Legal News

Minutes from an internal meeting issued this week state that the EBA intends to create a new Crypto- Assets Standing Committee to 'support the development of EBA decisions concerning its supervisory responsibilities'......

Mergers CMA unconditionally approves T& L Sugars/ Tereos merger after phase 2 The CMA published the final report from its phase 2 inquiry into the expected purchase by T& L Sugars Limited ( TLS) of the UK packaging and distribution site and business-to-consumer ( B2C) operations (the Target) of Tereos United Kingdom and Ireland Limited, from Tereos SCA ( Tereos)......

The Court of Appeal refused the SFO leave to challenge a 2022 judgment which concluded that officials had unlawfully liaised with Neil Gerrard, the former head of white-collar investigations at Dechert, to make unauthorised disclosures about his internal inquiry into Eurasian Natural Resources Corp ( ENRC). The outcome is a setback for the SFO, which will have to pay ENRC millions of pounds in damages for wasted expenditure and legal fees in the short term, and faces the possibility of a colossal damages bill for launching its abortive criminal investigation. “ We are disappointed by the Court of Appeal’s decision,” a spokesperson for the SFO said. “ Any damages awarded are subject to ongoing proceedings.” In the judgment, Justice Stephen Males said the SFO’s appeal disputed factual matters that would be best determined by the judge following exhaustive evidence heard across two trials. High Court...

The European Commission intends to reassess the measures, as their present level may no longer be adequate to effectively counter Chinese dumping and distortive subsidies. The EU has kept punitive steps in force on the product, used to reinforce thermoplastic and thermoset resins in the composites industry, since 2011, when dumping duties of up to 13.8% were initially introduced......

Manolete Partners plc v Mohammed and others [2024] EWHC 2053 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? The case offers practical direction on directors’ statutory obligations under sections 171–174 of the Companies Act 2006 ( CA 2006). It reinforces the consequences for the validity of distributions where a company’s accounts fail to satisfy statutory requirements and do not present a true and fair picture of its financial condition. It also serves as a clear warning to directors of trading businesses about the risks of not maintaining management accounts and of failing to remain properly informed about current and forecast finances. In this instance, the directors took minimal interest in the company’s genuine trading position and did not rely on dependable methods to assess its present or future financial standing. They treated corporate assets as available for personal ends and made...

Swire Shipping Pte Ltd v Ace Exim Pte Ltd [2024] SGHC 211 What are the practical implications of this case? The decision clarifies indications in prior authorities that a plainly incoherent award can be set aside where the incoherence reveals the tribunal failed to comprehend or address the dispute before it, thereby depriving the parties of a fair hearing. The judge emphasised that ‘manifest incoherence’ is merely a signpost rather than an end in itself. What matters is whether that incoherence brings the dispute within one of the statutory bases for setting an award aside. Put briefly, the fact that a tribunal’s reasoning appears illogical is not, by itself, a distinct basis to challenge an award, unless the incoherence demonstrates that the tribunal overstepped its jurisdiction, breached natural justice, or departed from the agreed arbitral procedure, and the like......

Insolvency, revenue law, and civil procedure ( The Commissioners for HMRC v Payroll & Pension Services ( PPS Umbrella Company) Ltd) Revenue and Customs Commissioners v Payroll & Pension Services ( PPS Umbrella Company) Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 995 What are the practical implications of this case? Before this ruling, first-instance decisions had split along two paths: one held that HMRC was discharging a public interest or law-enforcement role and so need not provide any cross-undertaking in damages; the other treated HMRC, for these purposes, as no different from a creditor enforcing a debt, requiring a cross-undertaking as the price of the order. The Court of Appeal confirmed the latter strand is right. Because appointing provisional liquidators can have a catastrophic impact on a company’s business, if such relief is wrongly obtained the company now has at least some assurance that it may pursue the...

An Upper Tribunal bench of three concluded that Murtaza Imran Ashraf’s prior conduct — comprising procedural failings and insufficient openness — warranted the FCA’s March 2023 refusal of authorisation. The panel said these behaviours lay at the very heart of the case. Judge Mark Baldwin, who chaired the panel, recorded in the written decision that Ashraf accepted he bypassed the complete advice process in roughly ten instances, as he had not waited for the claimability letter to be pre-approved, and had instead shown clients a shorter summary of his recommendation and asked them to sign a standalone declaration page taken from a claimability letter. Those matters, the tribunal held, were central to issues before it......

