The House of Commons (HoC) delivered the biggest parliamentary defeat of any Prime Minister in British history as MPs emphatically rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal on 15 January 2019. No-deal Brexit planning continued throughout the month.
REUTERS | Amit Dave
February 4, 2019
Brexit: January 2019 round-up
REUTERS |
The days of throwing money at cybersecurity with no management oversight or engagement are long over. Cybersecurity is now 100% a business issue. It has evolved into a strategic corporate activity as opposed to purely a technology afterthought managed by the IT function. The ever increasing and changing nature of cyber risk means organisations need to develop new and innovative ways to manage it. Continue reading
REUTERS | Ognen Teofilovski
January 31, 2019
Mental health, stress and wellbeing in the legal profession
Are you aware of the ways in which you respond to pressure and ways in which you can manage pressure to avoid the harmful physical and mental effects of chronic stress?
Executive Coach and Wellbeing at Work specialist Bridget Clapham has developed a series of resources for Practical Law on mental health, stress and wellbeing in the legal profession. The resources include case studies, self-awareness activities and reflective exercises that provide practical steps for lawyers to take to help manage pressure and safeguard their mental health. They also provide links to other resources to further develop knowledge and skills in this area. Each of the resources can be looked at independently but are also designed to be read in conjunction with one another to optimise knowledge and skills development.
REUTERS | Darren Staples
January 28, 2019
What’s on the agenda for in-house lawyers in February 2019?
Brexit remains at the top of the agenda this month but in-house lawyers should also be keeping track of reforms to corporate governance, audit and employment law.
REUTERS | Nikola Solic
January 11, 2019
Key learnings from Carillion’s collapse
Towards the end of last year, Thomson Reuters hosted a NEDonBoard expert panel event on the key learnings from the collapse of Carillion. The panel was chaired by Olivier Garrigue, experienced Chairman and CEO, and included the Reuters journalist, Kate Holton, and Giles Boothman, a partner and restructuring lawyer at Ashurst.
Lucinda Case, Managing Director of Thomson Reuters Legal UK & Ireland, and a trustee of the Council of the Royal Albert Hall, opened the event. In her experience as a trustee, Lucinda noted the difficulty sometimes in navigating extensive board information packages and striking the right balance between being challenging and getting involved in the details while allowing the executives to get on with their job.
REUTERS | Navesh Chitrakar
January 8, 2019
Playbooks facilitate change in a changing world
A useful analogy can be drawn between the negotiation and execution of a contract, where the output is an executed contract, and the manufacture of an object, such as a car, where the output is a finished product. In a contract negotiation, the other party stands in the place of the customer for the finished product. While many customers are willing to accept standardised, mass-produced goods, others require varying degrees of customisation, which is also the case with contracts. Looking at the evolution of manufacturing provides a useful insight into the way that the contract review process has developed, where playbooks fit in, what other changes we can expect, and how to respond.
REUTERS | Clodagh Kilcoyne
January 7, 2019
What you may have missed over the festive break
The week before Christmas saw several developments in relation to the UK audit market, including publication of the final report of the Kingman review. Meanwhile the government announced extensive employment law reforms following the Taylor Review and published a White Paper on the UK’s future skills-based immigration system. The Court of Appeal also gave judgment in a key employment status case.
REUTERS | Jason Lee
January 4, 2019
How to build an ethical supply chain: an interview with James Bartle, CEO and Founder of Outland Denim
I met James Bartle at the Thomson Reuters Foundation Trust Conference 2018. Sitting in the front row of the audience, we struck up a conversation about his company, Outland Denim, a premium Australian-based denim brand. After a brief chat about slavery practices in manufacturing, he politely excused himself and casually walked up on stage to speak on the next panel. The session was titled, ‘Slave-Free’: A Unique Selling Point? and it was truly inspiring.
REUTERS | Grigory Dukor
January 3, 2019
Brexit: December 2018 round-up
Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to defer the meaningful vote on her Brexit deal in December and the vote will now take place during the week commencing 14 January 2019. In another key development, the ECJ gave hope to the anti-Brexit lobby by ruling on 10 December 2018 that the UK could unilaterally revoke its Article 50 notice without needing the European Council’s consent.
REUTERS | Ajay Verma
January 2, 2019
Modern Slavery: are you at risk of being named and shamed?
The Government is concerned that many organisations are still failing to meet their basic legal obligations when it comes to tackling modern slavery in supply chains.
They stepped up the pressure towards the end of 2018, with the Home Office writing directly to chief executives of 17,000 organisations with a general warning that ‘continued non-compliance’ will not be tolerated’. The organisations were urged to publish their modern slavery statement, if reporting for the first time or otherwise, by 31 March 2019.
Not doing so, for those obliged to make this statement, means running the risk of inclusion in a publicly available list of non-compliance; thus being ‘named and shamed’.