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Regulatory Radar: quick takes May 2025

Published on 12 May 2025. By Gavin Reese, Partner, Head of Regulatory

Welcome to the latest edition of our bi-monthly Regulatory Radar: quick takes update, which collates the latest developments from across the UK’s regulators.

The EU's Cyber Resilience Act: 10 on the 10

Published on 10 Dec 2024. By Richard Breavington, Partner and Dorian Nunzek, Trainee Solicitor

Today the EU's Cyber Resilience Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/2847) ('CRA') enters into force. The CRA recognises that the continuously evolving world of smart products is frequently challenged by vulnerabilities which can potentially lead to cyber-security incidents. Whilst most of the Act's obligations will not be applicable until three years from now, 10 December is the day when the EU takes a big step towards it's ten-year Cybersecurity Strategy. To mark the occasion, we have outlined ten key points that entities in scope must be aware of in preparation for compliance with the CRA.

UK Government wants understanding of video games to move to the next level

Published on 12 Jun 2023. By Gowri Chandrashekar, Senior Associate and Zoe Harvey, Associate

On 30 May 2023, the UK Government published a Video Games Research Framework which encourages research on video games and emerging game-related technologies.

New Digital Regulators on the 2023 Horizon: the Digital Markets Unit and the European Centre for Algorithmic Transparency

Published on 02 Dec 2022. By David Cran, Partner, Head of Disputes and Chris Ross, Partner

For a number of years, the UK Government has been laying the groundwork to bring in a digital markets regime to regulate digital firms designated as having ‘strategic market status’ (SMS). To be designated as having SMS, a firm must have 'substantial and entrenched market power' in at least one activity. Companies having SMS are likely to include the largest tech firms such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Meta (the so called 'GAMMA' firms).

Digital services providers—Commission to focus on implementation phase of EU consumer protection legislation

Published on 31 Oct 2022. By David Cran, Partner, Head of Disputes and Ellie Chakarto, Senior Associate

The Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are published in the Official Journal and the plenary vote of the European Parliament on the proposed text of the AI Act is expected once amendments are agreed by negotiators. The Commission is now turning its focus to the implementation phase of these landmark regimes. So, what does the future hold for the European tech sector and how might it differ for the UK?

The EU Digital Markets Act - a focus on gatekeeper obligations and sanctions

Published on 12 Oct 2022. By David Cran, Partner, Head of Disputes and Joshy Thomas, Senior Knowledge Lawyer

What key obligations will the Digital Markets Act (DMA) impose on online platforms designated as gatekeepers?

CMA ends its investigation into online console gaming subscription practices

Published on 14 Jun 2022. By Jonathan Greenway, Senior Associate and Joshua Charalambous, Partner

The UK Competition Markets Authority (CMA) has now closed its investigation into subscription practices in the online console gaming sector after key players Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft committed to making improvements to their contract terms with a view to better protecting customers.

Regulatory Radar - Summer 2025

Published on 30 Jun 2025. By Gavin Reese, Partner, Head of Regulatory

Welcome to the Summer 2025 edition of RPC's bi-annual Regulatory Radar – a guide to the key regulatory changes worth having on your radar.

Falling Fowl in personal injury claims: the Animals Act 1971, fundamental dishonesty, quantum and forum shopping

Published on 11 Jun 2025. By Gavin Reese, Partner, Head of Regulatory and Sally Lord, Knowledge Counsel – Insurance and Litigation

Whether you're dealing with claims under the Animals Act 1971, fundamental dishonesty, quantum disputes or what forum to choose, Boyd v Hughes [2025] deals with it all. Here we discuss the principles before the court in a claim that arose out of a personal injury claim after a fall from a horse and what it means for personal injury cases going forwards.

Regulatory Radar - quick takes - March 2025

Published on 13 Mar 2025. By Gavin Reese, Partner, Head of Regulatory

Welcome to the latest edition of our bi-monthly Regulatory Radar: quick takes update, which collates the latest developments from across the UK’s regulators.

Regulatory Radar - Winter 2025

Published on 10 Mar 2025. By Gavin Reese, Partner, Head of Regulatory

Welcome to the Winter 2025 edition of RPC's bi-annual Regulatory Radar – a guide to the key regulatory changes worth having on your radar.

Green claims update: February 2025

Published on 27 Feb 2025. By Oliver Bray, Senior Partner, Technology, Media & Telecoms Sector Lead and Ciara Cullen, Partner, Retail & Consumer Sector Lead and Hettie Homewood , Senior Associate and Sophie Tuson, Senior Associate, Environment and Climate Change Practice Lead

Welcome to our round-up of the key legal and regulatory developments relating to green claims.