Mergers Illumina/ Grail saga: Court of Justice confirms below threshold transaction cannot be referred to the Commission under Article 22 EUMR The Court of Justice delivered its judgment in Joined Cases C‑611/22 P, Illumina v Commission, and C‑625/22 P, Grail v Commission and Illumina, addressing appeals against the General Court’s judgment in Case T‑227/21, which had rejected an action to annul the Commission’s decision of 19 April 2021. That decision accepted a referral request under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation ( EUMR) in connection with Illumina, Inc.’s acquisition of GRAIL, Inc. ( M.10188) (the Commission’s 2021 decision). Following Advocate General Emilou’s opinion of 21 March 2024, the Court of Justice set aside the General Court’s judgment and annulled the Commission’s 2021 decision. By way of context, the Illumina/ Grail transaction did not meet merger notification thresholds under either national or EU merger...

According to Giles Thomson, the head of financial sanctions at OFSI, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation agency will impose its first monetary penalties for a breach of measures targeting Russian elites and their enablers at some point before the end of the year. Speaking at an economic crime conference in Cambridge, in eastern England, Thomson said that the sanction would be pursued via the authority’s civil recovery powers. He did not make clear whether the case relates to a business or a private person. The official described the move as the outcome of complex investigations undertaken since the invasion of Ukraine, over that period......

Upper Tribunal allows HMRC IR35 appeal ( HMRC v S& L Barnes Ltd) HMRC v S& L Barnes Ltd [2024] UKUT 262 ( TCC) The company arranged for B to deliver services to a variety of media organisations, among them the Times, the Sunday Times and multiple broadcasters. The appeal focused on two agreements spanning 2013 to 2019, under which the company supplied B’s services to Sky TV. Revenue from these engagements accounted for roughly 60% of the company’s takings, with most of the remainder arising from newspaper column work. The FTT applied the three-limb test from Ready Mixed Concrete ( South East) Ltd v Minister of Pensions and National Insurance [1968] 2 QB 497 to the hypothetical agreement between Sky and B. Both parties accepted that the first two limbs—mutuality of obligation and control—were met, leaving the third limb as the principal point in...

The Court of Justice stated that the Commission is not permitted to examine transactions referred by national competition authorities in the EU where there is no European link and the deals fail to meet domestic value thresholds. Handing down its judgment, the Court underlined that notification thresholds are a vital safeguard for predictability and legal certainty for undertakings. Businesses must be able to establish with ease whether a planned transaction requires a preliminary review and, if so, which authority will handle it and under what procedural rules. Responding to the ruling, Margrethe Vestager, Vice- President of the Commission, observed that some transactions falling short of EU notification thresholds may still pose risks to competition within Europe. She added that the Commission will consider next steps to ensure it can scrutinise the limited number of cases where a deal could affect Europe but does not...

CNO Plant Hire Ltd v Caldwell Construction Ltd [2024] EWHC 2188 ( TCC) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling spotlights the boundaries on using set-off at the enforcement stage. The main practical points are: Adjudication enforcement The court reaffirmed that adjudicators’ decisions should usually be enforced promptly and summarily, despite factual or legal errors, provided the adjudicator had jurisdiction and there was no breach of natural justice It again confirms adjudication’s speed and effectiveness as a construction dispute tool, helping to keep cash flow uninterrupted Set-off restrictions The judgment makes clear that set-off against an adjudicator’s decision will not be permitted unless strict conditions are satisfied If set-off is sought based on a counter-adjudication decision, separate enforcement proceedings must be commenced, highlighting the need for a careful legal strategy where multiple adjudications arise Jurisdiction...

