On 7 January 2020 the European Commission’s Enforcement and Modernisation Directive (EU) 2019/2161 (informally referred to as the Omnibus Directive) came into force. This is the first of two blogs exploring the Omnibus Directive and what it means for stakeholders at all levels. In this Part 1 we look at the background to the directive, … Read more
Gambling Commission Guidance The Gambling Commission has released new guidance acknowledging the increased challenges that businesses in the industry are facing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidance explicitly reminds licensees that: they are expected to follow Public Health guidance; they should assess their ability for continued compliance with their relevant licence conditions … Read more
On 12 March 2020, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, presented the 2020 Budget – the first since the UK exited the European Union (available here). The following announcements (some of which are new, but others build on previously announced measures) are likely to be of particular interest to the Technology, Media and Telecoms … Read more
On 4 March 2020 the Financial Conduct Authority published a short set of findings from its review of outsourcing in the UK life insurance sector. Despite the review’s narrow scope, the FCA’s findings are readily applicable to other outsourcing contexts, so regulated firms outside the life insurance sector should be aware of these. The FCA … Read more
5 March 2020 saw the European Commission (EC) announce an unprecedented agreement with short-stay accommodation titans Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor to share and publish data (on the number of nights booked and the number of guests staying) with the EC via Eurostat (the EU’s statistical office) (press release here). Eurostat will then aggregate the … Read more
In our latest Public Law blog post, Andrew Lidbetter, Nusrat Zar, Jasveer Randhawa and Claire Hall discuss the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recently published report on artificial intelligence and its impact on public standards. They comment on the Committee’s recommendations for the governance and regulation of AI in the public sector, aimed at … Read more
Ofcom looks set to become the first UK internet regulator following the Government’s publication of its response to the Online Harms White Paper. This is set against the backdrop of the progression through Parliament of legislation which was aimed at accelerating the appointment of a regulator for online harm, off the back of the White … Read more
In the latest episode of our Inside Tech podcast, Dorothy Livingston, Andrew Moir and Charlie Morgan discuss the UKJT legal statement on cryptoassets and smart contracts and a recent decision from the English court, which builds upon the conclusions of the legal statement. Read more
The High Court has held that cryptoassets (in this case Bitcoin) can be treated as property under English law. As such, the owner of a cryptoasset can, in appropriate circumstances, avail itself of the various proprietary remedies that a court is able to grant. The practical significance here was that an insurer that had paid … Read more
