See Flamanville 3.

The Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) has published a letter to the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Lord Cameron, calling on the UK government to immediately begin a pilot resettlement programme to provide a right for the Chagossian people to return to their ancestral home. The FAC Chair, Alicia Kearns, has said that ‘insufficient effort has been made’ to bring the Chagossian Support Package to the attention of the Chagossian communities.

FACT has published research undertaken by Opentext Security Solutions on the dangers of illegal sports streaming sites. The research has found that illegal sports streaming sites are exposing fans to financial fraud, dangerous scams and explicit content. The research has also found that users are 'bombarded' with threats such as crypto scams, extreme or explicit pop-ups and banking trojans, the latter of which was found to be the most dangerous threat. Of the 50 streaming sites analysed, all had malicious content, over 90% were ‘risky’ and more than 40% had no security certificate.

FACT and Sky have reported that joint action has been taken against 47 illegal internet protocol television (IPTV) service providers across the UK. The illegal IPTV service providers have been given legal warnings, ‘cease-and-desist’ notices, to stop their illegal streaming activities immediately or risk criminal prosecution. FACT has also reported that the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has arrested a 32-year-old from Ipswich who had previously received a cease-and-desist notice from FACT for unlawfully selling IPTV subscriptions, however continued to do so.

FACT has reported that the licensee of The Watering Trough, Clinton Hartland, was found guilty in his absence on 1 February 2023 of two offences of dishonest reception of a television transmission. Hartland was ordered to pay total fines and costs of £8,030.78 for showing Sky Sports without a valid commercial viewing agreement at the premises in Walsall, West Midlands.

The Finland Arbitration Institute (FAI) has announced that the Ministry of Justice has published a working group report proposing a new Arbitration Act to replace the current legislation. The proposed Act would be based on the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. The reform is intended to update the legislation by taking account of: (1) international developments in arbitration; (2) the impact of digitalisation; and (3) the need to promote the competitiveness of Finnish arbitration. The working group was chaired by Mika Hemmo, who will become chair of the Arbitration Board on 1 January 2026. Other members included Kirsi Pulkkinen, Ari Kantor, Timo Heikkinen, Henrik Sajakorpi and Teemu Taxell.

The Finland Arbitration Institute (FAI) has published its 2024 statistics, showing a 5.6% increase in new cases compared to 2023. International disputes comprised 26.6% of cases, with parties from Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, US and China. Standard arbitrations had a median duration of nine months, while expedited cases averaged 3.4 months. The FAI maintained gender diversity in appointments with 45% female arbitrators. Total disputed values rose 40% compared to 2020 levels. Service agreements, construction contracts and sale agreements were the most common dispute types.

Funding Arrangements Plan: The part of the FDP that sets out the Operator’s arrangements to deliver sufficient funds to meet the estimated cost of the plans set out in the Operators Decommissioning Waste Management Plan.

What is the National Security and Investment Act 2021? The National Security and Investment Act 2021 (NSIA 2021) introduces a mandatory notification regime in the UK for transactions in certain sectors to protect national security. NSIA 2021 establishes: • a mandatory notification requirement—this is an obligation on the purchaser to notify the Secretary of State of a proposed acquisition of an entity in certain circumstances • a voluntary notification scheme—a purchaser can notify the Secretary of State of a proposed acquisition of an entity or asset voluntarily; businesses and other entities who do not meet the criteria for mandatory notification may submit a notification to the Secretary of State if they consider that their trigger event could raise national security concerns. To help inform their assessment as to whether a voluntary notification should be issued, they make reference to the statutory statement about the exercise of the call-in power • a call in power—this gives the Secretary of State the power to scrutinise a proposed or completed acquisition

What is After-the-Event insurance? An unsuccessful party in litigation is generally required to pay a proportion of the successful party’s legal costs (the adverse costs). This is of particular concern to insolvency practitioners (IPs) who face potential cost exposure when bringing claims and, without creditors’ agreement, often have no, or limited, practical recourse to the insolvent estate in respect of any adverse cost liability. As After-the-Event (ATE) insurance covers this risk, if an IP brings a claim that ultimately fails, the ATE insurer will pay out such adverse costs as a policy claim (usually up to a set limit, and subject to the policy terms and conditions). What will ATE insurance cover? The main purpose of ATE insurance is to cover any adverse costs exposure. A party can also insure the risk of not being able to recover its own disbursements, such as expert reports, valuations and search fees. Although ATE insurers do not typically cover a party’s own counsel’s fees, there is scope for these to be covered. By way

This Practice Note provides QAs relating to liability management exercises (LMEs) or liability management transactions (LMTs) with a particular focus on loan/credit agreements. For information on liability management in relation to investment grade bonds, see Practice Note: Liability management of bonds. For details of certain key European LMEs we are tracking, see Practice Note: Tracker of key European Liability Management Exercises (LMEs). What is an LME? The term LME can have various meanings. For the purposes of this Practice Note: (i) LMEs include LMTs (ii) LMEs refers to a borrower using flexibility in the finance documents (sometimes unintentionally granted by the lenders) to adjust its capital structure, thereby accessing additional and/or cheaper debt or reducing leverage and (iii) LMEs do not involve any formal or court driven restructuring techniques (eg Part 26A restructuring plans (RPs) or Part 26 Schemes of Arrangement) and so are a form of ‘out of court restructuring’ process. Typically the debtor and a small group of existing (or new) lenders/bondholders/noteholders will work together to elevate or improve the position of those

The regime introduced in 2014 Since 6 April 2014, obligations were imposed on companies to: • register their employee share schemes online with HMRC, by specified deadlines • self-certify their employee tax-advantaged share schemes as part of the online registration process, in light of the removal of the HMRC approval regime for these schemes from 6 April 2014, and • submit their annual HMRC employee share scheme returns (due by 6 July each year) online Online registration is required before companies can submit their online annual returns, and, in respect of tax-advantaged share schemes, in order to retain tax advantages. The online returns replaced hard copy returns that were required previously. Further information For further details on the legislative provisions relating to the filing and registration requirements for each type of employee share plan, see Practice Notes: • EMI—HMRC annual return • CSOP—self certification, registration and filing requirements • Self-certification, registration and filing requirements for SIPs and SAYE schemes • HMRC annual return filing requirements for SIPs and SAYE schemes, and • Employment-related