Lawyers aren’t known for their passion for change. However, driven by the awareness of the accelerating pace of technological change facing the legal market, Allen & Overy (A&O) launched Fuse in September 2017 to provide a venue for tech companies, A&O lawyers, technologists and clients to collaborate, develop and test legal, regulatory and deal-related solutions.
Doing more with less has been the rallying cry of the in-house world for over ten years. The challenge of increasing regulation and decreasing budgets has never gone away and is now our permanent state.
But doing more with less feels impossible when your desk is permanently swamped with work. Firefighting gets in the way of thinking strategically and thinking differently. Most teams can still make big efficiency improvements but it requires painful self-reflection about the real value of a lawyer and equally hard decisions.
The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill 2017-19 completed its passage through the House of Lords this month. The Department for Exiting the European Union and the European Commission also jointly published a document setting out the topics for discussion in the negotiations on the framework for the future UK-EU relationship.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became directly applicable across the EU today. Companies will be continuing to digest the raft of new and updated guidance on the GDPR that the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published in the run-up to the implementation date.
Other items on the agenda for businesses this month include the expected publication of secondary legislation on corporate governance and the Financial Reporting Council’s (FRC) launch of a consultation on the Large Private Companies Code.
The most significant Brexit developments this month centred around the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill 2017-19, which reached the Report Stage in the House of Lords.
Diversity, whether gender, ethnic or cultural, is an increasingly high profile issue for organisations. But how can organisations be convinced to implement the changes required to ensure diversity?
The persuasive economic and business case for embracing diversity often leads back to a 2015 report by McKinsey & Company, which was updated earlier this year. The statistics and analysis in that report provide a useful tool for gaining attention from executive teams and planning how an organisation can respond postively and effectively to diversity-related measures. The updated report, summarised in this blog, offers fresh confirmation that supporting diversity makes sense for organisations in every respect.
By far the most significant developments this month surround data protection and privacy. On 25 May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (GDPR) will become directly applicable in all EU member states.
Every employer would rather they didn’t need a whistleblowing hotline, but those companies who value their employees and reputation understand that, if things do go wrong, an external hotline is a great safety net to ensure issues are highlighted early on and dealt with appropriately.
Although buying the services of an external provider is a good start, the important part is encouraging your people to contact the hotline with genuine concerns. Many of our clients tell us that even when they have established an internal hotline, and trained people to handle calls, uptake has been poor.
The key development this month was the publication of a revised version of the draft Article 50 withdrawal agreement, which highlights the areas on which the European Commission and the UK government now agree.
The European Commission has today issued a notice to stakeholders outlining the ways in which the UK’s withdrawal from the EU will impact upon UK copyright. The notice confirms that, subject to any transitional arrangement to be agreed between the parties to the Brexit negotiations, as of the withdrawal date, the EU rules in the field of copyright will no longer apply to the UK.