This quarter’s newsletter focuses on a wide range of articles from Business Risk & Regulation, Employment, Corporate, Commercial Litigation, Data Protection and Intellectual Property.
Heightened awareness of environmental protection has increased the focus on enforcement action for breaches of environmental law. Where the offending of a body corporate can clearly be attributed to the acts or defaults of a senior person, they also commit an offence. Whilst immediate custodial sentences for directors remain rare, courts are fearless in imposing a range of sentencing options, including lengthy director disqualification orders. This article looks at a recent case associated with committing environmental offences and the impact on the sole director of the waste and recycling company, including being disqualified for several year and a suspended prison sentence.
Contact our Business Risk & Regulation Team for more information.
Businesses considering making redundancies to reduce staff numbers should always give proper thought to which employees will be “pooled” together for the purposes of the redundancy and selection exercise. A recent EAT case has emphasised the importance of consulting with employees or employee representatives at a stage in the redundancy process when they still have the possibility of influencing the outcome and in doing so have recognised that, in certain circumstances, it may be appropriate for this consultation to extend to the decision-making about who is in the “pool” of employees or the selection criteria it is proposing to use.
Contact our Employment Team for more information.
Shares can be sold in a business under compulsory transfer provisions. This can happen when, for example, a particular event is triggered as dictated by the company’s constitutional documents. In his briefing, Brendan Biggs considers a recent case as to whether a minority discount is applied when determining the fair value of a minority shareholding that is transferred under compulsory transfer provisions, and highlights the importance of the wording in a company’s constitutional documents as to how shares are valued when they come to be sold.
Contact our Corporate Team or more information.
Businesses will be waiting a bit longer to understand what the future of UK data protection law looks like and the extent to which it will depart from the current GDPR regime. Although, there are promises of a "business-friendly" system which promotes economic growth, whilst retaining the UK's adequacy status. Hannah Pettit provides an introduction to the Data Reform Bill, with further updates to follow once the data protection landscape is navigated further.
Contact our Data Protection Team for more information.
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