February 2024 News
Diversity: The way we were
What is diversity? Despite a multiplicity of available definitions, there is no straightforward answer to this apparently simple question. Indeed, the 5.6 billion results provided by a quick Google search of the word shows that diversity ranks midway between comparable searches for the word God (6.6 billion) and religion (4.6 billion).
August 2023 News
Securitisation and Cayman Orphan SPVs – Part Three
In the final article in a series of three, Paul Trewartha and Simon Lawrenson, Partners at Mourant Hong Kong, examine the key features of a securitisation vehicle and the advantages of utilising an Orphan SPV in the Cayman Islands for a securitisation transaction. In the first article of the series Securitisation and Cayman Orphan ...
July 2023 News
Cream of Jersey: best in class
Dominic Carman meets with the managing partners of Jersey’s elite law firms to discover how they are rising above economic challenges to deliver growth Enjoying a preeminent reputation as a major international finance centre that is both stable and at the forefront of international regulation, Jersey is often cited as a best-in-class offshore jurisdiction. ...
June 2023 News
Securitisation and Cayman Orphan SPVs – Part Two
In the second in a series of three articles, Paul Trewartha and Simon Lawrenson, Partners at Mourant Hong Kong, examine the key features of a securitisation vehicle and the advantages of utilising an Orphan SPV in the Cayman Islands for a securitisation transaction
May 2023 News
Securitisation and Cayman Orphan SPVs – Part One
In the first in a series of three articles, Paul Trewartha and Simon Lawrenson, Partners at Mourant Hong Kong, examine the key features of a securitisation vehicle and the advantages of utilising an Orphan SPV in the Cayman Islands for a securitisation transaction.
April 2023 News
Global geo-politics: taking stock
Geoff Cook, Chair of Mourant Consulting, takes a closer look at global geo-politics – looking at the US strengthening its relationships with allies, the war in Ukraine, and the Chinese president visiting Russia to strengthen their economic and military ties.
June 2022 News
Law Commission proposals on corporate criminal liability
On 10 June 2022, the Law Commission published an options paper for the Government on how it can improve the law to ensure that corporations are effectively held to account for committing serious crimes. Tom McNeill and John Binns of the Financial Crime team at BCL Solicitors analyse the key points.
May 2022 News
CMS CEE – Data Centres
Dominic Carman, Editor of Reports Legal, recently chaired a CMS webinar on the development of data centres in CEE. Participants: CMS CEE TMT, Real Estate and Energy experts – Eva Talmacsi Lukáš Hejduk Piotr Ciolkowski Director of Turner & Townsend, Poland – Tomasz Łosek Issues: What are the key factors driving global demand for more ...
April 2022 News
NFTs: An Increasingly Complex Picture
Nick Eziefula, Partner, Simkins LLP Once more, the times they are a changing. Bob Dylan caused consternation when he adopted a new-fangled electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Now Sir Paul McCartney has endorsed the medium of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) with the sale of an NFT linked to his handwritten notes from ...
January 2022 News
England’s Lockdown Regulations: a Compressed History
As Sue Gray is set to publish her report into alleged law-breaking in 10 Downing Street during the Covid-19 lockdowns, John Binns, Partner at BCL Solicitors LLP examines how the law has evolved and which rules have applied since March 2020
January 2022 News
David Boies: What Prince Andrew can expect in court from Virginia Giuffre’s lawyer
In a face-to-face interview in New York, before he was instructed by Virginia Giuffre Roberts, David Boies told Dominic Carman about his approach to litigation – from taking depositions and handling juries to dealing with hidden evidence and cross-examining witnesses
January 2022 News
£1bn Recovered from Tax Fraud – Good News?
A recent HMRC press release trumpeted the £218m recovered by its Fraud Investigation Service (FIS) in 2020-21, taking its total for the five years since it was set up to just over £1bn. Harry Travers and John Binns, partners in the Financial Crime team at BCL Solicitors, ask if we really should be celebrating?
