This time last week I chaired a live webinar discussion on the impact on organisations of increasing complexity in the regulatory environment, between Vicky Marissen, Managing Director of PACT European Affairs, and Daniel Greenberg, Counsel for Domestic Legislation in the House of Commons.
For those unable to join us live, a recording of the webinar, with accompanying slide presentation, can be found here. I’ve summarised some of the key takeaways in this blog.
This round-up summarises the employment-related developments that generated the most interest from in-house lawyers in the past three months, including the delay of the gender pay gap reporting regulations, the introduction of the illegal working offence and the implications of Brexit on employment law in the UK. It also highlights several key employment cases.
Key themes and developments on the agenda for businesses in October include a likely consultation on a proposed Criminal Finances Bill, an inquiry into corporate governance and new minimum wage rates.
Under the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) new approach to continuing competence, from 1 November 2016 all solicitors will be required to plan their own learning and development activities to maintain or reach the necessary skill levels required to fulfil their professional roles to the standards expected. This replaces the old system that required solicitors to complete a minimum number of continuing professional development (CPD) hours each year.
The SRA yesterday published a brief update on the issues it is considering in light of the EU referendum.
The update confirms that there has been:
The issue of executive pay has increasingly been the subject of press coverage in 2016, particularly since the speech made by Theresa May before becoming Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party in which she outlined her proposals to make changes to corporate governance, including executive pay.
Richard Moorhead recently drew my attention to a fascinating draft research paper from Robert Anderson and Jeffrey Manns, both associate professors at US law schools, on the drafting of US merger agreements.
The authors used computer textual analysis to review around 12,000 public merger agreements filed in the US over 20 years. They were able to construct ‘family trees’ around these agreements, tracing the precedents used for each deal and determining how those precedents had changed over time. Continue reading
Key themes and developments on the agenda for businesses in September include reviewing revised directors’ remuneration reporting guidance, analysing the issues for boards to consider in the light of Brexit and keeping track of EU-US Privacy Shield developments.
Many of us are still getting over the shock of the UK’s unexpected decision to leave the EU. Politicians of all hues in the UK and across the continent, sent into a spin, begin to grapple with the geopolitical and economic consequences. Theresa May’s fledgling UK government starts to contemplate its Brexit negotiation strategy. The role of the EU’s rulebook, which was first consolidated into UK law some 43 years ago and has developed complex tentacles ever since, is in question.
Some early birds have already adopted the new regime, but from 1 November 2016 all solicitors will be required to adhere to the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) new approach to continuing competence. This means that, rather than undertaking a random mandatory minimum number of continuing professional development (CPD) hours every year, solicitors will now be required to actually think about and plan purposefully for what they personally need to do, in terms of learning and development activities, to maintain or reach the necessary skill levels required to perform the roles and tasks required by their particular job, to the standards expected.