Businesses facing the onset of high-risk AI system obligations in August 2026 will now have significantly more time to prepare. On 7 May 2026, EU lawmakers reached political agreement on revisions to the AI Act, bringing some much-needed certainty after a fraught end to April, when negotiations on the Digital Omnibus on AI almost broke down.

The Crime and Policing Act 2026 (the "CPA") received Royal Assent on 29 April 2026. Among its wide-ranging provisions, the CPA contains a measure of significant consequence for all businesses with a connection to the UK: the extension of the reformed identification doctrine to all criminal offences.

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In this issue, we look at whether UK fire and rehire reforms could affect outsourcing. We also discuss consumer-facing outsourcings, the impact of the Middle East crisis, cloud switching, the expansion of unfair dismissal rights, new EU rules affecting financial services outsourcings and UK rules affecting premises and event management outsourcings.

RICS' new service charge residential management code came into effect on 7 April 2026. It provides, amongst other things, guidance for landlords and managing agents on key provisions in the Building Safety Act 2022.

Travers Smith has advised a consortium of lenders on the financing arrangements supporting Arcus Infrastructure Partners’ acquisition of Wifinity, a market-leading specialist connectivity services provider. Arcus acquired Wifinity through Arcus European Infrastructure Fund 3 SCSp.

Travers Smith has advised Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, a Stifel company, as Sole Sponsor to Mortgage Advice Bureau ("MAB") on its move from AIM to a listing on the Official List of the FCA, and to trading on the Main Market of the LSE.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has just published a consultation paper (Consultation Paper 26/14: Changes to the information flows for UK equity IPOs) on removing rules which require a mandatory waiting period between the publication of an IPO prospectus or registration document, and the release of pre-deal investment research by syndicate bank analysts.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry 

Now is the time to prepare and submit annual returns in respect of any employee share plan or management incentive arrangement you had in place during the 2025/26 tax year. 

On 21 April 2026, the Council of the European Union gave final approval to a new Directive on combating corruption (the "Directive"). This is a significant move to harmonise the current patchwork of legislation across the EU Member States that applies at present, given that EU measures to date have been high level and directional rather than prescriptive. The Directive will result in a single, harmonised set of criminal offences based on unified definitions, penalties and prevention measures applicable across the public and private sectors, though individual Member States can still choose to go further than required by the Directive.

We recently saw two of the largest DeFi exploits of 2026 within just 18 days: the approximately US$285 million breach of the Drift Protocol on Solana on 1 April^[1] and the approximately US$292 million exploit from Kelp DAO on 18 April^[2]. While the attack methods differed, a common theme was that neither were "hacks" in the straightforward sense of exploits of computer code; rather each attack exploited points of weakness within the governance structures around each DeFi application.  

Travers Smith has advised Peel Hunt and Stifel as Joint Sponsors to Young & Co.’s Brewery, P.L.C. ("Young's"), on its move from AIM to a listing on the Official List of the FCA, and to trading on the Main Market of the LSE.

The world of environmental product legislation is not immune to the regulatory uncertainty that has been a defining feature of the sustainability landscape over the past few years. While the direction of travel in the EU remains clear—towards greater digitalisation, harmonisation and circularity—the sheer volume and pace of legislative activity demands close attention from any business placing products on the European market.