<p>Filter Knowledge</p>

Our round-up of recent and forthcoming developments in UK law and practice for our international stakeholders.

In the first warranty & indemnity insurance ("W&I") claim to be decided by the Commercial Court, the Defendant insurers succeeded on every issue, with the Court finding that there had not been a breach of the relevant warranties and indeed no loss as the buyer would have paid the full purchase price in any event.

Major fashion brands are increasingly making efforts to capitalise on growing ESG consciousness by consumers. At the same time however, brands are also aware of activity by regulators and campaigners that seeks to hold businesses accountable for "greenwashing" and human rights risks present in their value chain.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

In The University of Dundee v Chakraborty [2023] CISH 22, the Scottish Court of Session considered the privilege status of an early unpublished version of an internal investigation report, which had been amended and reissued following the receipt of legal advice, and then disclosed in its final form in Employment Tribunal proceedings. The Court held, in a decision which, albeit Scottish, is binding on all UK Employment Tribunals, that the early version of the report was not privileged.

Even the CEOs of the big AI firms, like Sam Altman of OpenAI (the developers of ChatGPT), say that AI needs regulating, but there is very little consensus about how to go about regulating it. Governments across the globe are grappling with how to balance promoting innovation and economic growth with protecting citizens' privacy, safety and other human rights.

As businesses invest more heavily in AI, what intellectual property challenges are they likely to encounter? How do we avoid AI have a "chilling" effect on human creativity and enable rightsholders to guard against their intellectual creations being scraped to train AI without their consent?

• Following the Home Secretary's statement on 23 May 2023, if an international student's course start date is on or after 1 January 2024, they are no longer permitted to bring dependants unless the course is a PhD, other doctoral qualification, or a research-based higher degree. The ability for international students to switch out of the student route into work routes before their studies have been completed has also now been removed.

The Building Safety Act 2022 overhauls the existing health and safety regulations for residential buildings and is intended to give residents more rights, powers and protections. One aspect of this new regime is that owners of higher-risk residential buildings must register them with the Building Safety Regulator by 1 October 2023.

On 29 June 2023, having completed its passage through parliament, the Financial Services and Markets Bill received Royal Assent.

Travers Smith LLP has advised Ancala Partners LLP, a longstanding client of the firm and a leading investor in critical infrastructure, on its new Growth Fund. The fund is supporting the growth plans of Portsmouth Water, Biogen and Leep Utilities.

Travers Smith LLP has advised long-standing client Cinnamon Care Homes (Cinnamon Care) on the refinancing of two luxury care homes in Chichester and Dorset with a £19.5 million facility from specialist property lender Leumi UK.

Key employment and business immigration developments for employers

The doctrine of separability under English law means that an arbitration clause is separate from the underlying agreement. In turn, this means that the law governing the obligations of the underlying contract can be different to the law governing the arbitration agreement.

Travers Smith LLP has advised long-standing client The Access Group on its acquisition of Guestline.

Travers Smith LLP has advised long-standing client The Access Group on its acquisition of the ResDiary Group.

There's now a new route to transfer personal data to the US under EU GDPR – for the time being at least. On 10 July 2023 the European Commission adopted its adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF).  Max Schrems has already said that it will be challenged in the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and so this is unlikely to mark the end to the uncertainty that has hung over international data transfers since Schrems II.  This briefing looks at the implications of the adequacy decision.       

Travers Smith has advised Lifezone Metals (NSYE: LZM), a modern metals company creating value across the battery metals supply chain from resource to metals production and recycling, on its deSPAC combination with GoGreen Investments.