The EU Compliance headache you don't know you have? A priority primer on the European Accessibility Act

Published on 31 Oct 2024. By Oliver Bray, Senior Partner, Technology, Media & Telecoms Sector Lead and Hettie Homewood , Senior Associate

It is now less than a year until the EU Accessibility Act (EAA) comes into force, which will require businesses to ensure a range of products (eg smartphones and computers) and services (eg e-commerce services, consumer banking services, and ebooks) are accessible for persons with disabilities.

Seeing the wood for the trees: preparing for new deforestation due diligence rules in the UK and EU

Published on 24 Oct 2024. By Sophie Tuson, Senior Associate, Environment and Climate Change Practice Lead

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive expert briefing

Published on 08 Jul 2024. By Sophie Tuson, Senior Associate, Environment and Climate Change Practice Lead and Thomas Jenkins, Of Counsel and Sarah Barrie, Associate and Eve Matthews, Associate

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) was adopted on 24 May 2024 and was published in the Official Journal of the EU on 5 July. It entered into force on 26 July, and will apply to companies from 26 July 2028.

Regulatory Radar - January 2024

Published on 08 Jan 2024. By Gavin Reese, Partner, Head of Regulatory

Hello and welcome to the January 2024 edition of RPC’s bi-annual Regulatory radar – a guide to the key regulatory changes worth having on your radar. We hope this will be a useful resource, helping you scan the regulatory horizon and highlight changes that could impact your business.

Supreme Court upholds that fiduciaries must act with "single-minded loyalty toward their principals (or beneficiaries)"

Published on 22 Apr 2025. By Daniel Parkin, Associate and Zoe Melegari, Senior Associate

In Rukhadze and others v Recovery Partners GP Ltd and another [2025] UKSC 10, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the legal test for the account of profits rule (the Profit Rule).

PLC QTRLY - Q2 2025

Published on 24 Jul 2025. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q1 2025

Published on 29 Apr 2025. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q4 2024

Published on 23 Jan 2025. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q3 2024

Published on 15 Oct 2024. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q2 2024

Published on 31 Jul 2024. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q1 2024

Published on 17 Apr 2024. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q4 2023

Published on 05 Feb 2024. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q3 2023

Published on 12 Oct 2023. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and James Channo, Partner and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q2 2023

Published on 14 Jul 2023. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial and Rosamund Akayan, Senior Knowledge Lawyer

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q1 2023

Published on 19 Apr 2023. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial and Rosamund Akayan, Senior Knowledge Lawyer

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q4 2022

Published on 02 Feb 2023. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate and Karen Hendy, Partner, Head of Corporate & Commercial and Rosamund Akayan, Senior Knowledge Lawyer

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q3 2022

Published on 14 Nov 2022. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q2 2022

Published on 26 Jul 2022. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate

This is our regular quarterly update to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

PLC QTRLY - Q1 2022

Published on 13 Apr 2022. By Connor Cahalane, Partner - Corporate

Post-Covid and post-Brexit changes are on the horizon for the UK's public companies. This is the first of our regular updates to help our listed company clients and other market participants keep up to date with key developments relevant to issuers on the Main Market and AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

Technology in Insurance

Published on 22 Jun 2022. By William Hogarth, Partner

On 16 June 2022 RPC hosted an afternoon of talks and panel sessions on the theme of 'Technology in Insurance', the culmination of the firm's TechWeek which brings market experts and lawyers together to discuss risks and opportunities with new technologies within different business sectors.

Model Articles deemed unsuitable for sole director companies

Published on 24 May 2022. By Rupert Wyles, Senior Associate

A recent decision of the High Court in Hashmi v Lorimer-Wing [2022] EWHC 191 (Ch) has suggested that the model articles for private companies are not suitable for companies with a sole director appointed.

A guide to buying and selling English residential property

Published on 16 Nov 2020.

With the advent of COVID-19, Brexit and global market volatility, the mature, fast-moving English real estate sector faces unprecedented challenges. However history has shown the English residential property market to be particularly resilient and many consider this a time of unique opportunity.

A licence to kill... a licence

Published on 11 Mar 2019. By Tim Anderson, Partner

In the second of a number of short articles we are producing in relation to businesses in the tech space, we will be discussing a real life example of what not to do when diligencing a tech company and its third party IP licence agreements.

New regulations to permit assignment of receivables under commercial contracts now in force

Published on 11 Jan 2019. By Edward Colville, Partner

After more than four years of consultation, draft regulations and revisions, the Business Contract Terms (Assignment of Receivables) Regulations 2018 (the Regulations) have now taken effect, and apply to all relevant contracts entered into on or after 31 December 2018.

