Today’s employment law changes; and what else to expect this year Various changes to employment legislation take effect today, including amendments to whistleblowing laws.  Other changes will follow over coming months. In this briefing we...

Following the unsuccessful “save the library” challenge against Brent Council in 2011, comes another  High Court judgment in judicial review proceedings involving a Council’s decision to achieve spending cuts by reducing its l...

The Local Government Pension Scheme (Amendment)(Governance) Regulations 2015 were laid before Parliament on 28 January 2015.  Issued under the Public Service Pensions Act 2013, these...

Background The Government’s latest proposal in reforming the English schooling system was laid before Parliament last week in the form of the Education and Adoption Bill 2015-16 (“the Bill”). The Bill sets out provisions to conver...

Key Principles The public law duty to consult is one aspect of the principle that public authorities should exercise fairness in the exercise of their functions. Where the duty to consult is imposed by statute, then the procedure to be adopted is al...

Although the "Mystery Shopper" has been around since February 2011, with the release of the Public Procurement Note 09/15 ("PPN 09/15") on 1 June 2015, we can expect to see a rise in the number of procurement investigations. PPN 09/15 explains the n...

Remember to Comply with the Health & Safety Executive Guidance Introduction The High Court (Queen's Bench Division) recently handed down judgment in the case of X v Northampton BC. The judgment is a reminder that a failure to comply with guidanc...

In R (on the application of Diocese of Menevia and others) v Swansea City and County Council1 (“the Council”), the Administrative Court was required to consider whether a change in policy made by the Council in respect of school transpor...

The Government has reported to have saved some £26 million by "curbing" the activities of union representatives in the civil service. As part of the Government's proposed package of measures to take this further the draft Trade Union Bill (int...

Introduction The Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill 2015 (“the Bill”) is currently before Parliament. The Bill is relatively short and deals with two areas in particular: i) the powers of charities to make social investmen...

Introduction The Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Bill 2015 (“the Bill”) is currently before Parliament. The Bill is relatively short and deals with two areas in particular: i) the powers of charities to make social investmen...

A commitment to reduce public sector termination packages has seen the Government explore various proposals for reform in recent years; from draft regulations seeking recovery of termination payments, to a financial cap upon the amount of any indivi...

Brand protection is a key issue for retailers. As brands continue to increase their presence online a key aspect is the protection of brands in domain names. Until fairly recently, the number of generic top level domains (“gTLDs&rdqu...

The security of personal information, including customer payment card data and related details, is integral to the functioning of retailers with an online offering, and there are serious consequences in the event of security breaches. Penalties...

Competition Law E-Briefing: Fashion sector competition probe On Tuesday 24 March 2015, the UK’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (the “CMA”), opened an investigation into suspected anti-competitive arrangements in the UK ...

The UK is changing the way in which it taxes share options and share awards held by employees who move between countries. Some employees will gain and some employees will lose. As an employer, if you have employees on assignment from overseas or you...

The Preparatory Committee for the Unified Patent Court (“UPC”) has published a consultation document providing the proposed fee structure of the UPC, a table of court fees, and details of the ceilings for recoverable costs. The consultat...

  Introduction On 6 May the European Commission (“the Commission”) announced the launch of a competition law inquiry into the e-commerce sector, where it is believed that companies who engage in selling via the internet may be employing methods...

It has been reported that the European Commission (the “Commission”) is asking retailers to detail the difficulties they face while trying to sell their products online, as part of the lengthy questionnaires sent to the retailers followi...

R (on the application of Tesco Stores Limited) v Forest of Dean District Council and (1) JD Norman Lydney Limited (2) Asda Stores Limited (3) Windmill Limited (4) MMC Land & Regeneration Limited1 The Court of Appeal, upholding a decision of the ...

The UK’s new Consumer Rights Act ( the “CRA” ) becomes effective on the 1st October 2015. As we have previously mentioned whilst this consolidates existing UK consumer law it also brings in some significant changes to the laws appl...

On 9 September 2015, in his first State of the Union address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for a review of the power wielded over food markets by groups of retailers and the “need to break some retail oligopolies&rd...

