The economic secretary to the Treasury, Bim Afolami, has responded to the Treasury Committee’s Second Report of Session 2023–24, Edinburgh Reforms One Year On: Has Anything Changed? (HC 221), setting out the Treasury’s response to each of the 18 conclusions in the report.

Law360: The cryptocurrency exchange Binance asked a UK tribunal on Wednesday to strike out a £9bn (US$11.5bn) claim brought by investors who say the exchange illegally colluded with other trading platforms to delist the Bitcoin Satoshi Vision cryptocurrency.

The smallest unit of digital information. A single digit number in 'base-2', either a 0 or a 10. Bandwidth is usually measured in bits-per-second (bps).

A credit default swap, for a fixed monetary amount.

Arbitration is binding on the parties provided that the award is within the parameters that would be awarded by the court, and is subject to the court's approval

A set of binding corporate rules (BCR) is a binding global code of practice based on European privacy standards, reinforced by an organisation's internal compliance system, and which national regulators approve in accordance with their own legislation.

Arbitration analysis: In this ruling, the English Commercial Court found in favour of the binding nature of the dispositive part of an arbitral award in an arbitration under the English Arbitration Act 1996 (EAA 1996), holding that the dispositive wording of the award constitutes a comprehensive statement of the remedies awarded by the tribunal equivalent to a court order following trial. The court also confirmed that by virtue of the overarching party autonomy rule, a tribunal’s jurisdiction could be revived after issuance of a final award with the express agreement of the parties and the tribunal. Written by Dr Gordon Blanke, founding principal at Blanke Arbitration.

The solicitor firm Bindmans, which is representing the United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Professor Siobhán Mullally, in a third-party intervention before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Shamima Begum v the UK, has published details of the intervention. This argues that states remain under continuing obligations to protect and investigate potential victims of trafficking under Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), including where victims have left the state’s territory.

Term given to the variety of life, within and between all species of plants animals and microorganisms and the ecosystems within which they live and interact.

means the reduction of any aspect of Biological Diversity in a particular area, which can be lost through death (including extinction), destruction or manual removal.

Introduction To place the need for protected nature sites in context, the UK State of Nature Report published in 2023 reiterated that the UK’s wildlife is continuing to decline. The UK has seen significant loss of plants, animals and fungi. The main reasons cited in the Report for nature’s decline are development, land use and farming, climate change, unsustainable fishing and marine development. Similarly, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero noted in his statement to the House of Commons, ‘State of Climate and Nature’ on 14 July 2025 that : ‘We know that climate change and nature loss are fundamentally linked and contribute to each other. Globally, we are losing species at a much faster rate than at any other time in human history. Here in Britain, a quarter of our mammals and nearly half of our bird species are currently at risk of extinction, with birds such as starlings, turtle doves and grey partridges under threat. The abundance of species in England has fallen by an estimated third since 1970, and Britain has become one

Planning analysis: On 2 June 2026, the government published biodiversity gain statements for nationally significant infrastructure projects (NSIPs) in England in the areas of airports, data centres, energy, geological disposal infrastructure, hazardous waste, national networks, ports, waste water and water resources, as well as a general statement for development where no national policy statement has effect. The statements confirm how NSIPs must calculate, deliver and report on biodiversity net gain (BNG) once mandatory BNG applies to applications made on or after 2 November 2026.