Legal News

Antitrust High Court upholds CMA’s judicial review against CAT’s ruling on search warrants at domestic premises; High Court confirms the CMA’s right to raid domestic premises In R ( CMA) v CAT, the High Court delivered judgment on the CMA’s application for judicial review of the CAT’s 12 October 2023 decision, which had refused to issue a warrant authorising entry and search of domestic premises for the purposes of an investigation under section 25 of the Competition Act 1998 (the CAT’s 2023 ruling). For background, that 2023 decision did, however, grant three warrants to search business premises in relation to an investigation into suspected anti‑competitive conduct in the supply of construction chemical admixtures. The CAT held that the mere existence of a suspected clandestine cartel was enough to infer a likelihood of document destruction at business locations, whereas, for residential premises, further evidence...

Additional developments Alongside the items featured in full in the Financial Services news feed on 22 April 2024, subscribers may wish to note the following further updates: FCA: Decision Notice: SPS Dental Sales Limited IA updates Smaller Companies sectors definitions Bo E: Not-so-private questions − speech by Nathanaël Benjamin FCA seeks members for its advisory committee on secondary markets Bo E: Not-so-private questions − speech by Nathanaël Benjamin FCA seeks members for its advisory committee on secondary markets UK Finance issues report to facilitate commercial Variable Recurring Payments FCA: Decision Notice: Sky Blue Financial Services Ltd As well as our daily and weekly news alerts, Financial Services subscribers can choose to receive intraday alerts at midday and again at the end of the day, delivering real-time summaries of the latest financial services...

The Association of British Insurers ( ABI) cautioned that the Department of Work and Pensions’ plan to reshape the PPF into a public sector consolidator could bring needless meddling into a market that already works effectively for trustees of every size. Yvonne Braun, the ABI’s director of long-term savings, said that although a public consolidator is meant to take on only pension schemes that are not commercially sustainable, this accounts for just a small minority of schemes. She added that underfunded schemes lacking a strong employer covenant should be the core focus for any public sector consolidator, helping to ensure the broader market is not weakened......

Corporate Rescue and Insolvency The April 2024 edition of Corporate Rescue and Insolvency can now be accessed in Lexis +® UK (subscription required). This issue features the following articles: headwinds for the shipping industry and the global economy? The impact of the Red Sea conflict (2024) 2 CRI 43 by Nick Austin, partner, Linton Bloomberg, partner, Colin Cochraine, senior associate and Alicia Cranston, trainee solicitor at Reed Smith Adler restructuring plan overturned: fair's fair?......

R ( Low Carbon Solar Park 6 Ltd v (1) Secretary of State for Levelling Up Housing and Communities (2) Uttlesford District Council [2024] EWHC 770 ( Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? An inspector deciding a planning application under the TCPA 1990, s 62A may, by virtue of reg 6 of the Town and Country Planning ( Section 62A Applications) Written Representations and Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations 2013 ( SI 2013/2142), decline to take account of any representations or material lodged after the representation period has closed. If an inspector does this, the issue is whether it amounts to procedural unfairness. HHJ Jarman restated the orthodox position that fairness is a fact-sensitive concept, dependent on the specific circumstances of each case. On the facts here, the inspector’s choice not to consider the claimant’s rebuttal statement did not result in...

On 3 April 2024, TPO informed Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee—via a letter subsequently published on 17 April 2024—that it has finalised 164 scam-related cases since March 2021. MPs are assessing what insights can be taken from the Norton pension scams. ‘ Protecting members from scams, holding offenders to account, and pursuing redress for members is of significant importance, and our distinctive powers as an ombudsman mean we are well placed to secure justice for victims,’ wrote Dominic Harris of TPO to the committee. Stuart Garner, the former proprietor of Norton Motorcycles, received a suspended custodial sentence in March 2022 for illegally......

Largely, these changes extend the so‑called productive finance push the chancellor has backed since summer 2023, alongside efforts to lift outcomes for defined contribution ( DC) pension savers through the value for money ( VFM) framework and the lifetime provider model. The strands are closely connected, and the legal and operational issues for pensions professionals run across all three. Although further specifics are awaited, it is already evident that trustees and providers will have to fundamentally rework their investment approach and the way they prove they are securing good outcomes for pension savers. Productive finance In recent years, successive chancellors have proposed ways to spur pension schemes to back investment in Britain, yet such blueprints have typically lacked substance. The current chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, appears to have embraced the agenda in full. In summer 2023 he set out proposals to accelerate...

