On 5 December 2023, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with Entain, a global online sports betting and gaming business (owner of Ladbrokes and Coral bookmakers) headquartered in London, to settle the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) investigation into the company and its group.
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Corporate Criminal Liability Reform: How Much Further Can the UK Go?
The landscape for tackling corporate crime in the UK is undergoing significant change, with a focus on empowering enforcement agencies to further hold large corporates to account for the conduct of their employees and associated persons. On 26 October 2023, the Government passed a piece of landmark legislation in the form of the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (the act), which we previously reported on in this April 2023 post and this October 2023 post. A few short weeks later, on 14 November 2023, the Criminal Justice Bill (the bill) was introduced to the House of Commons.
Court of Appeal Sets Out Correct Approach to Material Adverse Change in Respect of Prospects Warranties
In an update to our May 2023 blog on the case, the Court of Appeal has held in Decision Inc Holdings Proprietary Ltd & Another v. Stephen Garbett & Another that the High Court erred both in its interpretation of and approach to a material adverse change in prospects warranty in a share purchase agreement.
The court also determined that a notice provision requiring Decision to summarise the nature of a claim and the amount claimed required it to give an amount claimed in respect of each of the alleged breaches.
Online Service Providers: Obligations Under The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023
The UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) 2023, which became law on 26 October 2023, imposes extensive new obligations on certain types of online service providers, requiring them to protect their users by identifying, mitigating, and managing risks relating to illegal and harmful content. Due to its extraterritorial reach, the OSA is expected to regulate approximately 100,000 organisations worldwide.
Court of Appeal Holds That Courts Can Order Parties to Engage in Dispute Resolution
The Court of Appeal’s hotly anticipated decision in James Churchill v. Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council has been handed down. It holds that courts have the power to stay proceedings for, or order, parties to engage in a non-court-based dispute resolution process.
UK to Sign Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments
The Ministry of Justice has published the UK government’s response to the consultation on joining the Hague Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters, concluding that it is the right time for the UK to join the convention.
UK Government Introduces Arbitration Bill Into Parliament, Incorporating Law Commission’s Proposals for Reform
The UK government introduced the Arbitration Bill into UK Parliament on 21 November 2023, and it has already had its first reading. The bill incorporates all of the Law Commission’s recommendations for reform of the English Arbitration Act 1996 (see our October 2023 blog post summarising the main recommendations).
Time Is On My Side: When Can Limitation Periods Be Extended in the UK?
A fundamental issue that all litigants will be well served to consider when bringing, or defending, any legal proceeding is the question of whether the claim has been brought in time. The inadvertent failure to bring a claim in time has served to fatally undermine several disputes that otherwise may have been successful.
The Limitation Act 1980 sets out the relevant time limits (known as ‘limitation periods’) in which different kinds of legal claims must be brought – and the time from which those limitation periods begin to run. Many aspects of the act are uncontroversial, but there was some lingering uncertainty concerning the interpretation of Section 32, which extends the normally applicable limitation periods in circumstances where facts relevant to the claimant’s cause of action have been deliberately concealed by the defendant.
Commercial Court Leaves Room for Enforceability of Litigation Funding Agreements
In the first case to address the ramifications of the UK Supreme Court’s decision in R (on the application of PACCAR Inc and others) v. Competition Appeal Tribunal and others, the English Commercial Court granted an asset preservation/freezing order in favour of a litigation funder. In Therium Litigation Funding A IC v. Bugsby Property LLC, the court considered that there was a serious issue to be tried, and that the PACCAR decision did not render the whole of the litigation funding agreement unenforceable.
Commercial Court Refuses to Set Aside an Arbitration Award on Consumer Protection Grounds
In Eternity Sky Investments Ltd v. Zhang,[1] the Commercial Court refused an application to set aside an enforcement order in respect of an award made in a Hong Kong-seated arbitration on the grounds that enforcement would be contrary to English public policy – specifically, consumer protections enshrined in the Consumer Rights Act 2015. In reaching its conclusion, the Commercial Court held that the Consumer Rights Act did not apply, as although the applicant was a consumer and lived in the UK, the transaction was much more closely connected with Hong Kong. The Commercial Court also expressed the view (obiter) that inclusion of an arbitration clause in a contract with a consumer does not automatically entail that the clause will be deemed unfair and thus unenforceable.