High Court to hear Reform’s challenge on cancelled council elections January 21, 2026 Reform UK’s legal challenge against the UK government over plans to delay local elections is set to go to a two-day trial next month. The case focuses on the government’s plan to allow 63 councils to postpone their local elections that were scheduled for May 2026. So far, more than a third of local authorities [...]
David Lammy’s plan to seize law firm interest sparks outrage January 20, 2026 Secretary of State for Justice David Lammy was accused of a “brazen attempt” to “confiscate law firms’ cash” after the government revealed plans to take the interest law firms earn on money sitting in their client accounts. Earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice opened a consultation on a proposal to introduce an Interest on [...]
Gatwick’s £2.2bn second runway to be challenged in court January 19, 2026 Gatwick Airport’s £2.2bn second runway will be the focus of a legal challenge at the High Court on Tuesday, as an environmental group opposes the government’s decision to grant the approval. In September, Gatwick Airport’s second runway, the Northern Runway, received development consent from the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander. Gatwick has had a northern runway [...]
Tough year ahead as businesses face compliance and investigation storm January 17, 2026 A wave of complex regulations and cross-border probes is set to test the resilience of businesses worldwide in the coming year; at the same time, resource constraints expose vulnerabilities. A staggering 82 per cent of global businesses fear being hit by cross-border or multi-agency investigations this year, according to a new report by law firm [...]
Revolut, Mastercard, Visa lose legal battle on card fees cap January 15, 2026 Revolut, Mastercard and Visa have lost a legal battle against the UK’s payments watchdog amid plans to introduce a cap on card fees for overseas transactions. The trio of payment giants brought a judicial review to the High Court following a decision by the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in December 2024, confirming that it would consult on the [...]
Insurance giants are no longer afraid to sue competitors over ‘team poaching’ January 15, 2026 London’s insurance sector is becoming increasingly litigious as the battle for niche talent intensifies, after a wave of High Court cases suggests ‘team poaching’ has become a legal flashpoint. If, like me, you are glued to the court filing system, you’ll have seen a noticeable uptick in lawsuits over restrictive covenants going to London’s High [...]
Ropes & Gray offers junior lawyers 20 per cent billable credit for AI effort January 9, 2026 US law firm Ropes & Gray has expanded its programme to give junior lawyers 20 per cent of their billable hours to experiment with generative AI to its European offices, including in the City. The ‘TrAIlblazers’ programme was floated across the firm’s US offices last year, but it is now being implemented in Europe for [...]
HSBC to cough up £230m over dividend tax-fraud claims January 8, 2026 European banking juggernaut HSBC is set to cough up nearly £230m to settle an investigation relating to tax-fraud claims. The FTSE 100 titan was accused of helping foreign investors evade taxes on dividends through a sophisticated financial manoeuvre known as ‘cum-cum’ trading. This relates to a series of transactions between 2014 and 2019, which were [...]
London’s legal elites bask in booming pay packets January 8, 2026 While London shivers through a January cold snap, the city’s legal elite are basking in an earnings heatwave as salaries for City lawyers at major law firms have edged up over the last year. Over the 2024/2025 financial year, the average profit per equity partner (PEP) at the big firms, including Linklaters, A&O Shearman, Herbert [...]
Scathing report blames MoJ for wasting public funds and failing justice system January 7, 2026 A new scathing Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report on the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) revealed that a cyberattack last year at the Legal Aid Agency gave hackers access to sensitive providers’ and data for four months. There was a cyberattack on the Legal Aid Agency last year that took the services offline for some time [...]