The aim of this guide is to provide its readers with a pragmatic overview of the law and practice of international arbitration across a variety of jurisdictions. The level of uniformity in this area is a topic in itself as international arbitration continues to straddle the well-ingrained legal cultures of the globe. Each chapter of …
In this article we examine the key differences between the self-reporting initiative operated by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Services (COPFS) in Scotland and the deferred prosecution regime now operating in the rest of the UK. Any business that uncovers corruption within the organisation should make sure it understands the differences between the two …
The Fair Consideration Framework (FCF) was introduced in Singapore in August 2014 with the aim of promoting fair employment practices. It requires employers to consider Singaporeans fairly for job vacancies and to provide them with equal employment opportunities based on merit. Under the FCF, it was noted that companies which have scope to improve their …
There appears to be varying degrees of readiness across the breadth of MAR legislation, which reflects PwC Legal’s experience that only a small proportion of companies are totally prepared due to the uncertainties in the interpretation of MAR and related regulations. Given that some of the seven Implementing Regulations were only published late in June …
The UK’s vote on 23 June 2016 to leave the European Union raises a wide variety of legal issues and questions. With the UK Government unlikely to trigger Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union until early 2017, and then at least a further two-year negotiation window to determine the future relationship between the …
IHL: What initiatives has Microsoft and its legal department pioneered to promote ethnic diversity? Mary Snapp: Microsoft’s legal department has had a focused diversity team for 12 years. Brad Smith [Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer] and I collaborated to start the diversity team within the department, which grew to include 85 people. Our original …
‘I believe very strongly in leading by example,’ says Nokia global head of litigation Richard Vary. Although his legal team has a formal mentoring system in place, Vary maintains that it is the informal connections inherent in mentoring that play the most important role in developing in-house counsel. ‘You bring the people along, they see …
Taken in isolation – and at £35bn, one of the largest oil and gas deals on record stands pretty well on its own – the acquisition of BG Group by Shell could be seen as a bellwether for a confident oil and gas market. But headline deals aside, the freefall in oil prices has had …
On 17 April, the government published a second consultation document on a new criminal offence that will apply to companies that fail to prevent the facilitation of tax evasion by those associated with it. The new offence is one of a number of new initiatives designed to tackle offshore tax evasion and corruption.
The report, Mapping the Moral Compass, is the second stage of an initiative to assess the ethical approach of and pressures on the in-house profession. Based on 400 responses, the report documents what was already apparent anecdotally: employed lawyers face considerable and specific ethical pressure points. While those tensions are not obviously more severe than …
The UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) is a mature oil and gas basin. The collapse in global oil prices from a high of $115 per barrel in June 2014 to a price below $30 a barrel earlier this year has had a severe impact on the basin. Although according to Oil & Gas UK (OGUK) UKCS …
Let’s start with an assumption: we will reach peak in-house. Though the in-house profession has hugely expanded over the last 15 years – those in the private sector growing threefold since 2000 to over 16,000 solicitors in England and Wales by 2015 – in-house legal teams cannot keep growing forever. At some point companies will …
