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Commercial Litigation UK
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April 30, 2024
Ex-DWF Barrister Disbarred Over False Discrimination Claims
A tribunal disbarred a formed DWF barrister on Tuesday after concluding that he had dishonestly targeted his boss with false allegations of homophobia and racism, possibly to deflect attention from complaints of misconduct made against him.
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April 30, 2024
Eatery Can't Extend 'Physical Damage' Policy To COVID Claim
An appellate court threw out on Tuesday a restaurant owner's attempt to broaden the scope of a business interruption policy lacking any "nondamage" extensions to include losses sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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April 30, 2024
Vanquis Bank Seeks £4.5M For Law Firm's Complaints Deluge
Vanquis Bank Ltd. is seeking an estimated £4.5 million ($5.6 million) from a law firm it says has sent it thousands of meritless complaints, accusing it of irresponsible lending in a "reckless and indiscriminate" approach to earn commission if a claim happens to succeed.
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April 30, 2024
FIFA Player Transfer Rules Could Break EU Antitrust Laws
FIFA's transfer rules that entitle football clubs to compensation from players and their new clubs when they cut their contract short to switch teams could be unlawful under European Union antitrust laws, an adviser to the bloc's top court said on Tuesday.
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April 29, 2024
'I Don't Want To Try That Case,' Judge Tells Mike Lynch's Atty
The California federal judge overseeing Autonomy founder Michael Lynch's fraud trial over claims he duped HP into paying an inflated $11.7 billion for his company pushed back Monday against an attempt by Lynch's lawyer to introduce evidence of events that took place after the acquisition, saying, "I don't want to try that case."
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April 29, 2024
Regulator To Pay £58K For Harassing Gender Critical Worker
An employment tribunal ordered Westminster City Council and Social Work England to pay £58,344 ($73,284) to a suspended social worker they accused of posting antitransgender content online.
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April 29, 2024
Meta Can't Appeal Approval Of £2.3B Data Class Action
Meta was blocked on Monday from challenging a decision by the Competition Appeal Tribunal to allow a £2.3 billion ($2.8 billion) class action accusing the Facebook owner of exploiting its users' data, after the court found the appeal had "no real prospect of success."
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April 29, 2024
Butlins Sues Insurers For £60M After Flood Damage
A major holiday resort is suing a number of its insurers, including Aviva and QBE, for failing to pay out on losses sustained when a vacation park was flooded, causing the closure of many of its lodges.
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April 29, 2024
DWF Barrister Made False Discrimination Claims, BSB Says
A former DWF LLP barrister is facing disciplinary action over allegations that he dishonestly and deliberately targeted his boss with false accusations of homophobia and racism.
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April 29, 2024
IBM Targets Rival For Reverse Engineering Code At Trial
Computer giant IBM accused European rival LzLabs at the beginning of a nine-week trial Monday of violating its consumer agreement, saying the competitor's "reverse engineering" of some of its software is a breach of contract.
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April 30, 2024
CORRECTED: Marketing Boss Said LC&F Was A Legitimate Biz, Not A 'Rinse'
The head of a marketing company who referred to London Capital & Finance as a "not a rinse" insisted he was not aware of an alleged Ponzi scheme as he gave evidence on Monday at the trial over the £237 million ($296 million) investment scandal. Correction: An earlier version of the story misstated the content of Careless' 2015 email exchange. The error has been corrected.
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April 29, 2024
Ex-Man City Player Benjamin Mendy Pays £710K Tax Debt
Former Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy avoided bankruptcy on Monday after paying a £710,000 ($892,000) tax bill minutes before a court hearing to determine whether an order should be made.
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April 29, 2024
Nurse's Slave Trade Comment Claim Too Late, Tribunal Rules
An employment tribunal has ruled that a clinical manager at a London hospice left it too late to bring a race harassment claim alleging a hospice doctor asked her why slaves were taken to America instead of England.
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April 29, 2024
BHP Offers $26B To Settle Brazil Dam Disaster Claims
BHP's Brazilian subsidiary and its partners in a failed mine operation offered $25.7 billion in reparations on Monday for a 2015 environmental disaster in Brazil that killed 19 people, triggering one of the largest group claims in English legal history.
