Corporate crime analysis: Could payday lenders end up facing criminal prosecutions? David McCluskey, partner in the Business Crime Department at Peters & Peters Solicitors LLP considers the law in this area and possible implications.

This Practice Note considers the extent to which employers can ask questions of a prospective employee about criminal convictions and cautions, and carry out checks with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). Employers may wish to know whether a prospective employee has a criminal record, for example because: • it reflects on the employee’s character and suitability for the position, or • the information is required for regulatory purposes Such information may be obtained by asking questions of the prospective employee or by carrying out checks with the DBS. Key principles Employers are not generally entitled to full disclosure of all previous convictions and cautions. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA 1974) provides for convictions and cautions to become spent, and a convicted person to become 'rehabilitated', at the end of a rehabilitation period—see: Spent convictions and Effect of rehabilitation below. However: • certain sentences are excluded from rehabilitation—see: Excluded sentences (never spent) below, and • exceptions apply in relation to certain professions, employments and occupations—see: Exceptions to the rehabilitation protections below The

In both the magistrates’ court and the Crown Court, proceeding with a trial in the absence of the defendant is a last resort and is one which the courts will try to avoid unless necessary. In R v Jones, the House of Lords held that the decision to hold a trial in the absence of a defendant must: ‘...be exercised with great caution and with close regard to the overall fairness of the proceedings; a defendant afflicted by involuntary illness or incapacity will have much stronger grounds for resisting the continuance of the trial than one who has voluntarily chosen to abscond.’ Conducting a trial in the absence of a defendant has the potential to cause prejudice not only to the absent defendant, but also to any co-defendants and can be confusing to a jury. In order to ensure that defendants understand the potential implications of any deliberate non-attendance at trial, and to allow the court to justly impose the consequences, the Criminal Procedure Rules 2025, SI 2025/909 (CrimPR

1 Assemble crisis management team Assemble a crisis management team and appoint an individual to lead that team. Complete or amend the Crisis management team sheet. Person responsible Status and comments [Insert name of person responsible] Operate on the assumption that any written records you make are not confidential or privileged. 2 Preliminary, high-level assessment and reflection Take a step back to understand what has happened and the potential impact on a worst-case scenario basis. Allow yourself some time to think and to brainstorm. It is important that you do not waste valuable time on this, but giving yourself the time to think is important. Operate on the assumption that any written records you make are not confidential or privileged. An early priority is to identify: —what has already happened; —what additional things are likely to or may happen in the future which would make matters worse, especially those you can prevent, manage or limit. Person responsible Status and comments [Insert name of person responsible] [Describe status of this action point and insert any other comments]Operate on the assumption that any written records you make are not confidential or privileged.

Person in charge of crisis management plan [Name and contact details of senior person in the organisation in charge of reviewing the crisis management plan from time to time and reporting on its operation to the Board] Plan Review Date [Date of next plan review] 1 What is a crisis and when does this plan apply? 1.1 There is no officially

Please note that the information contained in these tables is confidential. 1 Internal crisis management team The table below shows individuals who will or may be included in an internal crisis management team. Be careful to ensure the final team is tailored to the particular crisis and do not overpopulate the team. A need-to-know basis is preferable, from a confidentiality and legal professional privilege perspective. For this reason, individuals denoted in square brackets are optional depending on the nature of the crisis. Name Landline number Mobile number Email address Additional information CEO or equivalent [Insert number] [Insert

This guide is intended to equip [insert organisation’s name]’s crisis management team to deal with media enquiries in a crisis management situation. You should also consult our [insert, eg Crisis management plan and action list]. You should operate on the assumption that any written records you make are not confidential or privileged. Suggested action Guidance Assign a point of contact for press enquiries. Ideally this should be one person or a team working closely together, to ensure consistency of message.This may be [insert organisation’s name]’s internal or external press officer. Otherwise assign someone who is sufficiently senior and equipped to deal with journalists.You do not want to overwhelm too many people with an issue, and keeping the group small will allow every-day business to continue, while providing a person or small group ownership of the exercise. Assess the media risk. Consider:—the likelihood of this incident coming to media attention

This Crisis management panic sheet gives tips on what to do in the immediate aftermath (first 12 hours) of a crisis that is not covered by another specific plan. [Insert organisation's name] has separate plans and strategy documents in relation to certain specific incidents, eg [data security breach, internal investigation, dawn raid and business continuity failure]. See also Crisis management action list, which is appended to our Crisis management plan. 1 Assemble crisis management team Assemble a crisis management team promptly, and appoint an individual to lead that team. Even if you have sketched out your team in advance, you should always ensure the final team is tailored to the particular crisis and kept as small as possible. Notify all team members immediately, ensuring 24/7 contact and accessibility. 2 Conduct a preliminary, high-level assessment Perform an assessment of the incident and its potential worst-case scenario impact. Allow

Family analysis: This case involves a successful appeal of a Hadkinson order made within Children Act 1989 (ChA 1989) proceedings. The law in relation to Hadkinson orders was reviewed and an additional requirement was added to the existing criteria established in case law in the context of orders sought within ChA 1989 proceedings. In this case, the initial Hadkinson order was overturned but a more limited order was made after the application of the updated criteria. The case was heard by Mr Justice Moor. Aimee Jones, senior associate at Sternberg Reed LLP, considers the issues.

This document sets out when and why we will charge a fee for responding to a data subject request—and how the fee will be calculated. When will we charge a fee? As a general rule, we will deal with data subject requests free of charge. However, we will charge a fee if: • we consider the request to be manifestly unfounded or excessive (or both), especially if the request is repetitive; or • an individual who has made a data subject access request later asks for additional copies of their personal data. When deciding whether a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, we will take account of the factors set out below. Manifestly unfounded Manifestly unfounded means: • the individual clearly has no intention to exercise their data subject rights, eg they make a request, but offer to withdraw it in return for some form of benefit from us; • the request is clearly malicious and is being used to harass us with no real purpose other than to cause disruption, eg the individual: — states explicitly, in the

A medium containing a fissile nuclear material becomes critical when neutrons are produced (by the fission of this material) at the same rate as they disappear (through absorption and leakage to the outside). The point at which a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining.

EU Law analysis: Reed Smith’s Asélle Ibraimova and Alicja Lysik analyse the Critical Entities Resilience Directive (CER) which entered into force on 16 January 2023.