Welcome to this week’s edition of the In-house weekly highlights, a curated summary of news analysis and new content from across the legal landscape. These highlights focus on key risk & compliance, commercial, corporate, information law and employment developments that will be relevant to most in-house lawyers.

The different parts of the topic diversity and inclusion covered include: • Emerging Technologies,

The topics covered in this Diversity and Inclusion guide include: • Employee Diversity Reporting: the Requirements,

The different parts of the topic India M&A covered include: • The Avant-Garde

The different parts of the topic Japan M&A covered include: • Challenges for In-house Counsel to Manage M&A • Recent

A solicitor, registered European lawyer or registered foreign lawyer who works for a firm which is not regulated by the SRA or another Approved Regulator

The extent of an in-house counsel’s involvement in a lending transaction will be dictated by the ambit of their role and to a large extent by the complexity of the transaction. In some organisations, an in-house counsel will have a purely 'advisory' role setting out relevant policies for the business teams to implement and as such will not be actively involved in the day-to-day running of a lending transaction but will step in on ad-hoc business queries and where a deviation of policy occurs. Conversely in other organisations, the in-house counsel will have a 'transactional support' role pursuant to which such counsel will be actively involved in the day-to-day running of a lending transaction with the business or commercial team (this may range from a purely legal support role to a transaction management/execution role). For more information about the role of in-house counsel, see Practice Note: Practical points for banking and finance lawyers new to in-house roles. This Practice Note is intended to provide tips and guidance to the latter

This Practice Note has been archived and is not maintained. It summarised key legal and regulatory changes that were expected to affect or will affect in-house lawyers in 2021. While some were set in stone, others were more speculative or subject to the parliamentary timetable. It was last updated on 8 November 2021. Business crime The table below represents edited highlights that are not sector specific. Category Details Expected or actual date Failure to prevent offence The Law Commission has consulted on the law regarding corporate criminal liability. Potential improvements suggested by the Law Commission include extending the scope of failure to prevent offences to cover fraud and other economic crimes. The consultation closed on 31 August 2021. The Law Commission Business Plan 2021–22 indicates an options paper will be presented to the government in the 2021–2022 year. Economic crime levy for MLR 2017 regulated firms On 21 September 2021, HM Treasury announced that AML regulated entities with over £10.2m in UK revenue will be charged an economic crime levy, commencing the tax year 2022/2023.

This Practice Note has been archived and is not maintained. It summarised key legal and regulatory changes that were expected to affect in-house lawyers in 2022. While some were set in stone, others were more speculative or subject to the parliamentary timetable. It was last updated on 25 November 2022. Commercial The table below represents edited highlights that are not sector specific. For more details, see: • Commercial tracker Category Details Expected or actual date Unjust enrichment and contract drafting(Updated) In Barton v Gwyn-Jones [2019] EWCA Civ 1999, the Court of Appeal addressed whether the so-called ‘Costello principle’ precluded a claim in unjust enrichment by an agent for an introduction fee where an oral contract governed the arrangement. The court’s analysis turned on the precise interpretation of the remuneration terms and provides a valuable lesson on the failure of parties to cover all possible outcomes by way of express agreement.See News Analysis: Contractual silence—a gateway for unjust enrichment (Barton v Gwyn-Jones).Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court granted on 25 February 2021. Supreme

Legal Professional Privilege (LPP) protects the confidentiality of written and oral communications between lawyers and clients. It entitles a party to withhold evidence from production to a third party or court—see Practice Note: Legal professional privilege for in-house lawyers. Explaining LPP to your colleagues It is essential that you are able to articulate exactly what privilege is to your colleagues. Be careful about the language you use. Keep things simple and avoid jargon—it may be better to avoid the words 'legal privilege' altogether when communicating with colleagues. Explain how privilege works and what is needed. You should explain that LPP protects the organisation’s confidential legal advice and communications from third parties, including regulators and competitors. The key to protecting the material is ensuring that it is kept confidential and only sharing it with defined individuals. It is the duty of all employees to protect the organisation’s privilege. Employees should not assume that their dealings with the in-house legal team will attract legal privilege. Further, merely writing ‘legally privileged’,

A statutory demand is a formal written demand for payment of a debt. See Practice Notes: • What is a statutory demand? • Company statutory demand First, consider the risks associated with issuing a statutory demand on a corporate debt: • damage to trading

Your method of recovery will depend on whether the company or individual is close to insolvency (pre-insolvency proceeding) or whether a formal insolvency proceeding has been entered (such as administration or liquidation for a company or bankruptcy for an individual). Pre-insolvency proceeding • if the debt is disputed you will have to issue a claim form and sue the company or individual in court • if the debt is not disputed by the company (and you do not suspect the company of dissipating its assets or putting them beyond the reach of creditors), consider issuing a statutory demand which may then form the basis of a winding-up petition where the debt is valued at £750 or more. For further information, see Practice Note: Company statutory demand • if you suspect the company of dissipating its assets or putting them beyond the reach of creditors, consider issuing winding-up proceedings immediately and appointing a provisional liquidator to