The High Court has handed down judgment in the Covid-19 business interruption insurance test case (The Financial Conduct Authority v Arch and Others). The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) advanced the claim for policyholders in the case, which considered 21 sample wordings from eight insurers. Whilst different conclusions were reached in respect of each sample wording, … Read more

The FCA has publicly censured the former Chief Executive Officer of Worldspreads Group plc, a company which was traded on AIM, for market abuse. Worldspreads, a financial spread betting company, was admitted to trading on AIM in August 2007. The FCA found that the admission documents contained misleading information in relation to Worldspreads’ financial position … Read more

The European Commission has published a Notice to Stakeholders setting out the rules that it considers will apply in the field of civil and private international law once the Brexit transition period comes to an end on 31 December 2020 (assuming no other agreement is reached). At the end of the Brexit transition period, the … Read more

We have published out latest M&A update briefing in which we look at the latest developments and trends, including: current M&A activity levels; what has changed on M&A transactions because of the Covid-19 pandemic; what we are seeing on public M&A transactions; some of the particular features of a distressed M&A transaction; and the potential … Read more

The European Commission has published final versions of two regulations that amend and correct two Delegated Regulations under the Prospectus Regulation. The two amending regulations, drafts of which were published in June 2020 (see our June post on them here), are: Regulation EU/2020/1273 which amends Regulation EU/2019/980 (Format, content, scrutiny and approval of prospectuses). This … Read more

The Pre-Emption Group (PEG) has announced that it is extending the temporary additional flexibility under the pre-emption guidelines in light of Covid-19. In April 2020, it announced that it was recommending that investors, on a case-by-case basis, consider supporting placings by companies of up to 20% of their issued share capital over a 12-month period … Read more

In the latest episode in our public M&A podcast series, we look at the role of target shareholders on a bid. We have seen shareholders influence the outcome of a bid in a number of ways recently, including: agitating for a bid; blocking a bid; challenging a scheme at the sanction hearing; and bumpitrage. We … Read more

The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that we have seen a drop off in public M&A activity in the UK, but as prices stabilise and activity picks up again, we expect to see financial buyers, such as private equity and sovereign wealth funds, leading the way. In this podcast we discuss some of the features of … Read more