A purported variation of a contract of employment that is, or will be, transferred as part of a TUPE transfer is void under regulation 4(4) 'if the sole or principal reason for the variation is the transfer'. However, under regulation 4(5) a variation to the contract of employment of a transferring employee will not be void: • if the sole or principal reason for the variation is an economic, technical or organisational reason entailing changes in the workforce (ETO reason), provided that the employer and employee agree that variation, or • the terms of that contract permit the employer to make such a variation For further information, see Practice Note: TUPE—variation of contract

In this Q&A we have limited our research to cover copyright assignments and licences and clauses dealing with copyright assignment and licensing. An assignment of copyright must be in writing and signed by or on behalf of the assignor. It does not need to be in agreement form and may be done in a letter. Where the assignment has been done orally it is likely

This Practice Note is for use when determining applicable law where the contract was entered into on or after 1 January 2021. For contracts entered into before 1 January 2021, a different applicable law regime will be applied by the UK courts. Which regime is applied will depend on the date on which the contract was entered into. For guidance on the different regimes and their interrelationship, see Practice Note: Applicable law regimes. This Practice Note refers to UK Rome I, Regulation (EC) 593/2008. This regulation is applied when determining applicable law in cases in which the contract was entered into on or after 1 January 2021. Originally known as Retained Rome I, since 1 January 2024 it is known as Assimilated Rome I—the change is to the name only and not the provisions within the regulation. Authorities may refer to the regulation using either name and so, for ease of reference, the regulation is referred to as UK Rome I in this Practice Note. For information

Liability is established through association with the New Homes Building Council (NHBC) as a registered member. Builders who register with the NHBC are expected to comply with the NHBC standards and those of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). As part of the cover, an NHBC inspector is appointed to ensure that the builder complies with the standards. On new builds, the NHBC inspector carries out a series of 'key stage' inspections. The key stages are foundations, drainage, superstructure ie brickwork etc pre-plaster and pre-handover

A zero hours contract is one where the employer is not obliged to offer any hours and the worker is not obliged to accept any hours.

Property analysis: Sarah Salmon and Alistair Cantor of Cornerstone Barristers dissect the forthcoming anti-discrimination measures due to be introduced by the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 to landlord and tenant legislation in Wales, consequential changes to fundamental terms applicable to occupation contracts, and implications for stakeholders in the Welsh private and social rented sectors.

The opposite of a trustee-based scheme, whereby members establish a personal contract with the pension provider that has been selected by the employer.

The City of London Police has reported that Brian Chant, a former executive officer at an Oxfordshire-based company, has been sentenced for bribery and false accounting offences. The City of London Police provided that Chant abused his position as Chief Information Officer to secure a contract worth £22m for an IT company which he had connections with and had received over £474,000 in bribes over the course of his employment. On 1 February 2022, Chant was sentenced to six years imprisonment for bribery offences and 18 months imprisonment for false accounting, with both sentences running concurrently. He was also disqualified from being a company director for three years.

Arbitration analysis: The case concerns an appeal before the Supreme Court of India against the decision of the Calcutta High Court entertaining a challenge against an arbitral award. The Supreme Court partly allowed the challenge as the Calcutta High Court had wrongly interfered with an arbitral award on the basis that the arbitral tribunal and district/lower court had failed to establish/hold any discussion on questions it felt should have been considered/answered. The Supreme Court also allowed the appeal as the Calcutta High Court had erroneously observed that the contract prohibited grant of pre-reference interest. The Supreme Court, while partly dismissing the appeal, also emphasized on the need for the arbitral tribunal and court alike to examine the contract, as it is the foundation of the legal relationship. The decision signifies the careful consideration of multiple issues within an arbitral award and the scope of interference available to a court to interfere with an award. The fundamental duty of the court and the arbitral tribunal is to examine the contractual provisions, and these provisions cannot be ignored or simply dismissed with standard reasoning. Written by Muizz Drabu, associate at Stewarts.

In general terms, arbitration is a private, contractual dispute resolution mechanism—it takes place when parties agree to resolve current or future disputes by means of arbitration proceedings rather than through a court process or other means. While there is no statutory definition of arbitration, the Arbitration Act 1996 (AA 1996) states that it is founded on principles that: • arbitration is a process whereby parties obtain a fair resolution of disputes by an impartial tribunal avoiding unnecessary expense and delay • parties are free to agree the process for arbitrating their dispute subject to public interest requirements • arbitration is a private dispute resolution mechanism and courts should not intervene unless provided for in AA 1996 (AA 1996, s 1) Certain

A FOB (free on board) contract is where the seller has the duty to deliver the goods on board ship at his own expenses for carriage to the buyer.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Tokenovate have launched a taskforce within the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) to accelerate the operationalisation of the Common Domain Model (CDM). The initiative aims to address growing market demand for standardised and interoperable post-trade processing by delivering an open-source, production-ready library of CDM functions and workflows, freely accessible to market participants. The taskforce will initially focus on automating interest rate resets and is building a smart contract model within the CDM that translates ISDA’s legal and operational standards into executable form.