Locke Lord LLP (JD Supra United Kingdom)

As with so many things, COVID-19 has had a major impact on our lives, our businesses and anything close to ‘business as usual’. We have taken a long break from any posts related to Brexit given the major disruptions that COVD-19 has caused. However, the clock has still been ticking towards 31 December 2020, the date upon which the UK’s transition arrangements with the EU will cease and the UK...

The European Registry for Internet Domains (EURid) launched ?the “.eu” top level ?domain in 2005. It offers the opportunity of a ?pan-European Internet name (for ?websites and e-mail ?addresses) for those who meet the eligibility criteria. At ??present, there are approximately 135,000 .eu domains ?registered to individuals, ?businesses and organisations in ?the United Kingdom.?

On September 15, 2020, the UK’s High Court issued its highly-anticipated ruling on the “test case” for COVID-19 business interruption insurance coverage. The case was brought by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on behalf of several policyholders – many small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) – to determine how the Court would rule on several different policy wordings for business...

The authors had previously highlighted the UK Government’s intention to introduce: (i) a number of reforms to the UK’s insolvency framework; and (ii) a series of temporary changes to the corporate governance requirements for companies and other entities arising as a result of the impact of Covid-19. In this QuickStudy, we set out the key features of the draft Corporate Insolvency and Governance...

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has now set out their expectations to help solo-regulated firms apply the SMCR in relation to the COVID-19 crisis. They say that they do not require firms to have a single Senior Manager (SM) responsible for their coronavirus response.

Introduction - As previously highlighted on 17 March 2020, HM Treasury moved decisively to provide support for UK businesses struggling because of the impact of COVID-19 through: (i) the Covid Corporate Financing Facility (the “CCFF”); and (ii) the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (the “CBILS”).

On 28 March 2020 the UK government (the “Government”), following the lead of Australia ?and Germany, announced plans to introduce a temporary relaxation of the existing wrongful ?trading regime for company directors. Specifically, the Government has communicated its intention to introduce new legislation at ?the “earliest opportunity” to suspend wrongful trading laws for a period of 3 months (with

Introduction - On 17 March 2020, HM Treasury announced a number of measures designed to support UK businesses struggling as a result of the impact of COVID-19.

Background - Radiocentre is the industry body for commercial radio. It has produced some industry guidance (“Guidance”) on the use of financial promotions involving consumer credit or hire.

We finally can start to make statements that are less equivocal following the Conservative Party’s success last night that has led to a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons, its biggest majority since 1987 and its highest share of the vote since 1979. The Labour Party’s experiment with a more socialist agenda appears to be shelved as it had its worse performance in an election since 1935.

We could be on the verge of some meaningful change that would mean the UK finally starts to move forward again. On Tuesday, after a roller-coaster of a day when rumour followed rumour, the House of Commons finally voted for a general election to be held on Thursday, 12 December.

On September 24, 2019, the UK’s Supreme Court handed down its judgment in relation to two separate ?appeals following Prime Minister Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament earlier this month. ?The Supreme Court unanimously found that the lawfulness of the Prime Minister’s advice to the ?Queen is justiciable and that the courts exercise a supervisory jurisdiction over the lawfulness of ?acts...

n our last blog post, we mentioned that there had been three Court challenges to Prime Minister ?Johnson’s decision to prorogue Parliament until 14 October. All three of those challenges were ?dismissed in the first instance, the last being in Northern Ireland, which was dismissed today.

The Conservative Party leadership election came to a conclusion at mid-day on Tuesday, 23 July when it was announced that Boris Johnson had won the support of two-thirds of Conservative Party members.

The Conservative Party concluded the Parliamentary phase of its leadership selection. The final two candidates are former London Mayor and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. The next phase starts this Saturday when ballots are posted to the 160,000 members of the Conservative Party, which will conclude the week of 22 July 2019.

