Blog archive

As a general rule all schools and academies (which include free schools, studio schools, university technical colleges etc) need to obtain consent from the Secretary of State for Education before disposing or changing the use of playing field and other school land.

Forcing someone to supply the results of a “subject access request” made to the police, Disclosure and Barring Service or Secretary of State for Justice under s.7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 will become a criminal offence from 10 March. 

As part of our plans to expand our international practice, we are participating in a number of international secondments involving Australian and Chinese firms as well as leading European firms.

Following our earlier blog on the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the "Regulations"), this time we are looking at sub-threshold contracts; those contracts whose value is lower than the threshold above which the Regulations apply in full.

June saw the introduction of some of the UK government’s new exceptions to copyright. These are intended to bring in changes to update copyright law for the digital age, implementing the 2011 Hargreaves Review. But several of the more controversial measures have been held up in the parliamentary process and have yet to take effect.

Education sector institutions and other organisations involved in the letting of student accommodation should find some welcome news in the recent changes to the statutory regulations relating to distance selling contracts. 

Yesterday’s Queen's speech includes a Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill in its list of legislation planned for the final session of this Parliament. The Prime Minister’s Press Office has produced 100 pages of background information, but little of substance on the employment content of this Bill. The key elements are described as follows...

The coalition has announced its final legislative programme before the 2015 general election.  An advance joint statement from David Cameron and Nick Clegg explained that the centrepiece of the programme would be “groundbreaking” pensions reforms. 

The Court of Justice of the European Union’s recent ruling in favour of a Spanish man who wanted 1998 newspaper announcements about him removed from Google search results has prompted Google’s chief executive to suggest that the company will "be more European" in its approach. 

Most provisions of the Act came into effect on 13 March 2014.  The first same sex marriages took place this weekend, as the law requires couples to wait at least 16 days after giving notice to the register office before getting married.

Swedish newspaper journalists had complained that the use of hyperlinks to connect to their articles from a news searching website, Retriever Sverige, was wrong. But the articles were already available on newspaper’s own freely accessible website.

The Office of Fair Trading has now published a report into its investigation of the fairness of certain terms in student-university contracts under various pieces of consumer protection legislation.