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A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

Welcome to the first edition of the Travers Smith Outsourcing Spotlight. This issue highlights a number of hot topics, including the impact of AI on outsourcing, changes to the UK's regimes for data protection and cybersecurity and proposed reforms to UK employment law, including TUPE.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued CP23/20: Diversity and inclusion in the financial sector which sets out its long-awaited proposals to introduce a new regulatory framework on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in the financial sector.

Dispute Resolution Partner Joe Moore and Dispute Resolution Associate Emma Gittings have contributed to ThoughtLeaders4 Competition Law & Litigation Magazine. Their article, 'Less haste more speed?' was first published in Issue 2 of the magazine and can be viewed below.

The abolishment of ground rent in residential long leases comes as part of a package of Government reforms designed to curtail unfair practices in the leasehold market, which we explored in our previous briefing. From 1 April 2023,[1] this applies to all new leases granted with a term of more than 21 years in the senior living sector, though will not impact existing ones. The changes, brought about by the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 (the Act), have necessitated developers, investors and owners of retirement housing reforming their existing leasehold structures, which have typically relied upon ground rent as a way to recoup the enlarged capital costs of constructing enhanced communal spaces within retirement schemes.

The European Commission has issued a Targeted Consultation and a Public Consultation on the implementation of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR).  The Consultations include a series of questions on the practical functioning of the SFDR and its possible reform. The EU appears to have recognised that the SFDR is not as user-friendly as it had hoped and is seeking to assess its potential shortcomings and explore potential changes. 

Key employment and business immigration developments for employers.

The Upper Tribunal (UT) has firmly upheld the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) in the salaried members rules case of HMRC v Bluecrest Capital Management (UK) LLP, rejecting HMRC's call for a narrow interpretation of the "significant influence" exclusion.

In this video, Employment Knowledge Counsel Adam Rice and Anna West take a look at forthcoming developments in employment and immigration law for the rest of 2023 and beyond.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

Amid widespread concern about the workings of the housing market in the UK, in February 2023 the Competition and Markets Authority (the "CMA") launched a consumer protection project into the rented housing sector, alongside a separate market study into housebuilding, discussed here.  Whilst acknowledging that some of the problems in the rented housing sector are not within its remit, it has stated its intention to ensure that ineffective competition or unfair business practices do not increase costs, limit choice or reduce quality for tenants. Following an initial 3 month period of engagement, the CMA has published an update report into the rental housing sector which summarises the feedback it has received from a wide variety of stakeholders, and identifies the four areas on which it intends to focus in the next stage of its project.

The FCA has issued its near final rules (PS23/13) on its new regime for firms seeking to approve financial promotions. This takes effect on 7 February 2024.

Imposing an obligation on another business to offer the best prices and terms that it offers to all other customers can often seem attractive – but such clauses are not always straightforward. In this briefing, we explore some of the difficulties and discuss the key points to consider for both customers and suppliers when negotiating such clauses.

The Competition and Markets Authority (the "CMA") has powers under the Enterprise Act 2002 to conduct inquiries into the workings of a market. The framework is a two-stage one: a preliminary market study (lasting for 12 months), followed by an in-depth market investigation in cases where the CMA considers there to be reasonable grounds to suspect that a feature (or combination of features) of a market in the UK prevents, restricts or distorts competition.

This article was first published in the Oct-Dec 2023 edition of Corporate Disputes Magazine

Commercial contracts often require goods or services to be provided over several years – so is it better to have a single global limitation of liability for all claims over the life of the contract? Or should you opt for multiple caps, where the limit effectively "resets" for each year of the contract or for each separate claim?

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.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

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”).