Recent developments in Parliament suggest that the possibility of a no-deal Brexit is a real one. The UK Government has been introducing legislation and temporary regimes on a unilateral basis to mitigate against the effects of a no-deal Brexit.

During the evening of the 21st of November, the Prime Minister reached political agreement with the EU27 on an expanded declaration on Britain’s future relationship with the EU, which was presented to the UK Parliament in the afternoon of the 22nd.

After a marathon 5 hour meeting of the UK Cabinet, the UK Government announced that a deal had been reached with the EU27 on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU together with the outline of a political declaration on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

Introduction - The London interbank offered rate (LIBOR) presently serves as the benchmark rate for over $200 trillion of US dollar-based derivatives and loans. In 2012, financial industry regulators discovered manipulation of the rate-setting process that underlies LIBOR.

EQUAL PAY - We covered the Gender Pay Gap Reporting Regulations (“the Regulations”) in May last year. As we identified then, the interesting issue in the short term deriving from the Regulations is the extent to which gender pay gap reporting, and publicity regarding it, leads to an increase in awareness regarding equal pay rights and, ultimately, an increase in equal pay grievances and...

The above was a typically restrained Daily Mail headline following Wednesday’s Supreme Court’s Judgement in R (on the application of Unison) v Lord Chancellor, declaring employment tribunal fees to be unlawful. In reality what does the judgement mean? what impact is it likely to have in relation to numbers of employment tribunal claims and frivolous and vexatious claims? and how can employers...

Background - A key issue from an employment perspective in the UK on a corporate acquisition is whether the acquisition is structured through a share purchase; so that it is the shares of a company which are bought, or an asset purchase; involving the purchase of the assets of a business.

Last month saw the coming into force of important new employment legislation in the UK, the Gender Pay Gap Regulations 2017 (“the Regulations”). In this article, we explain the reason for this new legislation and what it is designed to achieve, how it works (including crucially, which UK employers will be caught) and the likely practical impact of the Regulations for employers going forward.

LIKELY BREXIT IMPACT - Potentially, the biggest driver for change to UK employment law over the next few years could be Brexit. This is because a significant portion of UK employment law is derived from EU directives. For example, much of discrimination legislation, TUPE and legislation on collective redundancies, working time and agency workers. Given this, therefore, what is the...

On Thursday 23 June 2016 a referendum to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union was held in the UK. The Leave campaign won by 51.9% to 48.1% of the votes cast. One of the main consequences of the referendum was the appointment of a new Prime Minister, Theresa May, a former secretary of state whose key message since the result has been “Brexit means Brexit”. This has...

The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the independent authority responsible for the enforcement of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), has issued a revised code of practice (the Code) on communicating privacy information to individuals – usually done so in the form of a privacy notice.

Innovative Finance, the UK’s fintech trade body, has reported that funding for UK companies has declined by a third in comparison with the levels seen in 2015. Innovative Finance blamed the Brexit vote for the decline, as UK companies struggle to compete with investment by China in the fintech market. The Financial Times reports that in the first half of 2016, Chinese fintech companies for the...

The UK’s construction industry surprisingly returned to growth in September buoying arguments that the UK economy has bounced back from the initial Brexit shockwaves. The Markit/ CIPS UK Construction Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 52.3 from 49.2 in August indicating expansion. The results, substantially better that analysts had predicted, provides further evidence to support the...

According to the UK's new information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, who was interviewed by the BBC, the UK “should adopt forthcoming EU data protection laws, despite its plan to leave the Union”. The new EU data protection regulations are designed to strengthen the rights individuals have over their data. The rules make it mandatory for large companies to employ a data protection officer...

Telecoms service provider TalkTalk has lost an appeal against it for a £1,000 fixed penalty after the Information Commissioner’s office (ICO) ruled it had failed to report a personal data breach within the required 24 hours’ notice period. On 17 February 2016, the ICO sent a Notice of Intent to issue a fixed monetary penalty for TalkTalk’s failure to notify the Commissioner of a personal...