this piece reviews the suggested implementation model, likely subsequent actions, and broader movements across the digital assets arena that could deliver stronger legal and market clarity for launching tokenised investment funds. In the end, the strategic roadmap sits within a wider UK programme to promote the adoption of distributed ledger technology ( DLT) and other disruptive tools in financial services. DLT-enabled tokenised investment funds At their core, tokenised funds are investment structures that issue digital, or token-based, shares reflecting an investor’s stake in the fund, instead of conventional units or shares. Dealings are captured on a distributed ledger rather than a traditional record-keeping platform. DLT is, fundamentally, a duplicated, shared, and synchronised register. Accordingly, tokenised fund operators may connect specific investors to assets while using a settlement layer that is secure, reliable, and capable of...
Introduction The Phase 2 report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, released on 4 September 2024 (the report), builds upon the analysis from Phase 1, centring on the devastating fire of 14 June 2017. While the first phase forensically charted what unfolded on the night itself, Phase 2 sought to explain how a concrete block, assumed to be fire-resistant in 21st-century London, could become a lethal inferno. The report sets out a series of institutional and individual shortcomings that, taken together, culminated in the tragedy. Over time, the panel’s composition changed, with new members and assessors appointed, ensuring a wide range of expertise and viewpoints informed the investigation. Phase 2 proceeded in a disciplined, methodical fashion, echoing Phase 1 to permit rigorous scrutiny. The Inquiry convened for 312 sitting days; hearings began in January 2020 but were intermittently halted by the...
New Risk & Compliance forecast as at 24 September 2024 Our Risk and Compliance forecast as at 24 September 2024 monitors anticipated regulatory shifts affecting risk and compliance, enabling you to prepare for developments that could impact your organisation and inform planning. Please examine it in detail, thoroughly and closely, yet several matters that ought to be on your radar are outlined below......
Uni Credit Bank Gmb H v Ruschemalliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30 [2024], All ER ( D) 34 ( Sep) What are the practical implications of this case? This decision underscores for practitioners the need to draft with precision so that the parties’ intention regarding the law governing any arbitration clause is unmistakable. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the approach in Enka Insaat Ve Sanayi AS v OOO Insurance Company Chubb [2020] UKSC 38, confirming the following: a contractual choice of law ordinarily extends to the arbitration clause within that contract, unless the parties have clearly provided otherwise, and that conclusion holds even where the designated seat of arbitration is in a jurisdiction with a different legal system Typical governing law provisions in finance documentation are usually drafted broadly enough to capture any arbitration agreement they contain. Here, the bonds’ governing law clause applied to the bonds...
Ephgrave, who will celebrate his first year in post on 25 September 2024, launched five fresh fraud inquiries in rapid order as he moved to recast the reputation of the white-collar agency after a run of headline failures. With the burst of openings now easing and the agency devoting time and resources to sifting evidence, white-collar specialists are asking if Ephgrave can sustain his early emphasis on swift action, pragmatism and consumer-protection matters. That concern is sharper while cross-border bribery and corruption investigations — by nature more intricate and slower — remain, for many white-collar practitioners, the blockbuster work the specialist prosecutor is singularly positioned to pursue. Louise Hodges, head of white-collar crime at Kingsley Napley LLP, said there is intense pressure on the SFO to prove itself in its stated mission as a specialist prosecuting authority targeting top-level serious or complex fraud,...
Market studies The CMA released an update on the conduct of its market probe into veterinary services for domestic pets and simultaneously amended its administrative timetable accordingly......
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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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