Legal Briefing

EU product safety and market surveillance package | Shook, Hardy & Bacon

As part of the European Commission’s continued commitment to product safety, the Commission has proposed a product safety and market surveillance package for ‘safer products and more fair play in the internal market’. The aim is two-fold: primarily, strengthening consumer protection with a new Regulation on Consumer Product Safety (COM (2013) 78). Secondly, rationalising and …

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You can’t always get what you want | Macfarlanes

Recent cases have illustrated a growing trend of third parties, often themselves involved in litigation, seeking to obtain documents not only from the court file, but also at trial, in relation to other similar or related litigation. This bulletin summarises the law and practice in relation to the different categories of documents that are frequently …

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Employing Croatian nationals following the country’s entry into the EEA | Magrath Sheldrick LLP

On 1 July 2013, Croatia joined the European Economic Area (EEA) and, as 
such, Croatian citizens are now able to enter and reside in the UK without needing to acquire a visa – provided they are not an unreasonable burden on public funds. In order to remain in the UK longer than three months, they …

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Climate change from science to business: the game changing report from 
the IPCC | Burges Salmon

Some are hailing it as a ‘landmark’ report. Other prominent figures in the business world are saying it is the ‘tipping point’ on climate change – they are talking about the Summary for Policymakers of the fifth assessment report, which was published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the end of September. …

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the IPCC”

What’s in a name? High Court delivers ruling on availability of rectification for misnomer and mistake in Liberty Mercian v Cuddy | Edwards Wildman Palmer UK LLP

Correctly recording the name of a contracting party within written documentation sounds elementary. However, the reality is that in the modern corporate age, where companies within the same group often use very similar names to one another and further compound confusion by using generic trading names, identifying the appropriate contractual party is not so straightforward. …

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Offshore oil and gas safety directive now 
in force | Brodies

In the wake of the Macondo oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the new EU directive in respect of safety of offshore oil and gas operations is now in force and a timescale has been fixed for it to be transposed into UK law by UK legislation. It sets out the minimum conditions for …

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in force”

Service charges: recovering overpayments from the landlord | Falcon Chambers

What happens if a tenant pays more by way of service charge to its landlord than it was contractually obliged to pay? Common sense would seem to dictate that the tenant is entitled to be reimbursed the overpayment. However, as this article explains, the answer is not always that straightforward.

Medical device regulation 
and the PIP scandal legacy | Shook, Hardy & Bacon

PIP implants may be out of the headlines but the considerable impact of the scandal is now shaping the field of product liability and the regulation of medical devices. When announcing the new proposals for the regulation of medical devices in September 2012, the health and consumer policy commissioner John Dalli said:


Finding the 
right words | Macfarlanes

In the recent case of Newbury v Sun Microsystems [2013], the defendant argued that an offer to settle proceedings was ‘in principle’ only and that a binding contract could not be formed until further terms had been agreed and a formal contract had been signed. It supported this argument by referring to a statement, in …

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right words”

Commercial rent arrears recovery: 
stress no more? | Druces LLP

If a tenant of commercial property does not pay its rent as it falls due one of the most effective remedies for a landlord has been to exercise Distress – the common law right to recover rent arrears by seizing and selling a tenant’s goods. That right is soon to be abolished and replaced with …

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stress no more?”