The English Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Drax Smart Generation Holdco Ltd v. Scottish Power Retail Holdings Ltd put commercial purpose at the heart of interpretation of a claims notice clause, thereby avoiding the...more
The landscape for tackling corporate crime in the UK is undergoing significant change, with a focus on empowering enforcement agencies to further hold large corporates to account for the conduct of their employees and...more
A fundamental issue that all litigants will be well served to consider when bringing, or defending, any legal proceeding is the question of whether the claim has been brought in time. The inadvertent failure to bring a claim...more
The long-running investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) has provided several points of instructive guidance during its lifetime – and that trend looks set to...more
In a landmark day for regulatory authorities in the United Kingdom, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act came into force on 26 October 2023. The act will have a material impact on the manner in which the...more
There have been extensive discussions on what the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill could mean for the conduct of business in the UK (for our views, see this 26 April 2023 On the Record blog post). Now, the...more
The decision of the Court of Appeal in the closely watched case of David McClean & Ors v. Andrew Thornhill KC helpfully rearticulates the established principles governing when a duty of care may arise and the scope of such a...more
The decision of the High Court of England and Wales in Parker-Grennan v. Camelot UK Lotteries Limited is a helpful case study in how to host a consumer-facing website. It is surprising, given how much care and attention is...more
On 30 March 2023, HM Treasury and the Home Office published the Economic Crime Plan 2 for 2023 to 2026. The three-year plan builds on the first Economic Crime Plan published in 2019 and commits the UK government to:...more
A failure to comply with provisions governing the notification of claims under share purchase agreements is an issue that comes before the courts with surprising regularity. Given that such failure could result in any...more
Introduction Potential criminal activity in international supply chains can create reputational, civil, and criminal risks. This can be particularly difficult to manage when there are many links in a chain from the source of...more
In Tradition Financial Service Ltd v Bilta (UK) Ltd & Others, the Court of Appeal considered the scope of section 213 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (the ‘Act’) and, specifically, whether those beyond the small group of...more
Settlement agreements are designed to remove uncertainty. With this in mind, parties typically prefer to agree broad releases so that the chance of any claim surviving the settlement is slim. However, while a broad release...more
In May 2020, we published a blog post about the US-UK Data Access Agreement, a first-of-its-kind reciprocal agreement between the US and the UK. Under the agreement, law enforcement agencies in either country could obtain...more
On 10 June 2022, the UK Law Commission published the results of its review into the laws that govern corporate criminal liability in the UK and its proposals to reform them. There has been a long-held concern amongst...more
Two recent cases in the UK courts highlight the tension between an individual’s right to privacy during a criminal investigation and the freedom of the press to report on the investigation as a matter of public interest....more
In the recent decision in Berkshire Assets (West London) Ltd v AXA Insurance UK Plc [2021] EWHC 2689 (Comm), Lionel Persey QC, sitting as a Judge of the High Court, gave the first English decision on the insured’s duty of...more
Businesses' ability to adapt to the "new normal" of remote working in the UK has been astonishing and commendable. However, the official communication lines that protect legal privilege (amongst other things) may be eroded if...more