The Archive (2020-2023)

2024 is set to be a big year for UK employers. We are anticipating significant changes to employment law, affecting how people work, diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) and hiring and firing. In addition, the post-Brexit employment landscape is starting to take shape, with significant changes taking effect on 1 January 2024. There is much for employers to look out for, to ensure they keep pace with the changing legal landscape. In this podcast Clare Fletcher and David Rintoul take you through the key changes, and what you need to do to ensure your business is prepared.

Phase 1 Complete; Phase 2 to come! In this podcast, we reflect on the lessons learned from Phase 1 of consumer duty implementation, and the challenges that face firms for closed books ahead of 31 July 2024. This episode sets out a general market-wide overview; we will separately be launching follow up discussions deep diving into specific issues that consumer duty poses for banking, insurance and asset management sectors.

Three years on from the pandemic and one year on from our last podcast, what does hybrid working look like and are there any emerging trends? In this podcast, partners Phil Linnard and Jane Edwarde are joined by Martin Boyle (Head of Legal - Dispute Resolution and Employment, Ocado Group) to discuss what has changed over the last year, the current global picture and the wider impact of hybrid working on employee retention, human resources, real estate requirements and mental wellbeing.

The past 9 months have seen turbulence stemming from the Truss-Kwarteng mini budget, a UK government debt market intervention by the Bank of England and rising interest rates, against the backdrop of questions about the UK's ability to thrive outside the EU. Charles Randell, Jan Putnis, Nick Bonsall, Dr. Sabine Dittrich and our host Selmin Hakki discuss how the post-crisis financial system is weathering these challenges and anticipate future areas of focus for financial regulators. They also explore where the UK stands in its plan to 'rethink the rulebook' post-Brexit. 

2023 promises to be a significant year for low carbon hydrogen production in the UK with the first contracts supporting green and blue hydrogen production expected to be entered into from H2 2023. As a result, hydrogen producers, their investors and lenders will be examining the UK Government’s latest update to the hydrogen production business model with interest.  In this podcast we discuss some of the key issues on which industry is engaging with government. These include which end uses will be eligible for support under the business model, how volume risk is managed, and how CO2 network cross-chain risks are proposed to be mitigated.

As AI adoption increases, and governments and regulators across the globe grapple with how best to regulate AI, Slaughter and May are producing a series of ‘Regulating AI’ thought pieces that will consider some of the legal issues that arise from developing and using AI solutions. The latest in this series is a podcast in which IP Partner Laura Houston and PSL Richard Barker discuss some of the key intellectual property law considerations and issues relating to AI. They consider which IP rights are relevant, look at whether AI itself can own or infringe IP, discuss some of the outcomes of the UKIPO’s recent consultations and calls for views and talk us through some of the changes that are expected to be made following those consultations.

In this podcast, Competition Partner, Jordan Ellison and Senior PSL Annalisa Tosdevin discuss the competition law considerations arising from the use of algorithms. They consider some of the concerns around algorithms, the extent to which these concerns are really a competition law issue and how competition regulators might get involved. They finish with some practical takeaways for clients who use AI and algorithms in their business.

The UK government has thrown its weight behind CCS, aiming to capture and store 20-30 Mt of carbon emissions per year by 2030 from across the economy. However, the cost of installing and operating carbon capture equipment, together with the cost of transporting and storing that carbon once captured, is currently prohibitively expensive and therefore requires government support. With detailed draft contracts designed to support capture projects published recently, Oliver Moir, Iain McCann, Rory Botros and Kathryn Emmett discuss key issues for investors in capture projects: from pricing and deliverability, to co-dependency on the CCS network and termination rights.

The UK government has doubled its ambitions for low carbon hydrogen and is now aiming for 10 GW of low carbon hydrogen capacity by 2030. However, revenue support for new build production projects is needed to make them viable, investable and bankable. Oliver Moir and Kathryn Emmett discuss the draft heads of terms for low carbon hydrogen support in the UK including key issues for hydrogen production projects: from pricing and the low carbon hydrogen standard, to network co-dependency issues, offtake and termination rights.

Two years after lockdown was first imposed, most businesses now have increased flexibility about where and how their employees work. But what have we learnt about the hybrid model, and can this be taken forward as we move beyond COVID-19? In this podcast, partners Jane Edwarde and Phil Linnard discuss how hybrid working has evolved over the past two years, and what challenges and opportunities this presents for both the employment relationship and the UK property sector.