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...

The protection of trade secrets has been on the European legislator’s agenda since 2011. It was felt that the lack of harmonisation in this field is very disadvantageous for cross-border innovation in Europe. After the initial report requested...

  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...

New rules in the FCA’s policy statement on Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) insurance (PS15/13) are about to change the way GAP insurance sold alongside the sale of a motor vehicle (add-on GAP Insurance) is sold to both consumers and commerci...

On 31 March 2015, the German Federal Cartel Office (“Bundeskartellamt”, BKartA) announced that it has blocked the proposed takeover of approximately 450 Kaiser’s Tengelmann supermarket branches by EDEKA, the leading German food ret...

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...

On 17 September 2015, the House of Lords EU Internal Market Sub-Committee (“the Committee”) launched an inquiry into the regulation of online platforms in the EU. The Committee intends to gather evidence on the benefits and problems online platforms...

The Issue Typically, Outsourcing Projects take a long time to procure and deliver. This can be bad news for both customer and supplier Often, there is mismatch between what a customer thought that it was buying and what is ultimately delivered. Ofte...

On 29 September 2016, the French Competition Authority (l’Autorité de la concurrence - the “Autorité”) imposed a fine of EUR 2.4 million on 37 model agencies and their main trade association, the SYNAM, in relation to...

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...

Introduction The Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), the authority responsible for operating and enforcing the UK merger control regime, has published its updated Retail Mergers Commentary (“New Commentary”).1 The CMA ...

On 26 July 2017, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) published an opinion issued by Advocate General Nils Wahl (the “AG’s Opinion”) indicating that luxury brands may prevent retailers from selling via online marketpla...

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...

Aysha Fernandes, legal director in Eversheds Sutherland’s Competition, EU & Trade group comments on the ramifications of UK CMA’s Ping fine appeal. This article was written by PaRR, the leading provider of inside track on comp...

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...

A new set of rules, the York Antwerp Rules 2016 (the “YAR 2016”) has been adopted by the Comité Maritime International.  They are based on the previous versions of the York Antwerp Rules (the “YAR”) with some nota...

Anzen Limited & Another v Hermes One Limited In the case of Anzen Limited v Hermes One Limited [2016] UKPC 1, the Privy Council considered the use of permissive language in an arbitration clause.  Specifically, the Council considered what o...

On 12 August this year, the Insurance Act 2015 will introduce the most significant changes to insurance law in 110 years – how will it affect the shipping industry? The Act applies to all insurance policies taken out by businesses which are subject ...

On 6 April 2016, BIMCO and the International Group of Liquified Natural Gas (“LNG”) Importers (“GIIGNL”) jointly issued a standard form voyage charterparty designed for use in the LNG trade. Its introduction is said to be spe...

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...

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

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...

What is the Digital Railway programme? The Digital Railway programme is a Network Rail led initiative to modernise train command, control and signalling systems used on the British railway network with the aim of substantially improving the capabili...

The Fourth Rail Package, which was introduced between June and December 2016, is a set of six items of EU legislation designed to increase the reliability and competitiveness of European railways in accordance with the EU’s liberalisation agen...

What is the purpose of the Consultation? The Office of Rail and Road (the “ORR”) is engaged in the 2018 regulatory review of Network Rail, known as the 2018 Periodic Review or “PR18”. PR18 will determine what Network Rail mus...

What is the Hansford Review and what is its purpose? Professor Peter Hansford was commissioned by the Board of Network Rail to chair an independent review of “contestability” in the UK Rail Market, with the intent of “encouraging t...

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...

Background The Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) has recently published draft guidance on its approach to assessing rail franchise awards under its merger control powers (the “Draft Guidance”)1. The guidance has been ...

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a multi-trillion Chinese led initiative to strengthen trade routes and related infrastructure across over 150 countries worldwide. The initiative covers over 60% of the world’s population in terms of ...

Highways England are moving forward with the A303 Stonehenge project (A303) and the Lower Thames crossing (LTC) and will be starting their market and supply chain engagement in March 2018. These projects are two of the largest in Highway England's R...

Intro / Summary The Supreme Court has refused to grant Emirates permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision in the joint case of Gahan v Emirates and Buckley and ors v Emirates meaning the Court of Appeal’s decision to award comp...

Background Following the recommendations of the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”), the Department for Transport (“DfT”) ran a consultation seeking views on the introduction of a “public service obligation levy&r...

...

On 16 April 2019, a controversial 16-minute video containing footage of a what is believed to be a taxi journey taken by two Hong Kong celebrities, Andy Hui Chi-on and Jacqueline Wong, was published on the website of a local newspaper. This publicat...

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published a set of guidelines (in draft) for public consultation. These will be absolutely key to providers of online services, such as social media, e-commerce, internet search engines, communication an...

...

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...

...

The passage of a year since GDPR came into force has been a marker for the ICO and others to pause, reflect, and (importantly) for the ICO to give some indications as to what lies ahead. The ICO has published a blog post. It is a useful snapshot of ...

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...

...

The operational resilience of retail banks operating in the United Kingdom has come under increased scrutiny following a number of high-profile IT failures and cyber-attacks. Regulators have shown a willingness to impose significant penalties for IT...

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 ...

Quick Read Many readers may have chosen to skip looking at the Guidelines that the EDPB published for consultation recently, if you are one of them, and you routinely use CCTV (or other similar devices) within your business – you may want to h...

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 Central Bank of Malaysia or Bank Negara Malaysia (‘BNM’) on 18 July 2019 issued another policy document which sets out its requirements to the nation’s Financial Institutions (‘FIs’) management of technology risk. W...