As the old adage goes, it’s never a good idea to make friends in a crisis, particularly one being played out in front of your eyes on social media. GCs and legal teams should therefore prepare in advance and acquire a thorough understanding of how social media can help and hinder when something unexpected happens.
When considering local leaders and how to put them front and centre of ethics and compliance activities, we have much to learn from Betty Crocker.
Key items on the agenda for businesses this month include the expected publication of the Data Protection Bill, the coming into force of the corporate offence of failure to prevent facilitation of tax evasion and dealing with the implications of the Supreme Court’s judgment on employment tribunal fees.
Currently, many companies rely on their employees’ consent to process their personal data and short consents are often included in employment contracts for that purpose. The benefits of this approach are obvious: rather than having to determine which legal basis (from a number of potential legal bases for the processing of employee data) applies to each category of employees’ personal data, an employer can simply rely on an all-encompassing consent (see Practice note, Employer obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998: Schedule 2 conditions). Continue reading
After the recent landmark Supreme Court judgment on ET fees, which confirmed the importance of access to justice, we have seen reams of commentary on the possible implications and expected outcomes for claimants and respondents, and their lawyers.
What about the in-house perspective?
At BT we conduct our employment tribunal claims in-house, including all advocacy. Our in-house team therefore has a unique take on the impact of the introduction of ET fees in 2013 and their subsequent withdrawal, both in terms of the number of claims received and the way they were conducted.
What do Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google chairman Eric Schmidt and British cycling sensation Laura Kenny have in common? Of course, they’re leaders in their field – but they also all have a coach.
So should we all have a coach? I say yes, absolutely, but of course you’d expect me to say that – I am one. But let me tell you why you should, based not on my experience as a coach, but as a former executive who needed one to thrive and, at times, to survive.
Until recently, Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) had remained a relatively obscure legal entity. Historically intended to provide a vehicle for managing ventures like highland crofts and fishmongers, they had been a fairly innocuous legal construct. But around ten years ago something changed.
According to Companies House data, there was a sharp and seemingly unexplained increase in SLP incorporations from around 2008. Instead of a few hundred being set-up annually, the numbers rocketed into the thousands. In 2016 alone, more SLPs were registered (5,215) than in the century after they were introduced in 1907 (4,458).
The key developments this month were the government’s introduction of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill 2017-19 and publication of a joint UK-EU technical note on citizen’s rights.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), in partnership with Spend Network, has recently developed and launched a free tool to help procurers screen their tender data for signs of potential anti-competitive behaviour. For those in procurement, this will help to identify and investigate unfair practices. For those bidders working in an anti-competitive manner, this heightens the risk of revelation and investigation.
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important.”
Steven Covey
I, like most other in-house lawyers I imagine, often find myself thinking about, or discussing with colleagues, the lack of time we have to do what needs to be done. The requirements to complete forms and other administrative tasks, attend conference calls or endless meetings, and be the first port of call for any “emergency” that arises can mean that there is little time left in the day for what we are actually trained to do: review, interpret and advise on the law.