MLex: Illumina’s victory on 3 September 2024 sees the top EU court give precedence to the rights of companies and the ‘requirements of the business world’ in the EU’s system of merger control. The judgment will be read with relief by those railing against the unpredictability and burden of a new regime designed to catch killer acquisitions. Now, with that shortcut off the table, the Court of Justice has told the regulator to think again, pointing it toward alternatives for catching such deals.

Pensions analysis: The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published PS24/15: Regulatory framework for pensions dashboard service (PDS) firms, in response to CP22/25: Proposed regulatory framework for PDS firms. The vast majority of respondents supported the FCA’s proposal to apply key existing elements of the FCA Handbook to firms operating a PDS with the finalised rules adopting the FCA’s consultation proposals largely unchanged. The FCA has not yet opened the gateway to receive applications for authorisation and variation of permission, which will only be opened when it is possible for a firm to show that it is ready, willing and organised to undertake the new activity of operating a PDS. Matthew Swynnerton, Pensions Partner at DLA Piper, looks at the new FCA rules, the implication for pension schemes and the next steps.

The Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) has released the 2024 Administered Arbitration Rules. The rules take effect on 1 June 2024. Andrew Ridgen Green, partner, Stephenson Harwood, comments on the new rules.

Environment analysis: The Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 is a major piece of legislation that significantly strengthens regulation of the water industry in England and Wales. It was enacted in response to dissatisfaction with the conduct and performance of water and sewerage undertakers in England and Wales. It grants enhanced enforcement powers to regulators, mandates the monitoring of sewage outlets and places new statutory requirements on water companies to publish a pollution incident reduction plan. Written by Dr Michael J. Bowes of Six Pump Court Chambers.

Mealey’s: Mealey’s International Arbitration Report recently asked industry experts and leaders for their thoughts on what the major challenges for arbitration in 2025 might be.

Mealey’s: On 9 December 2024, Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) officially released the 7th Edition of the SIAC Arbitration Rules (SIAC Rules 2025), which is in force from 1 January 2025. These updates have been anticipated since the first public consultation draft was released in August 2023, and reflect SIAC’s steps to address global concerns of time and costs in international arbitration.

Mealey’s: The use of expert evidence (be it from judicial, industry, quantum or delay experts) is permitted in the common and civil law systems that operate in most developed economies. It is well-established and mature in both international arbitration and litigation proceedings. However, the experience of the expert can differ markedly, depending upon both the type of dispute resolution mechanism used, and whether the applicable legal framework is common or civil law. For example, in French litigation, the prevailing tendency historically was for expert witnesses to be court-appointed rather than party-appointed, and experts were rarely cross-examined orally on their evidence, although there have been some changes in recent years. In this article, we explore some of the nuances and key differences in the approach required in international litigation and arbitration proceedings.

Mealey’s International Arbitration Report recently asked industry experts and leaders for their thoughts on the American Arbitration Association’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR) announcement of the launch of an AI arbitrator for use in construction arbitration.

Corporate Crime analysis: The Court of Appeal has offered guidance as regards the line between permissible and impermissible comments from prosecuting counsel regarding a defendant's failure to call defence witnesses. In this case, prosecuting counsel commented on the defendant’s failure to call witnesses to undermine two suggestions—(1) that he was the holder of a phone; and (2) that he was at the scene of the offence. The defence objected to this on the basis it undermined the burden of proof and the judge’s direction not to speculate. The court dismissed the appeal advanced on the same basis, holding that what prosecuting counsel had said was a statement of fact and, while the jury should not speculate as to the reason why the witnesses had not been called or what they may have said, the failure to call them meant there was no evidence to contradict the evidence of the prosecution. Written by Anthony James of Mountford Chambers.

MLex: The Financial Action Task Force—the global anti-money laundering standard setter—expects crypto businesses to exchange basic information on the sender and recipient of cryptoasset transfers. On the face of it, that appears to be a relatively straightforward and not unreasonable request, and it has been incorporated into UK law.

Family analysis: On 24 December 2020, with seven days to go before the end of the Brexit transition period at 11 pm on 31 December 2020 (IP completion day), the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced that a deal had been concluded with the EU. The draft document incorporating the agreed terms was published on 26 December 2020. It consists of about 400 pages of text along with about 850 pages of Annexes, the titles of which indicate strongly there would be no family law aspects. David Hodson OBE MICArb, partner and co-founder of the International Family Law Group LLP, considers the impact of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) on family law.

MLex: Copyright holders are pushing the EU's new artificial intelligence (AI) Office to take swift action to ensure that OpenAI's ChatGPT, Dall-E and other general-purpose AI systems respect EU copyright law when they scrape the Internet to train foundation models. Copyright is a major issue with the rise of generative AI, which trains on vast amounts of data, some of which is copyright protected. This tension has sparked lawsuits in the US and the UK.