The Walker Morris leisure team will be exhibiting at the LGA/cCLOA Annual Culture, Tourism and Sport Conference 2014 on 3–4 March at Guildhall Square in Portsmouth, Hampshire. The law firm will be found on Stand 9. Local authorities play a crucial role in providing, supporting and developing leisure and cultural opportunities. The challenge is fulfilling […]
By Paul Carney Readers will be aware that occupational pension schemes providing benefits on a salary-related or defined-benefit (DB) basis — including ‘final salary’ pension schemes — have been in the news for several years. This is because companies sponsoring such schemes have experienced increasing difficulty funding them. Funding a DB scheme is rooted in […]
By Sarah Lovell Mark Harper resigned after discovering a cleaner he employed for his flat did not have permission to work in the UK. How could such a mistake have been made (especially by the minister for immigration) and how can employers avoid the same trap? In April 2007, Mark Harper took on a cleaner, Isabella […]
In a newly issued opinion, the Federal Circuit has affirmed its long-standing practice of reviewing trial court claim construction rulings de novo, as a question of law, while issues of fact will continue to receive deference by the reviewing appeals court. Under US law generally, questions of law are reviewed anew (de novo, or without […]
The board of governors of the Federal Reserve System recently issued a final rule that will fundamentally change the way in which non-US banks are regulated and supervised in the US. Pursuant to section 165 of the Dodd-Frank Act, the Federal Reserve has issued regulations for the enhanced prudential supervision of large bank holding companies […]
Mortgage Express (ME), together with the fixed charge receivers it appointed in respect of the claimant borrower’s six buy-to-let properties, obtained a summary judgment/strike-out order to end the borrower’s High Court claim against it. The claim asserted that the receivers were ‘wrongly appointed’ by the bank and were acting unlawfully. The claimant owned six buy-to-let […]
By Clare Brown There can’t be many people who haven’t heard of Facebook. If you aren’t one of the 1.26 billion users worldwide, they are rarely out of the press. Even our language has assimilated Facebook-inspired changes in meaning; ‘to friend’ — to connect with another facebook user; or ‘to poke’ — to get the electronic attention […]
By Fleur Turrington It is crucial to cover the full range of potential losses in exclusion clauses. We consider exclusion clauses in sale-of-goods contracts in light of the recent Commercial Court decision of Glencore Energy Ltd v Cirrus Oil Services. Where a buyer refuses to accept goods under a contract, the seller has the right […]
By Jock McCormack The overlap of Australia’s new transfer pricing laws with the thin capitalisation rules is causing challenges and likely duplication of analysis for taxpayers — particularly for the arm’s-length amount-of-debt test. Australia legislated comprehensive new transfer pricing laws in 2012 and 2013. These laws were passed in two instalments: Subdivision 815-A, dealing with assessing […]
By Carol AF Umhoefer France’s Data Protection Authority (CNIL) has for the first time adopted truly sweeping changes to its Single Authorization No. 004 on Whistleblowing. With whistleblowing hotlines gaining credibility as a necessary element of an effective compliance programme, there has been an explosion in the number of specific authorisation requests for whistleblowing hotlines… […]
The Lord Rennard ‘saga’ continues to play out in the news as he announces his intention to take legal action against the Liberal party if they don’t lift his suspension following an investigation into alleged sexual harassment of four female party members. The investigation was conducted in accordance with the party’s membership rules and headed […]
An important message to all tax planners: the European Commission’s directorate-general for competition has declared war on ‘fiscal optimisation’. It intends to use the antitrust stick to overcome the lack of tax harmonisation at member-state level. At the recent European Competition Forum in Brussels, competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia declared that he is ready to use […]