Most commentators are agreed that 2012 will be an extremely difficult year for business globally and particularly in the eurozone. In the UK, both landlords and tenants are going to have to be acutely aware of their legal rights in a climate where many more business failures are predicted. The law relating to the insolvency …
Continue reading “Administrators, landlords and tenants: an update”
Ever since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, the world has been in a constant state of financial, social and political upheaval. The debt crisis has the European region on its knees; uprisings and unrest continue across the Middle East; China’s economy readies itself for a hard landing; the stagnant Japanese economy struggles under …
Continue reading “The changing world of counterfeiting, part 1: strategies for the IP owner”
‘But I thought it was privileged!’ is a protest that litigation lawyers are used to hearing. Disclosure exercises inevitably raise complex questions about what is and is not privileged: and whenever the more nuanced and difficult questions arise, it is clear that the legal position as to what is, in fact, privileged is rarely as …
Nestled in the background for the latter six months of a busy year for media law was Rio Ferdinand’s action against the Sunday Mirror over an article that was published in April 2010. While full privacy hearings are always notable for their rarity, the Ferdinand v MGN Ltd [2011] judgment is notable for the judge’s …
Equal treatment has yet to become fully embedded in the Netherlands. Although it is an essential part in the practice of law, neither employers nor employees always grasp the full impact that equal treatment has on their arrangements or actions. In this article, the authors will describe how equal treatment in the Netherlands actually works …
The impact of the Bribery Act 2010 has been a key focus for business across the UK over the past year. The Act came into force on 1 July 2011 in Scotland as it did in the rest of the UK, but there are real differences in how the new anti-corruption regime will operate north …
Continue reading “Bribery and anti-corruption: self-reporting in Scotland”
We round up some of the most relevant and interesting developments from 2011 that may affect your business. 2011 CASE HIGHLIGHTS As ever, very few product liability cases made it to court, but of note this year are the following.
Where two large businesses contract, there is an assumption that they appreciate the consequences of the contractual wording adopted. In such circumstances courts tend to give effect to the literal meaning of those terms in a contract. In Gesner Investments Ltd v Bombardier Inc [2011] the Court of Appeal was asked to interpret the terms …
Continue reading “Interpreting commercial contracts: a plane task?”
Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS), are open-ended, regulated investment funds. Since their inception in 1985, UCITS have been regulated by Directive 85/611/EEC, known as UCITS I. UCITS I has been substantially amended several times, most importantly by Directive 2001/107/EC and Directive 2001/108/EC, these amendments generally being known as UCITS III.
On 18 October 2011 the Energy Act 2011 (the Act) received royal assent and passed into law, less than a year after it was introduced to the House of Lords on 9 December 2010.