Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd [2015] is set to be the leading authority on implied terms for some time to come. The Supreme Court confirmed that the more restrictive test of strict necessity remained applicable in all cases. All practitioners must understand the impact of the decision …
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The High Court has ruled in a case regarding a director’s conduct in relation to an administration pre-pack sale. In Capital for Enterprise Fund A LP and Maven Capital Partners UK LLP v Bibby Financial Services Ltd [2015], the secured loan creditors claimed that they suffered loss as a result of one of the directors …
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The Digital Content Directive (the Directive) being pushed through by the Dutch EU presidency could have a significant impact on UK businesses supplying digital content. The Directive is part of the Digital Single Market Initiative. There are also draft directives on copyright law, geo-blocking and the online sale of goods. But the Digital Content Directive …
Continue reading “The Digital Content Directive: draft in haste and repent at leisure”
A recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights attracted an unusual amount of media attention. The decision in Bărbulescu v Romania [2016] in January concerned the tension between an employer’s right to monitor the activities of staff in the workplace, and an employee’s right to privacy. Many of the press reports that followed …
Continue reading “The Bărbulescu case and employee monitoring: all the sordid details”
As online advertising continues its rapid growth, online ad revenues become an ever more important opportunity (and/or threat) for many TMT businesses. How these growing markets are treated by antitrust agencies can be critical to strategy – either in terms of M&A or defending business models from the actions of other market participants. This article …
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Where an agreement has an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) clause, it frequently has either a simple ADR clause or ‘escalation’ clauses (sometimes called ‘tiered’ or ‘stepped’ clauses). Then, where a commercial dispute arises, the parties to such an agreement are usually required to try to negotiate a settlement to the dispute. This could involve a …
Continue reading “Commercial dispute resolution clauses: be amicable or be friendly?”
Warren Buffett famously said that: ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.’ If anything, that underestimates the speed at which events move in the digital age. Significant, and sometimes irreparable, damage can be done in the time it takes to post an ill-judged tweet. This article provides a …
Continue reading “If you can’t beat them, join them: how and when to take on social media”
It appears that the right time for a face lift is when the spirit needs a nuance of rejuvenation and the elements for doing so are all to hand. Similarly, as a brand is the face of an organisation the time for a ‘face lift’ of a business organisation is when opportunities present themselves and …
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Cyber security is a business imperative, and the reason is simple: the impact of a security breach can be severe. Any approach to cyber security must address each group that has access to the systems and data of a business, such as its customers, providers, affiliates and employees. This article is focused on the cyber …
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European businesses have always needed to tread carefully in relation to exporting personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). This has never been more true than recently when data export became the biggest issue in data protection. The cat was set among the pigeons in October 2015 when the European Court of Justice (ECJ)invalidated …