<p>Filter Knowledge</p>

Welcome to the latest edition of our quarterly disputes newsletter, which covers key developments in the dispute resolution world over the last three months or so.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") has recently adopted new rules under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”) (together, the “New Rules”), based on a set of proposals originally set out in February 2022 (the “Original Proposals”).

In October 2022, we issued our briefing Strengthening the Financial Promotion Rules | Travers Smith, discussing the FCA's new rules on financial promotions, with a particular focus on the promotion of higher risk investments to retail investors. The FCA indicated at the time that such a category would include cryptoassets; however, at that point the legislation extending the FCA's remit to those financial promotions was not in force.

The Court of Appeal has recently determined an appeal in the FX CPO proceedings, against a first instance decision of the CAT.

Read and listen to "What’s Happening in Pensions", our regular news briefing covering topical pensions law developments.

The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier ("CSSF") recently published its observations and recommendations on the implementation of sustainability-related provisions in the investment fund industry as part of its supervisory work in the area of sustainable finance.

The speed of developments in the world of sustainability reporting over the last 12 months has been unprecedented, and this trend shows no signs of abating. Over the last five weeks alone, two "global baseline" sustainability reporting standards have been adopted and endorsed for use in capital markets, twelve European Sustainability Reporting Standards have been finalised, and the UK has committed to develop "Sustainability Disclosure Standards", based on the international standards, by July 2024.

Following Brexit, the UK Government is keen to boost trade with countries outside the EU. Our interactive maps show the extent of the UK's global network of free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties.

The Supreme Court held that the Quincecare duty does not extend to so-called "authorised push payment" (APP) fraud, whereby the victim is induced by fraudulent means to authorise their bank to send a payment to a bank account controlled by the fraudster. Pursuant to the first principles of banking law, it is a basic duty under a bank's contract with a customer to make payments from the credited account in compliance with the customer's instructions.

In our new Talking. Secondaries. series, we will seek to demystify the secondaries and synthetic secondaries markets and provide insights into the variety of tools available to GPs when looking to provide liquidity to their limited partners and their portfolios.

Audit clauses can be a useful tool for verifying compliance with contractual obligations, especially on compliance, pricing and payment issues. But what are the key drafting considerations?

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.