Law360, London: The appeal court has ruled that regulations on contracted-out salary-related pension schemes require written confirmation from a scheme's actuary for changes affecting beneficiaries' future rights, not just past benefits, rejecting Virgin Media's challenge to a decision voiding decades-old changes to one of its pension schemes.

Law360, London: A London court has ruled that Alaska Airlines Inc must pay Virgin group more than US$ 30m in missed minimum royalties under a trademark licensing deal, rejecting the American carrier's argument that it had no obligation to pay.

Prepared in conjunction with the EC Regulation's forerunner, the European Union Convention on Insolvency Proceedings (Brussels, 23 November 1995). It was approved in the Opinion of Advocate General Jacobs in Re Eurofood IFSC before the European Court of Justice and the Court of Appeal in Re Stanford International Bank Ltd as a guide to interpretation of the EC Regulation on Insolvency 1346/2000 (the EC Regulation on Insolvency).

A virtual bid is triggered by an announcement that a potential offeror is considering making an offer. This immediately puts the offeree 'in play' and, in the past, this tactic has enabled potential offerors to 'stalk' target companies for protracted periods without clarifying their ultimate intentions, throwing their hat into the ring at minimal effort and cost to gauge market reaction and price. Virtual bids can put companies under siege for protracted periods, destabilising businesses and employees and leading to share register deterioration (where long-term funds are replaced by short term speculators). In September 2011 the Panel introduced the PUSU regime under Rule 2.6(a)—the requirement for a potential offeror to either make a firm offer announcement in accordance with Rule 2.7, or announce that it does not intend to make an offer, by not later than 5 pm on the 28th day following the date of the announcement in which the potential offeror is first identified (or by not later than any extended deadline).

See data room.

A virtual data room (VDR) is an online document repository and sharing platform through which a seller makes due diligence information available to a prospective buyer and its advisers in a controlled environment. This checklist covers the principal seller-side matters for a private M&A share or asset sale. It assumes that a third-party VDR provider is used and identifies additional auction considerations. Preliminary matters Is a VDR appropriate, having regard to the sensitivity of the transaction and any legal, regulatory or national security restrictions? Should any information be made available only in a physical or hybrid data room? What is the scope of the exercise? Identify the target company and group, or the business and assets being sold, relevant jurisdictions and due diligence workstreams. What will the VDR be used for, for example buyer due diligence, the Q&A process and ultimately the disclosure process? Who will administer the VDR? Who may upload, move or delete documents, change permissions, approve content and access, and manage Q&A? Is administrative access limited to designated members of the seller's team and

A virtual data room (VDR) enables a seller to make due diligence information available to a prospective buyer and its advisers in a controlled environment. This short-form checklist covers the principal seller-side matters for a private M&A share or asset sale. Preliminary matters What is the scope and purpose of the VDR, and who will administer it and approve content, access rights and Q&A? Are there any transaction-specific restrictions or auction arrangements affecting how information should be made available? VDR provider and access Does the VDR provider meet the transaction’s requirements as to security, functionality, support, cost, hosting and closure? Are

This Practice Note provides practical guidance on how to execute documents properly when one or more parties to a contract are not physically present. This is sometimes known as virtual signing or virtual closing. The Law Society has brought together a variety of established guidance on execution of documents by virtual means, execution of documents using electronic signatures, its ‘Tips on how to operate in practice’ in relation to virtual execution and the use of e-signatures, and Q&A on how to use electronic signatures and complete virtual executions: Our position on the use of virtual execution and e-signature during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We have produced a collection that is a comprehensive, interactive resource to help users identify and work through the concepts and common issues when executing documents, including when executing documents by virtual means. Each section or phase includes practical guidance, precedent clauses and Q&As relevant to that section. For more information, see: Execution collection. Mercury Tax Case This guidance is consistent with the Law Society's guidance, made on 16 February 2010 in response to the decision

The rules regarding Scottish electronic documents and their execution are contained in: • the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995 (RW(S)A 1995) • Assimilated Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (as amended by the Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions (Amendment etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019) (UK eIDAS) • the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012 (LRE(S)A 2012) • the Electronic Documents (Scotland) Regulations 2014, SSI 2014/83 • the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Act 2012 (Commencement No 2 and Transitional Provisions) Order 2014, No 41 (C 4) (2014 Order) • the Land Register of Scotland (Automated Registration) etc Regulations 2014, SSI 2014/347, and • the Legal Writings (Counterparts and Delivery) (Scotland) Act 2015 (LW(CD)(S)A 2015) The Law Society of Scotland has also issued a third version of its guide on electronic execution of documents, see: Law Society of Scotland—Electronic signatures guide (Third Edition). Assimilated law is the name given to

IP analysis: Digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) being all the rage, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) is increasingly receiving trade mark applications covering virtual goods and NFTs, the regulatory classification of which is one of the many new questions posed in the digital age where reality is increasingly mirrored by, and interwoven with, virtual reality. Anthonia Ghalamkarizadeh, Counsel, and Dr Andreas Renck, partner, at Hogan Lovells take a look at virtual goods and NFTs in the gaming industry and metaverse settings, and their appropriate IP protection, as exemplified by the latest EUIPO guidance.

A software-only instance of a computer device, commonly a server, that runs on a physical computer, known as the host, using a portion of the physical resources (such as memory, storage and processing) available on the host. This allows multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical host device.

The abstraction of physical computing resources (such as memory, storage and processing) from the servers and applications that users interact with. Virtualisation can be applied to many computing technologies including servers, storage, networking and applications but in each case the virtualised technology acts like its real physical equivalent.