Articles by ‘John North’

One of Britain’s biggest banks has been hit with a £72million fine by the City regulator. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) imposed the penalty on Barclays Bank, following fears that a so-called “elephant deal”…

Royds has published its detailed guide entitled Protecting your business: getting distribution agreements right.

An impressive recovery from recession has cemented the UK’s position as one of the best places in the world to start a business.

On 27th October 2015, the European Commission decided to adopt an agreement to end roaming charges by June 2017 and, for the first time in EU law, to set net neutrality rules. The net neutrality rules will be implemented on 30th April 2016.

Important changes to company law have been made by the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (the ‘SBEE’). The changes affect all companies and company secretaries should be making preparations to ensure compliance with the new regime.

The EU and the USA signed an agreement which came into effect in 2000. The agreement was called the Safe Harbour Agreement (‘the Agreement’). The purpose of the Agreement was to streamline the way in which American firms obtained data from Europe cost-effectively without contravening the rule that personal data must not be transferred to parts of the world where there were not adequate privacy protections in place. The Agreement allowed around 5,000 American companies to bypass European privacy laws.

In Barton v Royal Borough of Greenwich IDS 1026 page 6, the EAT has upheld an Employment Tribunal decision that the Employer’s dismissal of an employee who contacted the Information Commissioner, in breach of the employer’s express instruction not to do so without approval, was fairly dismissed. The Tribunal, endorsed by the EAT, had established that the communication to the Information Commissioner was not a qualifying disclosure and the employee was not able to rely upon an “associative connection” with an earlier disclosure (in which he alleged a breach of the Data Protection Act) to convert his later disclosure into a qualifying disclosure. The EAT also upheld the Tribunal’s decision that the dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses open to the employer: the employee had previously contacted the Commissioner with allegations of breaches of Data Protection without bothering to check their accuracy or inform his employer first. In these circumstances, the Tribunal considered that it was legitimate of the employer to require the employee to tell it first before contacting the Commissioner again.

In 1995 the European Union adopted the European Data Protection Directive (“the Directive”) to regulate the processing of personal data. The objective of the Directive is:

Businesses are being invited to have their say about whether they feel that the UK’s anti-bribery legislation is too restrictive.

Spotify, the commercial music streaming service, recently updated its privacy policy to include details of what it will do and what it won’t do with consumers’ data. The updated policy made references to the collection of consumers’ photos, phone contacts and media files, which caused a backlash for those who felt that it was an invasion of privacy and was unnecessary for the purposes of streaming music.

The Law Commission recently published Technical Issues in Charity Law – a formidable wedge of paper that could see several significant changes to current laws.

London has become the de-facto leader in the European tech industry, new research suggests. Data compiled by EY found that 1,000 “international tech investment projects” chose to base themselves in the city between 2005…