EU regulators tabled an inducement ban — preventing asset managers from paying financial advisers to push particular investment products — within the retail investment strategy, designed to place consumers’ interests at the heart of retail investing. The limited ban would have covered non-advised services, meaning products people buy without any financial advice. Yet the plan drew strong opposition from several national governments. In a document viewed by MLex, Belgium stated it wouldn’t be possible to reach agreement on a partial ban, and introduced substantial alterations to the draft now under discussion in the Council of the EU......

Original news Ms E ( CAS-50008- T7M8)—17 December 2023 Summary The Pensions Ombudsman ( PO) upheld a complaint requiring a pension scheme to provide redress after it wrongly advised a member that his partner would receive a survivor’s pension. Relying on that incorrect assurance, the member decided not to marry his partner. The PO found that, had he been accurately informed that survivor’s pensions are not available to unmarried partners, he would have chosen to marry so that she qualified for a survivor’s pension. In upholding the complaint, the PO concluded that the scheme should grant redress for the misleading statement. The determination illustrates that, in some situations, false statements can give rise to legal redress. What were the facts? Ms E’s partner ( Mr N) was a pensioner member of the Local Government Pension Scheme (the Scheme). Terminally ill, and shortly before his death, Mr N asked the...

What has changed? Spring, customarily the season of optimism and fresh growth, has instead this year delivered sponsoring employers in the UK a suite of immigration rule revisions intended to sharply curb overall numbers. The headline alterations are tougher salary benchmarks for sponsored workers, adoption of the Standard Occupational Classification 2020 framework, and the substitution of the Shortage Occupation List with a much slimmer Immigration Salary List. All three associated pay rates rose on 4 April 2024. These reforms target salary levels, update occupation coding to SOC 2020, and replace the former Shortage Occupation List with a leaner Immigration Salary List. For standard new Skilled Worker applications, the headline minimum salary rose from £26,200 to £38,700 gross per annum; the minimum hourly figure increased from £10.75 to £15.88; and the occupation “going rate” shifted from the 25th percentile in the Annual Survey of Hours and...

The German e-commerce company was labelled a VLOP a year back, together with platforms such as Facebook, You Tube and Tik Tok. Roughly 20 services have to date been identified as VLOPs, placing them under the toughest obligations. It further means they fall under direct commission enforcement, and they are required to pay a levy that funds the commission’s policing of the rules. The bar for being named a VLOP is at least 45 million average monthly users. The commission stated last year that Zalando counts 83 million, a figure the company is challenging at the EU’s lower-tier General Court, arguing it wrongly captures visitors to its retail operation. Zalando has since submitted a new legal action at the General Court. The latest filing, entered on 15 April 2024, relates to the method by which the commission has computed Zalando’s...

Note: the CPRC has stopped issuing the background papers alongside the minutes; therefore, this News Analysis is not accompanied by documents elucidating the discussions. A copy of the minutes is available here: Minutes of the CPR Committee meeting. Welcome, action log and matters arising (item 1) The Chair reported the appointment of His Honour Judge Hywel James and Master Lisa Sullivan to the Committee. Approval was given to the minutes of the 2 February 2023 meeting (see News Analysis: Minutes of the CPR Committee meeting—2 February 2024). The following points arose that were not dealt with under subsequent items: court documents ( UKSC Cape v Dring) consultation: this closed on 8 April 2024, with a proposal to return the issue for discussion at the May 2024 meeting Standard Disclosure in Workplace Claims— Annex C to the Pre- Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims: HHJ Jarman KC...

FSCS reported that men accounted for four in every five complaints it handled. Of the 43,000 individuals who lodged claims for losses, 95% were aged between 45 and 75. ' The impact on people's pensions evident within our claims is very significant and has severe consequences for thousands of people every year,' said Martyn Beauchamp, interim chief executive at FSCS......

