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R (Greyhound Board of Great Britain Ltd) v Welsh Ministers [2026] EWHC 670 (Admin) What are the practical implications of this case? The ruling reinforces the constitutional divide between the courts and the legislature. It explains that the scheme and framework of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (GWA 2006) embody that separation of powers, and that any judicial attempt to recognise and enforce a common law obligation on Welsh Ministers to consult prior to introducing legislation in the Senedd would trespass upon that boundary. This is not a departure from established principle; case law has already upheld comparable rules for lawmakers in Scotland and at Westminster. However, this is the first express confirmation of the position for Welsh lawmakers, and the first time this dimension of the GWA 2006 has been analysed in such depth. The court examined earlier
The solution arrived through the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), a quasi‑judicial body handling mass claims, created under UN Security Council Resolution 687. By addressing environmental harm—most notably via its ‘F4’ claim class—the UNCC set a seminal benchmark shaping how international law and contemporary arbitral panels allocate financial responsibility for wartime ecological devastation. With present-day wars in areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East bringing dam breaches, strikes on chemical facilities, and the burning of farmland, the UNCC’s legacy endures as an essential reference point for states, global investors, and companies engaged in post‑conflict arbitration. The F4 claims: Quantifying the unquantifiable Prior to the 1990s, mechanisms in international law for war reparations overwhelmingly favoured property loss, foregone earnings, and bodily injury. The natural world was commonly treated as a mute, non-compensable victim of armed hostilities...
Understanding the farming business as a business Many farms still use long-standing structures that arose by habit, not strategy. Sole traders, informal partnerships and outdated partnership deeds are common. While once effective, such setups can cause major issues around succession, tax planning and involving the next generation. A corporate team can take a fresh, business-led view of the farm, asking: Who owns the land and other critical assets? Who manages daily operations? Who carries the risk and who enjoys the return? What is the enduring plan for succession? From this review, the team can confirm whether the current setup is fit for purpose or if an alternative — for example an updated partnership agreement, a company, a limited liability partnership, or a blended model — would better meet the family’s aims. Tax efficiency through joined-up advice Tax sits at the centre of most
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The Society of Pension Professionals ( SPP) stated on 11 April 2024 that parts of the Pensions Regulator’s ( TPR) proposed statement of strategy rules risk being ‘unduly onerous’. In March 2024, TPR set out measures requiring trustees to explain, in additional documentation, how they intend to handle a scheme’s long‑term obligations via their investment approach, with the ultimate aim of achieving a position where the scheme depends only marginally on its sponsoring employer. However, commentators have subsequently cautioned about the practical challenges and expenses involved in implementation processes......
Antitrust CMA publishes technical update report regarding AI Foundation Models The CMA has issued a technical update on artificial intelligence ( AI) foundation models, complementing its 11 April 2024 paper from the initial inquiry into competition and consumer protection matters linked to the development and use of these models. In the March 2023 White Paper on AI regulation, the government asked regulators, including the CMA, to consider how innovative AI creation and deployment could be enabled. The CMA began its review in May 2023 and, by September 2023, released a report summarising the outcomes of that first stage......
See Q& A: How can the underlying beneficial owner of a company be verified to comply with obligations contained in the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 if there is no person with overall control of the company? Under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds ( Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 ( MLR 2017), SI 2017/692, as amended, it is recognised that, at times, the beneficial owner of a body corporate cannot, in practice, be identified. In such circumstances, you may regard the most senior individual within the body corporate who manages it as the beneficial owner, but only after exhausting every reasonable avenue and all possible means to identify the true owner and either (i) failing to find one, or (ii) being unconvinced that any person found is genuinely, in fact, the beneficial owner......
Barclays Bank plc v HMRC [2024] UKFTT 246 ( TC) On 21 March 2024, the FTT ( Judge Tracey Bowler and Mr John Woodman) ruled that Barclays Bank plc ( BBPLC) could not claim a corporation tax deduction arising from the issue of capital-raising debt instruments to the governments of Qatar and Abu Dhabi during the 2008 financial crisis, even though its audited financial statements recorded a corresponding loss. At present, it remains as yet uncertain whether BBPLC will lodge an appeal. Nonetheless, as matters stand, the FTT’s judgment neatly illustrates the principle that, in the words of Lord Justice David Richards in Union Castle Mail Steamship Co v HMRC [2020] EWCA Civ 547, Parliament has not ‘surrendered to accountants’ the task of determining taxable profits and allowable losses arising from (in this case) loan relationships. Richards LJ...