Huawei and UK National Security - A new technology cold war?

Published on 11 Dec 2018. By Neil Brown, Partner and Charles Buckworth, Partner

Chinese technology giant, Huawei, has been making plenty of headlines recently. First, a number of Western governments (including the US, Australia and New Zealand) have banned Huawei equipment from being used in 5G networks, citing national security concerns. Next, Huawei's CFO was arrested in Canada in connection with alleged breaches of international sanctions.

All is not (necessarily) lost: Crypto crime recovery

Published on 30 Jun 2022. By Adam Craggs, Partner

With over 2 million people in the UK now holding and using cryptocurrency, and the Chancellor announcing that a government backed non-fungible token ("NFT") is to be issued by the Royal Mint this summer, the market for crypto-assets is expected to continue to grow in the coming months and years; so much so that legislation is planned to implement a new regulatory regime for the crypto market.

What the 'whistleblower' reward scheme means for tax compliance

Published on 24 Jul 2025. By Adam Craggs, Partner

The UK government has recently announced a new reward scheme will be established later this year to encourage informants to report tax fraud to HMRC. Such a reward scheme has implications for tax compliance.

The countdown to failure to prevent fraud is on (Part 2): What is failure to prevent fraud?

Published on 24 Jul 2025.

From 1 September 2025, the new failure to prevent fraud offence will come into effect under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA). Statutory guidance from the Home Office sets out the framework that large organisations should implement by September 2025, to ensure they have in place reasonable fraud prevention procedures.

The countdown to failure to prevent fraud is on (Part 1): A recap on corporate criminal liability

Published on 17 Jul 2025.

From 1 September 2025, the new failure to prevent fraud offence will come into effect under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (ECCTA). Statutory guidance from the Home Office sets out the framework that large organisations should implement by September 2025, to ensure they have in place reasonable fraud prevention procedures.

Tribunal allows taxpayer's appeal in respect of overdrawn director's loan account

Published on 17 Jul 2025. By Daniel Williams, Associate

In Quillan v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 421 (TC) the FTT held that a director's loan was neither written off nor released in the absence of a formal acknowledgment from the company's liquidator.

Tribunal accepts taxpayers' Ramsay argument and allows their appeals

Published on 10 Jul 2025. By Alexis Armitage, Senior Associate

In The Vaccine Research Ltd Partnership & Anor v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 402 (TC), the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) allowed the taxpayers' appeal, concluding that under the Ramsay principle of statutory interpretation, licence fees received as part of a tax-planning scheme, were neither annual payments nor income not otherwise charged of the partners, within sections 683 or 687 of Income Tax (Trading & Other Income) Act 2005.

HMRC directed by tribunal to issue closure notices

Published on 03 Jul 2025.

In Refinitiv Ltd and others v HMRC [2025] UKFTT 415 (TC), the First-tier Tribunal directed HMRC to issue closure notices on the basis it had failed to meet the burden to keep the relevant enquiries open as ongoing judicial review proceedings do not constitute "reasonable grounds" for not issuing a closure notice.

Tax Bites - July 2025

Published on 01 Jul 2025. By Adam Craggs, Partner and Daniel Williams, Associate

Welcome to the latest edition of RPC's Tax Bites – providing monthly bite-sized updates from the tax world.

Taxing Matters: When tax advice goes wrong: professional negligence in tax disputes

Published on 26 Jun 2025.

In this episode, our host and Senior Associate at RPC, Alexis Armitage, is joined by colleagues Helen Kerr and Tom Wild from RPC's Professional Liability team to explore how professional negligence claims can arise during the lifecycle of a tax dispute.

Upper Tribunal dismisses IR 35 challenge

Published on 26 Jun 2025. By Jasprit Singh, Senior Associate

In George Mantides Ltd v HMRC [2025] UKUT 00124 (TCC), the Upper Tribunal dismissed the company's appeal against an income tax determination and national insurance decision. Whilst the UT set aside the earlier decision of the First-tier Tribunal on the basis that there were errors in the assessment of the hypothetical contract, ultimately it came to the same conclusion that the hypothetical contract was one of employment for the purposes of IR35.

Improving HMRC’s Approach to Dispute Resolution

Published on 19 Jun 2025. By Adam Craggs, Partner and Liam McKay, Of Counsel

This article considers the recently launched consultation aimed at modernising HMRC’s approach to resolving tax disputes.

No Retreat on UK Digital Services Tax – For Now

Published on 12 Jun 2025. By Adam Craggs, Partner and Liam McKay, Of Counsel

This blog considers recent speculation concerning the future of the UK's Digital Services Tax in the context of trade negotiations between the UK and the USA.