What are the practical implications of the case? The immediate takeaways hardly need emphasis: tribunals must resist copying-and-pasting wholesale from earlier awards or parties’ submissions, and they should invite the parties to address any propositions and authorities that the tribunal knows it may deploy in its award. Further, caution is advised when appointing the same arbitrator to multiple unconsolidated references—whether running in parallel or one after another—simply to capitalise on their familiarity with the subject matter. Where counsel are not common across all proceedings, there is a real danger that at least one party remains unaware of what the tribunal has been told, and the tribunal, or the shared arbitrator, may struggle to keep facts and arguments properly compartmentalised. As International Judge Simon Thorley observed, while such mental quarantining might be theoretically achievable, it is laden with difficulty. In this instance, the...

DFL Ltd & another v Koncar Generators and Motors Ltd 2024 INSC 593, Supreme Court of India What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling underscores the importance of managing exposure to currency volatility throughout enforcement. For commercial lawyers, it is essential to counsel clients to embed precise currency provisions within their agreements, so as to avert difficulties triggered by interpretations under domestic law. Doing so ensures the parties’ chosen currency terms take precedence over statutory mechanisms, delivering certainty and lowering the likelihood of disputes. The judgment sets out clear guidance for practitioners on fixing the exchange rate for assessing claims, thereby averting unnecessary litigation. For arbitration practitioners, the court confirms that a foreign arbitral award becomes enforceable once challenges are conclusively determined. This bears upon how advisers direct clients on the timing of deposits and withdrawals during enforcement...

Riley and another v National Westminster Bank plc [2024] EWCA Civ 833 What are the practical implications of this case? This judgment carries significance for practitioners for these reasons: It indicates that fraud does not invariably undo everything; there are equally weighty policy grounds supporting the enforcement of settlements. Where a party has concluded a settlement in a personal capacity, issuing a later claim as an assignee or in some representative guise does not, without more, prevent the settlement terms from biting. If such complications may arise, the prudent course could be for the would-be assignee to refrain from taking an assignment at all......

Su Carpenter, an Executive Director at Crypto UK, said members remain keen to seek Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) registration, yet feedback from organisations that have completed the process suggests it can be a strong deterrent. Freedom of Information Act figures obtained by law firm Reed Smith show the regulator received just 29 applications between May 2023 and April 2024, compared with 42 and 59 in the two preceding years. She noted that submitting an application is a major undertaking in terms of resources, involving people and finances. Many still wish to, and plan to, apply, but there has been a great deal of regulatory......

Although many firms have largely concentrated on rolling out the Consumer Duty so far, the real work of adherence is only just getting under way. The Financial Conduct Authority ( FCA) has consistently emphasised that meeting the duty is not a one-off, tick-box exercise. It is intended to embed a lasting shift in corporate culture, placing customers at the centre of operations and striving to deliver good outcomes that matter as much to the firm as profitability. Firms must now plan for the continuous activity required to stay compliant with the duty and to keep meeting the regulator's expectations. Continued implementation Although the deadline has passed, businesses should remain focused on finishing any residual implementation tasks, and treat this as a leading priority. Closed books bring particular complications that may not have arisen when applying the duty to new or currently open products and...

Advocacy group the Alliance for Insurance Reform urged government action after a study showed increasing numbers of claimants opting to receive personal injury settlements via a statutory body instead of pursuing formal court proceedings. The Personal Injuries Resolution Board was strengthened last year as part of a broader national reform programme specifically aimed at reducing the spiralling cost of insurance for policyholders. ‘ Although the government’s reform programme seems to yield savings for insurers, it is failing liability policyholders — including businesses, sports, community and voluntary organisations — who are still experiencing rising premiums across the board,’ said Tracy Sheridan, a member of the alliance......

In the wake of the ruling, compulsory mediation was brought into the UK civil justice framework for small claims. The Civil Procedure Rule Committee ( CPRC) launched a consultation to gather views on the courts’ authority to require ADR, and the Civil Mediation Council ( CMC) introduced a new board to set mediation standards. Here, we examine these developments and what they signal for ADR’s future. Mandatory ADR and the courts The Court of Appeal’s decision in James Churchill v Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council confirmed that the English courts can direct parties to participate in ADR. The case arose after James Churchill found Japanese knotweed in his garden. The defendant local authority acknowledged treating knotweed on neighbouring land but denied liability for its encroachment onto Churchill’s property, instead pointing him to the authority’s internal complaints process. Churchill chose to commence...