The Association of British Insurers ( ABI) The ABI said weather-related damage claims increased from the £421m paid by insurers in 2022, a 36% jump, following a series of severe weather events... Storm damage claims after multiple damaging weather episodes totalled £133m. Subsequent flooding claims added a further £286m in 2023. Burst water pipes in early 2023 triggered claims worth £153m. Policy adviser Louise Clark warned that, as the UK grapples with a changing climate, extreme weather could become commonplace. She noted that insurers have continued to support affected homeowners, with payouts reaching record highs......
Market Standards Trend Report— Trends in UK public M& A in Q1 2024 Background and approach Market Standards has undertaken analysis to identify prevailing patterns in UK public M& A. This update draws on the Market Standards transaction data analysis tool, which enables users to access, analyse and compare the distinctive features of numerous corporate transactions. It follows our Market Standards Trend Report— Trends in UK public M& A in 2023, in which we assessed firm and possible offers announced in 2023. For this iteration, we reviewed activity from 1 January 2024 to 31 March 2024 ( Q1 2024). While we have set these findings alongside the preceding quarter (1 October 2023 to 31 December 2023) and the equivalent period in 2023 (1 January 2023 to 31 March 2023), firm conclusions will only be possible once the 2024 full-year trend report is...
The firm has already been unsuccessful in pausing the law’s application during provisional court proceedings, and the lower-tier General Court is now currently considering the full appeal. In November 2023, Bytedance brought a legal action against the European Commission, contesting a decision that deemed it sufficiently significant to be regulated under the DMA. The business firmly contends it is a ‘challenger’ service to the likes of Google and Meta Platforms, rather than an entrenched incumbent. Byte Dance objects to several facets of Tik Tok’s inclusion on the roster of gatekeepers, including its......
Black Rock Holdco 5 LLC v HMRC [2024] EWCA Civ 330 The taxpayer, LLC5, was incorporated in Delaware but resident in the UK, and was established within the Black Rock group’s structure for its 2009 purchase of the Barclays Global Investor business. LLC5 issued a number of tranches of loan notes to its direct parent, LLC4, and claimed non-trading loan relationship debits for interest paid over several years. It also acquired preference shares in LLC6, which then carried out the acquisition. HMRC denied the debits claimed by LLC5 on two bases: the loans were not on terms comparable to those between independent enterprises (the transfer pricing issue); and securing a tax advantage was a main purpose of LLC5 being party to the loan relationship, with the debits attributable to that purpose (the unallowable purpose issue). The First-tier Tax Tribunal ( FTT) upheld the taxpayer’s appeal on both...
Tribunal chair Andrew Lenon KC stated the claimants have a credible chance of showing that Apple’s alleged excessive commissions charged to UK-based app developers for transactions completed on non‑ UK storefronts constituted conduct carried out in the UK. In January 2024, Apple sought to have the tribunal strike out the action, which is brought on behalf of more than 1,500 UK‑based app developers over purportedly unfair App Store fees. The company contended that the majority of developers lack a UK claim because most distribution charges arose from purchases made in other countries, relating to the placement and sale of apps. The tech giant’s legal team further submitted that the lawsuit, spearheaded by Norwich Business School professor Sean Ennis, attempts to impose English competition law on charges incurred overseas and on commerce taking place outside the UK......
If we are to deliver the Green Deal—and I regard it as vital to deliver the Green Deal in its entirety: everything it contains, within the timetable we have endorsed—we must have an economic foundation strong enough to support it, De Croo told a press conference in Brussels, convened to mark the ‘mid-term’ of the six‑month Belgian presidency of the EU. We must also retain heavy industry, for instance, here in Europe, he continued, arguing that if such firms shift to countries with laxer environmental rules, the planet will be worse off for it as a result overall......
In March 2024, Domino’s UK division said it would assume full ownership of its largest Irish franchise partner via a cash, share and debt transaction, subject to securing competition approval in the Republic of Ireland. The company is paying €72m in total for Shorecal, which also operates in Northern Ireland. It expects to fund 61% of the sum in cash, with the remaining 39% settled entirely in shares. It will further repay €19.9m of Shorecal’s outstanding debt. ‘ The firm is pleased to state that, following clearance by the Republic of Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission,......
Delaney v PIAB [2024] IESC 10 What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling is poised to be far-reaching, as numerous judicial review matters before the High Court involve plaintiffs advancing arguments akin to Ms Delaney’s on whether their valuations should follow the Guidelines or the Book of Quantum. Those claims stood in line behind Delaney, with the parties awaiting, with bated breath, the result and its influence on those actions. Section 18(5) of the Judicial Council Act 2019 ( Ireland) ( JCA 2019 ( IRL)) required the Judicial Council to revisit the Guidelines within three years of their adoption. Because of this judgment, that review is now likely to be deferred so that further legislation can be brought forward to change and/or adjust the Guidelines. For personal injury litigation, the ruling has several concrete effects: the judiciary may depart from the...