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April 29, 2024
BT Unit Must Rehire, Pay £84K To Unfairly Axed Engineer
A subsidiary of BT must have reinstated a fired engineer and paid him £83,800 ($105,000) by Monday after bosses unfairly cut him loose for allegedly bullying a colleague without hearing both sides of the story, a tribunal has ruled.
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April 26, 2024
Europeans Try To Ease Dispute Process In Canada Trade Pact
The European Commission on Friday proposed new rules to help small and medium-sized businesses access a yet-to-be established investor court that was included in the bloc's nearly seven-year-old trade deal with Canada.
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April 26, 2024
ECJ OKs Later Limits For Borrowers Stuck With Unfair Contracts
Consumers should not be time-barred from seeking repayment of costs stemming from unfair contract terms because they were unaware of the unfairness, but the clock should start ticking in the event of a court decision to that effect, the European Court of Justice ruled Thursday.
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April 26, 2024
NHS Trust Must Pay £74K, Apologize To COVID Whistleblower
A National Health Service trust must pay £73,900 ($92,300) and apologize to one of its surgeons after punishing him for blowing the whistle on the risks of face-to-face appointments amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a tribunal has ruled.
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April 26, 2024
Vitol Sues Tanker Owner For £3M Over Contaminated Oil
Dutch multinational commodity trader Vitol is suing Pisa Shipbuilding Corp. for over $3 million, alleging the shipowner failed to make its vessel "seaworthy," thus resulting in the contamination of approximately 3,697 metric tons of petroleum products.
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April 26, 2024
Coca-Cola Chews Up Greek Rival's 'Tsakiris' Snack TM
A Coca-Cola subsidiary defeated a rival that wanted to register the trademark "Tsakiris" to sell cereal snacks, after a European court ruled that it would take unfair advantage of the soft drink giant's reputation in Greek potato chips.
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May 03, 2024
Ex-Mishcon Head Of Risk Joins Litigation Boutique
Stokoe Partnership Solicitors has appointed Jarret Brown as its new head of compliance in a role he hopes is "going to be a little less frenetic" at a place with less "infrastructure to shift."
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April 26, 2024
Insurer Signs First Settlement Over Russia-Stranded Planes
An aircraft lessor and an insurer have settled their fight over payouts for planes stranded in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, the first agreement out of dozens of battles worth billions of dollars involving major insurers.
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April 26, 2024
Black Met Constable Wins £25K In Race Bias Claim
An employment tribunal ordered the Metropolitan Police commissioner to pay £25,403 ($31,790) to a Black constable, after ruling that a sergeant had discriminated against him by remarking that he had stared "menacingly."
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April 26, 2024
Tourists Owed Compensation Over Northwest Passage Cruise
A couple who sued over a disappointing Arctic cruise are entitled to compensation, a London appellate court ruled on Friday, rejecting a bid by Reader Offers Ltd. to overturn a ruling that found the travel company had breached a contract by changing the route of a cruise because of ice conditions.
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April 26, 2024
Sheikh Cleared Of €67M Damages Ruling Over Share Transfer
An Arab tycoon does not have to pay €67 million ($72 million) in damages for transferring shares out of his company after liquidation because the creditors failed to establish any actual loss, an English appeals court ruled Friday.
Expert Analysis
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Prompt Engineering Skills Are Changing The Legal Profession
With a focus on higher-value work as repetitive tasks are delegated to artificial intelligence, legal roles are set to become more inspiring, and lawyers need not fear the rising demand for prompt engineers that is altering the technology-enabled legal environment, say Eric Crawley, Shah Karim and Paul O’Hagan at Epiq Legal.
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Opinion
UK Whistleblowers Flock To The US For Good Reason
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office director recently brought renewed attention to the differences between the U.K. and U.S. whistleblower regimes — differences that may make reporting to U.S. agencies a better and safer option for U.K. whistleblowers, and show why U.K. whistleblower laws need to be improved, say Benjamin Calitri and Kate Reeves at Kohn Kohn.
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4 Legal Privilege Lessons From Dechert Disclosure Ruling
The Court of Appeal's recent decision in Al Sadeq v. Dechert LLP, finding that evidence may have been incorrectly withheld, provides welcome clarification of the scope of legal professional privilege, including the application of the iniquity exception, says Tim Knight at Travers Smith.
