<p>Filter Knowledge</p>

Key employment and business immigration developments for employers.

In an application under the disclosure pilot scheme, the High Court has clarified the circumstances in which a document will be considered to have been "mentioned" in a witness statement and is therefore disclosable under paragraph 21 of Practice Direction 51U (PD51U).

The decision of the Court of Appeal in Barclay-Watt v Alpha Panareti Public Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1169 provides a clear articulation of the principles that the Court will apply in determining whether an individual is personally liable for having assisted a tortious act committed by the company of which they are a director.

On 8 July 2022, the Court of Appeal handed down its long-awaited judgment in the Municipio De Mariana group litigation claim, granting permission for some 200,000 Brazilian claimants to pursue in the UK their group action for damages caused by the collapse of the Fundão Dam in Brazil in 2015.

Whether it's the Northern Ireland Protocol or what to do about retained EU law, numerous Brexit-related issues continue to lurk in the new Prime Minister's in-tray. A key challenge will be how and where to strike the balance between the urgent need for measures to tackle the cost of living crisis and political pressure for action on Brexit-related issues raised during the leadership campaign. 

In a case involving an exclusive jurisdiction clause for the English courts and parallel criminal proceedings in the Vatican, the Court of Appeal has confirmed that there is a single correct test for granting a case management stay. The relevant question for the Court is "whether in the particular circumstances it is in the interests of justice for a case management stay to be granted".

In July 2022, the FCA published its review of the climate-related disclosures of premium listed commercial companies, for the first time since the rule mandating such disclosures was introduced for a wider range of listed issuers on 1 January 2022.

The FCA published its much-anticipated Policy Statement on "Improvements to the Appointed Representatives regime" (PS22/11) on 3 August 2022. This Policy Statement follows the FCA's Consultation Paper on the same topic (CP21/34), published in December 2021.

Our ESG timeline archive sets out past UK and EU legal and regulatory developments relating to ESG and wider sustainable business topics from January 2021 onwards. As with the main timeline, the timeline archive can be filtered according to your business type or the relevant ESG theme.

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The recent judgment of the High Court in Palladian Partners & Ors v The Republic of Argentina & Anor [2022] EWHC 2059 (Comm) provides an interesting insight into the factors that will be weighed by the court in determining whether a confidentiality obligation owed to a third party should obviate the need for a party to provide inspection of relevant documents in English litigation.

There is a growing trend amongst activists and claimant law firms to pursue novel causes of action against companies for acts or omissions that, while not directly attributable to them, are said to result in alleged human rights breaches in their value chains. 

On 5 August 2022, the FCA issued a Final Notice fining Sir Christopher Gent, former Chair of ConvaTec Group Plc (ConvaTec), £80,000 for unlawful disclosure of inside information to major shareholders.

In a recent decision of the Competition Appeal Tribunal ("CAT"), the CAT held that an email inadvertently disclosed by a party was protected by without prejudice privilege ("WPP").

In this decision, the court confirmed that it did not have the power to extend the "relevant period" for acceptance a Part 36 offer. In reaching that conclusion, Master Thornett gave some important reminders about how the Part 36 rules operate in practice, and how the court's approach to them, as a "self-contained code", will differ from its approach to other rules.

The recent High Court decision of ECU Group PLC v HSBC Bank PLC & Ors [2022] EWHC 1616 (Comm) sheds light on the scope of commercial litigation funders' potential liability for costs in unsuccessful actions, including costs incurred prior to the signing of the Litigation Funding Agreement (LFA). 

On 20 July 2022 the Deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab, announced a package of measures designed to tackle the increased use of SLAPPs in the courts of England and Wales.