Chancellor Chandler of the Delaware Chancery Court recently issued a decision, In Re John Q. Hammonds Hotels Inc. Shareholder Litigation (C.A. No. 758-CC, January 14, 2011), that should provide some comfort to full service Wall Street banks. An earlier ruling in this matter (C.A. No 758-CC, October 2, 2009) raised the possibility that ordinary course marketing activities by full service banks could undermine the ability of clients to rely on their advice, even if the banking team w

It is inevitable that a trustee body comprising both employer and member representatives will sooner or later have to deal with the tricky issue of conflicts of interest.

The Determinations Panel of the Pensions Regulator recently ruled, in the first case of its kind, that Sea Containers Limited should be subject to a Financial Support Direction to support two of its UK defined benefit schemes. Hammonds acts for one of these schemes, and recently represented the trustees of the scheme at a two-day hearing before the Determinations Panel.

Last week, almost 10 years after the complaint was first intimated, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) dismissed the European Commission’s challenge that the UK had failed to appropriately transpose the EC Framework Directive on health and safety (89/391/EEC).

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has recently changed how it handles trade mark invalidation proceedings. Brand owners need to be aware of this change as it may result in an increase in the cost of managing a trade mark portfolio.

A number of provisions of the Companies Act 2006 (the Act) are now in force and, under the original time-table, the Act would have been fully operational by 1 October this year.

A contact list contained in Outlook or some other similar programme as part of an employer’s email system belongs to the employer. Furthermore, it is “highly desirable” that employers publish and communicate an email policy.