Law360, London: British music royalties firm Hipgnosis can forge ahead with its unpaid royalties case against singer Barry Manilow in the UK, after an appellate panel on 17 April 2025 overturned a pause imposed because of parallel proceedings in Los Angeles.

Law360, London: Musicians may sample other works in their songs without explicit permission from the original creator in certain circumstances, the EU's highest court held on 14 April 2026 following a 20-year dispute over the sampling of a song by electronic music group Kraftwerk. The Court of Justice said musicians can sample works without permission in a dispute over the use of a two-second snippet of a song by Kraftwerk. It held that European copyright exceptions for pastiche protect creations, including music samples, that are reminiscent of an existing work but 'engage in creative dialogue’ with the original.

The parties agree: From: [insert name of publisher] (‘we’ and ‘us’) of [insert address] From: [insert name of company] (‘you’ and ‘your’) of [insert address] Dated: [insert date] Dear [insert organisation name] ‘[insert name of programme]’ (the Programme) 1 In consideration of and conditional on the payment by you to us of the sums set out in Schedule 1 (the receipt of which we acknowledge), we grant to you a non-exclusive licence in respect of the musical and literary works (the Works), for which particulars are contained on the cue sheet in Schedule 2. The licence allows you to: 1.1 perform and synchronise the performance of the Works in the Programme; 1.2 include

A musical work is a copyright work consisting of music, exclusive of any words or action intended to be sung, spoken or performed with the music.

Law360, London: A London court conditionally agreed on 30 July 2025 to let four performers represent a class of 33,000 musicians in their claim that the UK government cost them royalties by failing properly to adopt EU copyright laws.

A UK company must maintain a registered office at all times to which all communications and notices may be addressed. It must be stated in the application to register the company whether the company’s registered office is to be situated in England and Wales (or in Wales), in Scotland or in Northern Ireland. While the address of a company’s registered office can be changed, the company cannot change its registered office to a different jurisdiction

'Partnership' is defined in the Partnership Act 1890 (PA 1890) as ‘the relation which subsists between persons carrying on a business in common with a view of profit’ (PA 1890, s 1(1)). In order to form a partnership, it is not necessary to file any documents, to register any information anywhere or to complete any other formalities. Two people may form a partnership by simply starting to carry on a business

CPR 54.23 states that: These Rules and their practice directions will apply to Planning Court claims unless this section or a practice direction provides otherwise ‘Planning court claims’ include statutory review claims (CPR 54.21). However, we are also aware that the CPR, Pt 8 applies to claims under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s 288 (TCPA 1990), because PD 8A, 9.2 states that it applies to an application under any enactment giving the High Court jurisdiction to quash or prohibit any order, scheme, certificate or plan…any decision of a Minister or government department which includes applications to quash planning decisions under TCPA 1990, s 288. CPR PD 8A 22.3 states that the claim form must be filed at the administrative court and served within the time limited by the relevant enactment for making the application. Under TCPA

In answering this question we have assumed that the company in question issues certificated shares. Initially the articles of association should be checked to check if there are any specific provisions relating to the issue of share certificates. Although Companies Act 2006, s 618 (CA 2006) doesn’t specifically require a company

Notwithstanding the tax position taken by HMRC, as a matter of company law the payment of the contribution by the company to the employee-ownership trust (EOT) is likely to be characterised as a distribution (assuming that the amount is not advanced to the EOT as a loan). The term distribution is given a very wide definition in section 829 of the Companies Act 2006 (CA 2006) to mean every description of distribution of a company’s assets to its members, whether in cash or otherwise, except: • an issue of bonus shares (whether fully paid or partly paid), and • certain reductions of share capital, redemptions of shares, share buybacks and distributions of assets to members on a winding up A distribution will be unlawful if it does not comply with the requirements of CA 2006, Pt 23 (CA 2006, ss 829–853) and the common law rules

The pre-trial checklist, Form N170, requires, in section F, that various documents be attached and this includes an estimate of costs. However, at the top of the form is guidance for legal representatives only which states that if no costs management order (CMO) has been made: ‘You must attach estimates of costs incurred to date, and your likely overall costs. In substantial cases, these should be provided in compliance with CPR.’ In cases in which there is no CMO, CPR 29.6 or CPR PD 29, para 8, which deal with pre-trial checklists, do not provide any guidance as to form that a costs estimate should

In order to answer this question, it is essential to consider for what purpose 'the debt' is being defined: Defining 'debt' for the purpose of contract interpretation If a 'debt' needs to be defined or ascertained for the purpose interpreting a provision of the contract, then the definition of 'debt' will be governed by the normal rules of contract interpretation and construction. There are five principles of interpretation used by the courts when it is seeking to discover what a contract means, these were formulated by Lord Hoffmann in the leading case of Investors Compensation Scheme v West Bromwich Building Society ('ICS') . These five principles were later summarised by Lord Bingham in BCCI v Ali: ‘To ascertain the intention of the parties the court reads the terms of the contract as a whole, giving the words used their natural and ordinary meaning in the context of the agreement, the parties’ relationship and all the relevant facts surrounding the transaction so far as known to the parties.