January 2022 News
The rise of litigation funds in Jersey
Litigation funding is certainly a hot topic, as can be seen from the controversy surrounding the involvement of litigation funders in the now infamous divorce proceedings between Tatiana Akhmedova and her now ex-husband, oligarch Temur Akhmedov. Jersey is no different, with litigation funders becoming increasingly involved in all manner of disputes.
October 2021 News
Will the end of Covid support ‘fuel insolvencies’?
Following the withdrawal of government support measures to mitigate the economic effects of the pandemic, Dana Rădulescu, Partner, MPR Partners, examines the outlook for insolvency. At the beginning of October, the main UK government support measures given to British businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic were withdrawn. Many now expect a wave of insolvencies to follow ...
October 2021 News
Modern Slavery and Money Laundering: The Duty Most Companies Don’t Know They Have
Do UK companies have a duty to prevent, or report, forced labour or human trafficking? The answer, for now, is ‘not quite’ – but duties in this area are strengthening in practice, thanks to laws on modern slavery and money laundering.
October 2021 News
Professor Tribe talks to Reports Legal – exclusive
One of America’s foremost constitutional scholars, a trusted adviser to Democratic presidents and Professor Emeritus at Harvard who has argued dozens of cases in the US Supreme Court, Laurence Tribe tells Dominic Carman what makes a great lawyer and why maths is more beautiful than law. Laurence H Tribe, known to his friends as ...
October 2021 News
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? The Problem of the UK and Europol
Joining forces to fight crime might seem like a no-brainer. John Binns, financial crime partner at BCL Solicitors, considers that new working arrangements between the UK and Europol show the effort needed to maintain them post-Brexit
October 2021 News
Failure and Fault:
What NatWest’s £400m fine tells us about corporate liability for money laundering
John Binns, partner in the Financial Crime team at BCL Solicitors LLP. considers whether NatWest’s guilty plea last week to failures under the UK’s money-laundering regulations – but is it right to call this a ‘failure to prevent’ by the bank?
September 2021 News
Greenwashing claims face CMA enforcement action in the new year
As the Competition and Markets Authority issued its final guidance on misleading environmental claims and fired a warning shot to businesses- either secure compliance now or face enforcement action, Richard Reichman, partner in the regulatory team at BCL Solicitors LLP, analyses the compliance risks for businesses. Against the background of the UK’s aim to achieve ...
August 2021 News
Tracking the crypto underworld: law and order… and tech
By Robert Jones, Managing Partner of Baker & Partners (Cayman) Limited, and Peter Eguae, barrister, 7 Bedford Row At the time of writing, each bitcoin is worth just over US$50,000. With the right tools anyone, anywhere in the world, is unilaterally able to store or transfer crypto assets – whether peer-to-peer or via the ...
July 2021 News
SFO agrees tenth Deferred Prosecution Agreement – good money, but do they work?
Following the announcement by the Serious Fraud Office that Amec Foster Wheeler Energy will pay a £103m penalty in a Deferred Prosecution Agreement to settle 18 years of corruption allegations, Alex Swan at BCL Solicitors examines the implications of these much-criticised agreements between regulators and companies.
July 2021 News
TikTok faces landmark legal claim following the illegal collection of millions of children’s personal data
Scott+Scott Partner Tom Southwell and Counsel James Hain-Cole explain the landmark High Court claim against TikTok, and parent firm ByteDance, over the illegal collection of, and profiteering from, children’s personal data.
June 2021 News
Barrister, QC, judge, alcoholic…and a brave man
Any publication daring to print the above headline would normally anticipate only one response: a writ for defamation, swiftly issued by solicitors acting on behalf of the man whom it describes. Unless, of course, those words told the truth.
May 2021 News
Green light on data class actions? Supreme Court to decide Google’s fate
Herbert Smith Freehills disputes partner Julian Copeman and Consultant Kate Macmillan explain the landmark Supreme Court case that will decide whether Google can face a claim over alleged illegal tracking of millions of iPhone users.