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BT Case May Shape UK Class Action Landscape
The first opt-out collective action trial commenced in Le Patourel v. BT in the U.K. Competition Appeal Tribunal last month, regarding BT's abuse of dominance by overcharging millions of customers, will likely provide clarification on damages and funder returns in collective actions, which could significantly affect the class action regime, say lawyers at RPC.
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Key Points From EC Economic Security Screening Initiatives
Lawyers at Herbert Smith analyze the European Commission's five recently announced initiatives aimed at de-risking the EU's trade and investment links with third countries, including the implementation of mandatory screening mechanisms and extending coverage to investments made by EU companies that are controlled subsidiaries of non-EU investors.
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Following The Road Map Toward Quantum Security
With the Financial Conduct Authority’s recent publication of a white paper on a quantum-secure financial sector, firms should begin to consider the quantum transition early — before the process is driven by regulatory obligations — with the goal of developing a cybersecurity architecture that is agile while also allowing for quantum security, say lawyers at Cleary.
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Why EU Ruling On Beneficial Ownership May Affect The UK
Following the EU judgment in Sovim v. Luxembourg that public access to beneficial ownership information conflicts with data protection rights, several British overseas territories and dependencies have recently reversed their commitment to introduce unrestricted access, and challenges to the U.K.’s liberal stance may be on the cards, says Rupert Cullen at Allectus Law.
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Opinion
Labour Should Reconsider Its Discrimination Law Plans
While the Labour Party's recent proposals allowing equal pay claims based on ethnicity and disability, and introducing dual discrimination, have laudable intentions and bring some advantages, they are not the right path forward as the changes complicate the discrimination claim process for employees, say Colin Leckey and Tarun Tawakley at Lewis Silkin.
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AI Is Outpacing IP Law Frameworks
In Thaler v. Comptroller-General, the U.K. Supreme Court recently ruled that artificial intelligence can't be an inventor, but the discussion on the relationship between AI and intellectual property law is far from over, and it's clear that technology is developing faster than the legal framework, says Stephen Carter at The Intellectual Property Works.
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Tracing The History Of LGBTQ+ Rights In The Workplace
Pride History month is a timely reminder of how recent developments have shaped LGBTQ+ employees' rights in the workplace today, and what employers can do to ensure that employees are protected from discrimination, including creating safe workplace cultures and promoting allyship, say Caitlin Farrar and Jessica Bennett at Farrer.
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Ruling In FCA Case Offers Tips On Flexible Work Requests
In Wilson v. Financial Conduct Authority, the Employment Tribunal recently found that the regulator's rejection of a remote work request was justified, highlighting for employers factors that affect flexible work request outcomes, while emphasizing that individual inquiries should be considered on the specific facts, say Frances Rollin, Ella Tunnell and Kerry Garcia at Stevens & Bolton.
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Pension Scheme Ruling Elucidates Conversion Issues
In Newell Trustees v. Newell Rubbermaid UK Services, the High Court recently upheld a pension plan's conversion of final salary benefits to money purchase benefits, a welcome conclusion that considered several notable issues, such as how to construe pension deeds and when contracts made outside scheme rules can determine benefits, say Ian Gordon and Jamie Barnett at Gowling.
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New Fraud Prevention Offense May Not Make Much Difference
By targeting only large organizations, the Economic Crime Act's new failure to prevent fraud offense is striking in that, despite its breadth, it will affect so few companies, and is therefore unlikely to help ordinary victims, says Andrew Smith at Corker Binning.
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Aldi Design Infringement Case Highlights Assessment Issues
The forthcoming English Court of Appeal decision in Marks and Spencer v. Aldi, regarding the alleged infringement of design rights, could provide practitioners with new guidance, particularly in relation to the relevant date for assessment of infringement and the weight that should be attributed to certain design elements in making this assessment, say Rory Graham and Georgia Davis at RPC.
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Generative AI Raises IP, Data Protection And Contracts Issues
As the EU's recent agreement on the Artificial Intelligence Act has fueled businesses' interest in adopting generative AI tools, it is crucial to understand how these tools utilize material to generate output and what questions to ask in relation to intellectual property, data privacy and contracts, say lawyers at Deloitte Legal.