In a recent case coming out of the administration of high street retailer HMV, the High Court has held that a tenant may not assign its lease to its guarantor. The decision, if followed, will reduce the options for organisations carrying out intra-group reorganisations of their property portfolios, making it critical that a lease is granted to the “right” tenant company at the outset.
One of the first questions when a dispute arises, regardless of the merits of the claim, is: “can we afford to fight this?” Faced with potentially large costs, many businesses are forced to consider compromise, particularly if the costs in money and management time are likely to be disproportionate to the sum in dispute. And, let’s face it, taking the settlement option when you have a strong claim can be galling; particularly if the main reason for avoiding court proceedings is the potential legal bill or the time it might take to resolve the issue.
The recent Solar Century case gives an important warning to in-house lawyers about the government’s ability to change policy at short notice, despite potentially devastating effects on a particular sector.
This round-up summarises the developments that generated the most interest with in-house lawyers in the first three months of 2016, including the new PSC register requirements, Brexit, gender pay gap reporting, EU and US privacy shield and the 2016 Budget.
This week, a colleague shared with me a new white paper entitled Artificial Intelligence in Law: The State of Play 2016 by Michael Mills of Neota Logic. The paper looks at how artificial intelligence (AI) is being implemented right now in areas such as legal research, compliance, contract analysis, case prediction, and document automation.
Key developments on the agenda for businesses in April 2016 include the introduction of the PSC register and the national living wage, and the adoption of a new directive on trade secrets. The adoption of the new General Data Protection Regulation is now not expected until the summer.
We had a great couple of days last week at the GC Leadership Forum, which I chaired for Practical Law. I’d like to say a huge thank you to the excellent speakers and to everyone at the Forum who contributed to some fascinating discussions and debates.
One of the highlights for me was the keynote speech by Will Hutton, chair of the Big Innovation Centre and Principal of Hertford College Oxford, on what he described as the new age of turbulence.
When Practical Law began, more than 20 years ago, we had a simple mission that still holds firm today: to demystify the law and bring practical law to companies. A key part of that mission is striving to write as simply as we can, using plain English. When we took our standard documents to China, we found that our international customers were just as drawn to the fact that they were presented in simple, easily translatable English, as they were to the choice of English law or the jurisdiction of the English courts.
The Financial List was established in October 2015 as a single specialist list comprised of judges drawn from both the Commercial Court and the Chancery Division, with particular expertise and experience in financial markets disputes. The procedure for cases assigned to the List is governed by CPR 63A, the associated Practice Direction, and a Guide issued on 1 October 2015.