What are the practical implications of this case? The key takeaway for local authorities is to ensure that relevant policy documents are reviewed at intervals so they keep pace with shifts in legislation and guidance, and to update policies so those developments are clearly mirrored. Westminster’s policy contained no express reference to the PSED. The judgment reaffirmed Lord Justice Mc Combe’s observations in R ( Bracking) [2013], All ER ( D) 75 ( Nov), namely that the PSED imposes a significant obligation on public authorities and sits at the centre of policy-making. It follows that explicit recognition of the PSED within policy texts is essential. The shortcomings extended further: the policy, introduced in 1990, failed to acknowledge numerous pertinent and more recent changes in statutory guidance. Where a policy confers discretion—and that will often be the case—it is essential that internal or published guidance is...

Original news Mr H ( CAS-83901- H1T3)—23 October 2023 Summary The Deputy PPFO has dismissed a complaint alleging the PPF’s reconsideration committee erred by declining to apply increases to pensions earned before 1997. Statutory PPF compensation parameters, as prescribed, are unequivocal and make no allowance for such uprating. The complaint did not fall within the Equality Act 2010 ( Eq A 2010) because any purported discrimination arose under the Pensions Act 2004 ( PA 2004). Moreover, no cause of action existed under retained EU law, given that the complaint was brought after the conclusion of the EU withdrawal transition period. Consequently, the challenge failed and the refusal to apply pre-1997 increases stood as decided under the legislation......

Lloyd’s Insurance Co SA and Arch Insurance ( EU) DAC stated, in a High Court defence made public on 8 April 2024, that their policies with Nord Stream AG exclude cover for explosion damage to the two pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to Europe. According to Lloyd’s and Arch, the September 2022 detonation of explosive devices was connected to the continuing war in Ukraine, and losses arising from war fall outside the terms agreed with Nord Stream. The defence contends that the blast damage was, whether directly or indirectly, brought about by, occurred through, or resulted from the Russia– Ukraine conflict that began on or about 24 February 2022, and therefore falls within the meanings of “war”, “invasion”, “hostilities” and/or “military… power”. On that basis, the insurers say the losses are not covered and the claimant has no...

Allowing the board to order new inquiries, as happened in a case involving Meta, is at odds with the purpose of the GDPR, Brian Kennelly, representing the Irish Data Protection Commission ( DPC), told the court. He contended that this would plainly erode the one-stop-shop — the framework that assigns a lead data protection authority based on a company’s main EU base. If other authorities, acting through the board, could compel the lead to rework every element of its probe, the lead regulator’s authority and effectiveness would be seriously undermined. He also warned of concrete risks to procedural fairness and likely challenges by the company concerned which, if upheld, could jeopardise and prejudice the investigation in its entirety... The board is the umbrella organisation for EU data protection authorities and resolves disputes between members when they cannot agree on outcomes in...

The EU General Court has affirmed a decision by the European Intellectual Property Office ( EUIPO) refusing to register Escobar’s name as a trade mark for Escobar Inc, a holding firm owned by the late Colombian drug lord’s family. It sided with the EUIPO’s Fifth Board of Appeal that, although he was never criminally convicted in Colombian, American or European courts, the Spanish public regard him as ‘an offensive symbol of organised crime causing a great deal of suffering’. The decision added that ‘the fact that Pablo Escobar had never been criminally convicted... did not prejudice the fact that, in view of the image created by literature and films, he was nevertheless perceived... as the leader of a criminal organisation responsible for numerous crimes’. Escobar Inc — a company......

Practice Note: Preferences under section 239 of the Insolvency Act 1986 Refer to the Practice Note covering preferences under section 239 of the Insolvency Act 1986 for guidance. For a summary on such claims, see the following: Claims by an insolvent estate or its insolvency office-holder—overview......

Original news Mr Y ( CAS-94719- B9L5)—1 November 2023 Summary The PO dismissed a challenge regarding the distribution of a portion of a scheme surplus to the employer when the fund was wound up. The trustees followed the scheme provisions correctly, weighed pertinent considerations and did not arrive at an irrational outcome or act perversely. The PO’s decision underlines that dislodging a trustee’s discretionary judgement requires meeting a very stringent threshold. What were the facts? Mr Y was a member of the CCHT Pension Fund (the Scheme). Under the Scheme rules, trustees held discretion on a winding-up to use some or all of any surplus to enhance members’ benefits, with any remaining balance to be returned to the employers......