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As legislators and regulators increase their focus on human rights and good governance, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment ("UNPRI"), an international organisation that works to promote the incorporation of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into investment decision-making, announced at the end of last year the creation of a new collaborative stewardship initiative, Advance.
Trust has been a key theme that has emerged in crypto in 2022. Going back to the original Bitcoin "White Paper"1, the very stated purpose of crypto and blockchain technology was to transcend a "trust based model" of the traditional financial system to enable payments – and later, with the development of smart contract platforms such as Ethereum, more complex transactions – to be entered into and executed without reliance on trust in counterparties and intermediaries, those being replaced by code and distributed consensus.
Last week one of the most significant conferences related to biodiversity concluded in Canada. COP15 has come shortly after the close of COP27 and attendees sought to agree a new set of goals to hopefully halt and reverse the worrying loss of natural capital that our planet is currently facing.
In this briefing we look at some of the key changes to law and practice that we anticipate taking place in 2023 which will affect the real estate sector, focussing on real estate development, real estate investment, real estate M&A, real estate occupiers, the senior living sector and the private rental sector.
A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry.
The appeal concerned two issues. The first issue was the scope of litigation privilege – the respondent defendants ("the Bank") sought to know which individuals were authorised to give instructions in relation to the proceedings on behalf of the appellant claimant ("Loreley"). Loreley claimed that this information was privileged.
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In a recent judgment given in the context of a case involving competition and intellectual property claims, Mr Justice Marcus Smith adopted a striking and unconventional approach to disclosure, placing the burden of a relevance review on the receiving party, not the disclosing party. Having originally ordered the parties to follow the "standard" PD51U (now PD57AD) disclosure model, the judge subsequently replaced this with a regime where the parties were required to conduct a disclosure review, targeted not at the identification and disclosure of relevant documents, but at the narrow exclusion of unequivocally irrelevant, and privileged, documents, with all other documents to be provided for inspection.
Last month the UK Government announced it will give businesses another two years to apply the new UKCA product safety markings and continue to recognise the EU CE mark during the extended transitional period.
The Competition Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating whether online mattress and bed seller Emma Sleep has breached consumer law by making misleading claims about urgency, including the use of countdown timers for discounted deals. This investigation may be the start of a wider crackdown by the CMA on potentially harmful online selling practices.
PRIIPs is dead. Now is the chance to get a proper replacement.
The Chancellor has today announced the Edinburgh Reforms, a package of measures designed to drive growth and competitiveness in the financial services sector. You can read our summary of these measures.
The UK Government has today announced a package of reforms to UK financial services regulation. It mostly consists of promises to consult on specific areas for reform over the next couple of years.
Read the full PMI Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Report 2022 here: Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) Report - The Pensions Management Institute (pensions-pmi.org.uk)
A guide to future employment and immigration law.
Last week the Government announced that it will be introducing legislation that enables judges to use procedural shortcuts to dismiss so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (or "SLAPPs") at an early stage. This follows a campaign by UK newspapers to prevent wealthy individuals from issuing SLAPPs with the intention of preventing legitimate public interest journalism.
In MUR Shipping BV v RTI Ltd, the Court of Appeal ruled that a force majeure clause did not apply because the party unable to comply with its obligations had offered suitable alternative performance (as envisaged by the clause, which included a reasonable endeavours obligation). In doing so, it reversed the decision at first instance, where the court ruled that the shipowners were entitled to insist on being paid in US dollars, not euros, as required by the contract. The case highlights the difficulties in relying on force majeure clauses, even where (as here) the contract is affected by US sanctions.
In this article, first published in the November 2022 edition of Butterworth's Journal of International Banking and Financial Law, Partner John Lee considers a key potential value proposition of smart contracts and its limits.