A recent EAT decision has held that an employee cannot settle statutory employment claims arising from events that have not yet happened. In doing so, it departed from existing case law that indicated it was possible to settle such claims in some circumstances.
2022 has seen further case law on the issue of the potential conflict between expressions of gender-critical beliefs in the workplace and proponents of gender identity. There are currently four main cases in this sphere: Forstater v. CGD Europe; Mackereth v. DWP; Higgs v. Farmor’s School; and Bailey v. Garden Court Chambers and Stonewall. There have been decisions in all four cases during 2022.
The UK has introduced a sanctions regime designed to target criminal actors, gangs and their financiers whose actions are causing instability in Haiti, pursuant to The Haiti (Sanctions) Regulations 2022, which enters into force on 28 December 2022.
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions Blog published the alert titled G7 Sets Price Cap for Russian Oil at USD 60 Per Barrel on 9 December 2022. Read the article via the link here. Please also visit our Sanctions Blog for the most recent updates.
The government has published its response to the “Making flexible working the default” consultation that it ran last year, confirming that it will make the right to request flexible working a day one right.
Following the Treasury’s confirmation that it intends to introduce a new “regulatory gateway” for authorized firms approving financial promotions, the FCA has launched a consultation on proposals to operationalize this new gateway. Complementing a wider program of reform to the financial promotions regime, the proposals will affect both authorized firms approving financial promotions as well as unauthorized firms communicating approved financial promotions.
On 7 September 2022, Brazil and the UK issued a joint declaration announcing the intention to start negotiating a double tax convention. This announcement came off the back of a number of years of discussion to progress both policy and technical issues – hence the treaty was able to be signed on 29 November 2022, within three months of that announcement. The treaty has not yet entered into force – this will happen upon completion of the legal procedures required by both countries, but it is not yet clear how long this will take.
On 25 October 2022 leading researchers and executives from some of the world’s pioneering drug and pharmaceutical companies came together at a Financial Times Live Webinar event to discuss “The Power of Clinical Trial Tokenization”.
On 22 November 2022, the FCA announced the formation of a new ESG data and ratings group, which will work to develop a Code of Conduct for Environmental Social and Governance data and ratings providers.
The UK’s Health Research Authority has unveiled new guidance which signposts the three essential steps to access health and care data for research purposes. The guidance delves into a point that researchers often miss: the common law duty of confidentiality runs in parallel to data privacy laws, and each regime needs to be considered separately to ensure data access requests can stand up to regulatory scrutiny.