FDA Commissioner Dr Robert Califf delivered his comments during a five-hour appearance before the US House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which ranged across subjects such as seafood inspections, shortages of infant formula, abortion rights, flavoured tobacco, lead in food and foreign-made vaping products, and featured questioning from several Republican members on whether the antiparasitic medicine ivermectin works against coronavirus ( COVID-19) during the proceedings. Regarding oversight of CBD, a non-psychoactive hemp derivative, Califf restated the FDA’s January 2023 position that it would not craft regulations permitting CBD to be marketed in foods or dietary supplements for sale. He said CBD does not sit within any current regulatory framework at the agency, and added that the FDA would very much like Congress to create a regulatory pathway for CBD through legislation. The session took place as lawmakers weigh various possible changes to federal hemp rules, now...
HMRC v Innovative Bites Ltd [2024] UKUT 95 ( TCC) VATA 1994, Sch 8, Group 1 sets a zero rating for VAT on food, while identifying excepted items taxed at the standard rate. Excepted Item 2 states: ‘ Confectionery, not including cakes or biscuits other than biscuits wholly or partly covered with chocolate or some product similar in taste and appearance.’ The central question for the UT in HMRC v Innovative Bites Ltd [2024] UKUT 95 ( TCC) was whether the product came within Excepted Item 2, which required an assessment of how that provision interacts with Note 5 to the legislation. Note 5 provides that the term ‘confectionery’ in Excepted Item 2 ‘includes chocolates, sweets and biscuits; drained, glacé or crystallised fruits; and any item of sweetened prepared food which is normally eaten with the fingers’. This interpretive exercise framed the...
DIGITAL FINANCE AND INNOVATION— JOINT COMMITTEE The European Supervisory Authorities ( ESAs)— EBA, EIOPA and ESMA—announced on 12 April 2024 that, in the month of May 2024, they will commence a voluntary exercise to gather registers of information on relevant contractual arrangements for the use of ICT third‑party service providers by financial entities. Under the Digital Operation Resilience Act ( DORA), from the start of 2025, financial entities must maintain registers of information about their use of ICT third‑party providers. In this dry run exercise, such information will be sourced from financial entities through their......
Thiel- Czerwinke and another (joint liquidators of Courtside Recycling Ltd) v Crabb [2024] EWHC 337 ( Ch) What are the practical implications of this case? This ruling underlines the uncompromising obligation on directors to maintain trading records, and accepts that discarding or failing to retain them was, on these facts, a constituent part of the director’s fraudulent design. It also clarifies that once office-holders demonstrate that company assets or cash were transferred to a director, the absence of documents showing that the funds or property were applied for the company’s advantage renders the director liable to repay the whole amount to the company. That outcome applies even though the judge did not doubt that Mr Crabb did in fact use some of the cash when making payments for Courtside... What was the background? Mr Crabb served as the Company’s sole director; the business dealt in scrap metal. For the...
TPR reported that trustees are pushing investment managers to obtain data on the emissions generated by varying asset types, enabling more effective management of climate threats. More than 60% of scheme reports included a net-zero ambition, aiming for 2050 or an earlier date. According to Mark Hill, who leads on climate and sustainability at TPR, these climate-related disclosures ought to be 'the product of good risk management'. He added: ' That's why we want schemes to know what 'good' looks like and improve their management of climate-related risks and opportunities'. Hill also urged schemes not yet required to disclose to act now without delay, using this report to help them in their strategic decision-making......
General Dynamics UK Ltd v The State of Libya [2024] EWHC 472 ( Comm) What are the practical implications of this case? States and entities dealing with state parties should pay attention to the High Court’s ruling on what amounts to ‘written consent’ for the purposes of s 13(3) of the State Immunity Act 1978, which operates as an exception to the general immunity from execution. In this dispute, the court held that language by which the state agreed an arbitration award would be ‘wholly enforceable’ constituted such written consent. Pelling J confirmed that s 13(3) does not demand any special, particular or formulaic wording. He concluded that the parties’ objective was to allow an award under the contract to be enforced as if between commercial counterparties. As with all contractual drafting, the clearer the words used to capture the parties’...
Market studies Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero calls for CMA to review competition in the home heating market The CMA has published correspondence with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Claire Coutinho MP, following her request that the authority examine competition in the home heating market. In March 2024, the Secretary of State wrote to the CMA, highlighting concerns that recent pricing for gas boiler appliances by certain manufacturers with significant market power suggests the market may not be operating as effectively as it should. While recognising the CMA’s independence and the need to prioritise its work, she urged the authority to give serious consideration to commencing a review into how competition functions in the home heating appliance sector. The purpose would be to determine whether weaknesses in competition are keeping prices above levels expected in a...
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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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