REUTERS |
August 16, 2017

Employee “consent” under the GDPR

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 →

REUTERS | Russell Boyce
August 10, 2017

Supreme Court judgment on ET fees: an in-house point of view

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.

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REUTERS | Michaela Rehle
August 4, 2017

Executive Coach – I want one… I think…

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.

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REUTERS | Nikola Solic
August 1, 2017

Money laundering and corruption risk: a driving force behind the new SLP beneficial ownership declaration requirements

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).

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REUTERS | Global Creative Services
July 24, 2017

A new tool for bid-rigging detection

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.

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REUTERS |
July 20, 2017

How primary law has a place in the in-house lawyers’ workflow

“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.

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REUTERS | Navesh Chitrakar
July 19, 2017

Benchmarking your Modern Slavery statement: race to the top

It is now over a year since the first organisations were required to start producing their slavery and human trafficking statements in compliance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, making it possible to assess and compare the large number of statements already published. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Molly Riley
July 18, 2017

Six key questions when building a GDPR compliance programme

  • by Catie Sheret
  • Senior Vice President, Chief Privacy Officer and Associate General Counsel for Core Markets
    • at

I started in the role of Chief Privacy Officer role at Pearson very recently, though I have been in the Legal team for eighteen years. I have been blessed with a wealth of resources at my disposal: a central Data Privacy Office team, policies for each area of the business, an incident response toolkit, an established privacy impact assessment process, memberships of various expert bodies and access to training and knowledge resources. I realise that probably makes me very lucky amongst many of you.

But even with the backing of good infrastructure, making best use of resources is key. So what have been the next steps?

Continue reading →