On 9 September 2015, in his first State of the Union address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called for a review of the power wielded over food markets by groups of retailers and the “need to break some retail oligopolies&rd...

The European Commission has launched three investigations into suspected breach of the competition rules by companies in the consumer electronics, videogames and hotel sectors.  The consumer electronics and videogames probes come out of the Com...

The Supreme Court has overturned the Court of Appeal decision and found in favour of the ratepayer in this much-anticipated business rates case involving the rateability of a property which was undergoing substantial renovation. The ratepayer submit...

In July 2017, the German Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) published a detailed guidance paper (the “Guidance Paper”) on resale price maintenance (“RPM”) in the retail food sector. The purpose of the paper is to expl...

The UK's Treasury Select Committee released a report into crypto-assets on 19 September.  The Committee’s key conclusion is that regulation of crypto-assets is necessary. Striking a negative tone, it identifies the problems of volatile pr...

The Covid-19 Block Exemption for the Retail Property Sector (the “Regulations”) were published on 24 March 2020 in response to the declaration of the National State of Disaster. The Regulations exempt certain agreements or practices with...

The EU single aviation market is the ...

Reviewing the law and the impact on it of both the arguments in the Anna Bo [2015] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 578 and the Congenbill 2016 form The issue Bills of lading often include wording which purports to incorporate charterparty terms. Attempts to inc...

Suez Fortune Investments Ltd and another v Talbot Underwriting Ltd [2016] EWHC 1085 (Comm) Introduction On the 15 January 2015, the English Commercial Court handed down a decision that highlights the importance of compliance with disclosure obligati...

Following a consultation on the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (the ‘Act’), the Government has confirmed the way in which train operators cap their liability to customers to compensate for delays or cancellations to services must be consistent...

In our pre-referendum briefin...

On 27 June 2017, the court ordered the lifting of the automatic suspension in the case of Alstom Transport UK Limited v London Underground Limited [2017] EWHC 1521 (TCC). The resulting judgment includes some interesting comments on the correct test ...

Background The Office for Rail and Road (“ORR”) has opened a consultation on its proposals to introduce a voluntary binding Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) scheme for the resolution of consumer complaints in the rail s...

Executive Summary The European Commission has consulted on an implementing regulation which will provide additional detail for procedures and criteria to be followed by service facility operators in order to satisfy their obligations under Directive...

Background As part of the Government’s commitment to the “Northern Powerhouse” agenda, legislation to turn Transport for the North (“TfN”) into a statutory sub-national transport body with legal powers and duties has be...

Following close consultation with IFI's including the IFC, World Bank and EBRD, Tunisia has launched a review process to aid with the structuring and implementation of new PPP projects. Eversheds Sutherland was privileged to have been spec...

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On 2 December 2019, the European Council agreed to update Regulation 1371/2007 (the “Regulation”) on rail passengers’ rights and obligations. The proposed amendments to the Regulation aim to strengthen the rights of passengers wher...

On 1 May 2019 the UK government, through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, launched a consultation on its proposals to regulate the security of consumer Internet of Things (“IoT”) or “smart” devices, whi...

Lorna Doggett examines what has and hasn’t been working since the GDPR’s introduction last May. To read the full article click here > This article was published in the April 2019 edition of Intellectual Property Magazine, and is repro...

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On 17 May 2019, the European Council established a framework and implemented a new sanctions regime which now allows the EU to impose targeted sanctions to “deter and respond to cyber-attacks which constitute an external threat to the EU and i...

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The Facebook “Like” button and similar social media plugin technologies (Plugin) are now so commonplace that we perhaps don’t give them a second thought. Plugins provide an easy way for consumers to connect instantly with a preferr...

What you need to know UK regulatory guidance has been updated to the effect that the timescale for responding to individuals’ requests (including subject access requests) is one calendar month from the day of receipt of the ...

What you need to know UK regulatory guidance has been updated to explain what ‘manifestly unfounded’ and ‘excessive’ means in relation to the individual rights of data subjects under GDPR. This includes but is not limited to ...

The Data Protection Commission (“DPC”) issued guidance on data sharing in the public sector. The DPC noted its support for developing more efficient and customer-centric public services and sought to clarify the public sector obligations...