The Legal 500

Legal Developments in the UK

• Saving Face - Personalised URLs on Facebook - Make sure your marks are protected

  Facebook users can now register a personal URL for their profile page on the Facebook website. This raises concerns for brand owners as Facebook users may decide to choose a well known trade mark as their URL. The prospect of facebook.com/[yourmark] could become a reality. Consequently, Facebook has taken measures to reassure rights holders and prevent name squatting.
  - Boult Wade Tennant

• Lease re-gearings and extensions: some issues to consider

  As a result of the recession, lease re-gearings and extensions are becoming increasingly popular for landlords and tenants.
  - CMS Group

• A cautionary tale of self-investment and personal liability

  As investment strategies become more complex it is crucial that trustees comply with the relevant legal requirements. Recently there has been a series of Pensions Ombudsman cases that have imposed personal liability on trustees for inappropriate scheme investments. This article looks at two of these cases and the lessons that should be learnt from them.
  - Eversheds LLP

• Pensions Regulator: alert in the economic downturn

  So far the Pensions Regulator has issued two statements (October 2008 and February 2009) on how it expects pension scheme employers and trustees to deal with the impact of the current economic crisis. In April the Regulator issued a further statement highlighting the kinds of behaviour that would cause it to intervene.
  - Eversheds LLP

• A new disclosure regime: for better or worse?

  The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has finally issued a consultation paper outlining how it plans to revise the disclosure of information requirements for occupational pension schemes. The consultation proposes a simplified, more principles-based disclosure regime.
  - Eversheds LLP

• Litigating financial markets disputes: do we have a deal?

  Until very recently no other sphere of commercial activity could match the financial markets for the size, volume and speed of their dealings. Trades involving enormous sums are often negotiated and agreed within the space of a few short telephone conversations, or during the course of a single evening, by sophisticated professional traders experienced and versed in the customs of the particular market. Often the broad commercial terms of a transaction are negotiated and it is left to the parties’ legal advisers to supply the detailed terms on which the deal is to be done.
  - SJ Berwin LLP

• European Parliament votes to adopt updated Roaming Regulation

  BY A LARGE MAJORITY OF 646 TO 22 THE European Parliament has voted to adopt a compromise position on the European Commission’s (the Commission) proposals to amend the Roaming Regulation (Regulation 717/2007).
  - SJ Berwin LLP

• Online behavioural advertising

  THE INTERNET ADVERTISING BUREAU (IAB), a UK online trade association, has recently published ‘Good Practice Principles for Online Behavioural Advertising (OBA)’, which come into effect on 4 September 2009. Several key internet advertisers have signed up to the Principles, including Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft Advertising and Phorm.
  - SJ Berwin LLP

• When an ‘aura of luxury’ prevents sales to unlicensed distributors

  On 23 April 2009 the European Court of Justice (ECJ), in Copad SA v Christian Dior & ors [2009], held that a trade mark owner can prevent third-party sales of its luxury goods where those goods had been obtained in breach of a condition in a selective distribution licence, designed to maintain the repute and prestige of the trade mark.
  - Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP

• Competition law and retail financial services

  In the current financial climate, with regulatory intervention at the centre of public attention, the competition authorities have continued to focus on financial services. Significant developments have occurred in the UK and EU, in relation to credit and debit cards, the unsecured credit market, payment protection insurance and financial services generally.
  - Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP