Recent Posts
Byron Massarella
Section 234: Welcome clarification handed down in Maher v Investalet [2025] EWHC 3133 (Ch)
The High Court has handed down an important decision on the scope of section 234 of the Insolvency Act 1986 (“section 284”), specially...
11/02/26
Julie Dao
HMRC Updates on Money Laundering Regulation Breaches
HMRC has issued its latest update on businesses that failed to meet their obligations under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and...
11/02/26
Katherine East
Alternative Dispute Resolution – From Encouragement to Expectation
Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) has become an increasingly integral part of civil litigation in England and Wales. Once a...
11/02/26
Gordon Chan
First adjudication enforcement refusal in 2026: TCC declines summary judgment over “fabricated” JCT contract
The TCC in High Tech Construction Limited v WLP Trading and Marketing Limited [2026] EWHC 152 (TCC) refused the Claimant's (HTC's)...
10/02/26
Jane Anderson
Selective Licensing, Rising Penalties and the End of Section 21 Notices
London Borough of Havering has announced additional and selective licensing schemes will start in the borough on 18 March 2026. We...
10/02/26
Ewan Collett
Dependants and the Consultation Paper – An Individualistic Approach?
Following on from our previous article analysing Mahmood’s fiscal approach to earned settlement in the UK, this piece will examine the...
09/02/26
Asim Arshad
Buying property with crypto - A brief guide
Crypto has moved from niche to mainstream. Today, people buying property with crypto-derived wealth range from speculative investors who...
06/02/26
Craig Wright
Assessing the Home Office’s Earned Settlement Plans and Their Fiscal Focus
On 20 November, the Home Office opened the ‘A Fairer Pathway to Settlement’, a new consultation on the Home Office’s proposals for a new...
05/02/26
Alexandra Addington
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill: introduction of multi-academy trust inspections
In the run-up to the 2024 general election, Labour's plan for schools set out an intention to "create a better system for inspecting and...
04/02/26
Alexandra Addington
Education sector: news in brief - February 2026
Pilot scheme exposes hidden scale of children’s speech and language needs A national speech and language screening pilot has uncovered...
04/02/26
Joanne Moseley
What can employers learn from the latest case on separate sex changing rooms?
In December 2025, a tribunal held that a NHS Trust harassed a female nurse by allowing a male doctor who identified as a woman to use a...
04/02/26
Anumrita Dwarka-Gungabissoon
Practice Direction 51ZH – The New Transparency Scheme in English Commercial Litigation
Introduction Practice Direction 51ZH introduces the Public Document Disclosure Pilot ("the Pilot"), a significant pilot scheme aimed at...
04/02/26
Alexandra Addington
Should a teacher be banned for telling a parent their child was being singled out by other staff?
In Ms Erin Dempsey: professional conduct outcome, a teacher told a parent that their child was being targeted by other staff. The...
03/02/26
Alexandra Addington
Unfair dismissal reforms from 1 January 2027: what you need to do now
One of the government's flagship policies is to reduce the qualifying period employees must complete before they can bring an ordinary...
03/02/26
Claire Petricca-Riding
Irwin Mitchell’s Planning & Environment Blog
Welcome to our monthly blog series from the Planning & Environment team at Irwin Mitchell. Each month, we will be bringing together the...
03/02/26
Alexandra Addington
Auxiliary aids and reasonable adjustments: did the tribunal get it right?
Despite describing auxiliary aids recommended for an employee returning from cancer treatment as ‘desirable’, the tribunal still...
02/02/26
Anna Tranter
Decoding the new NPPF consultation draft: key takeaways from December 2025’s proposed planning policy reforms
On 16 December, the Government published a consultation draft of the revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). As a framework,...
30/01/26
Chyna Fairclough-Jones
A bottleneck breakthrough? Government publishes new S106 Roadmap
On 28 January 2026, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government published “A roadmap for Section 106 delivery in England”....
30/01/26
Alexandra Addington
Solving the SEND crisis: how are children with SEND supported when they are not in school?
In 2025, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited six local areas to review the arrangements that local area partnerships...
29/01/26
Joanne Moseley
To what extent are third party organisations liable for causing or inducing an employer to discriminate against a member of staff?
That was the issue the Court of Appeal had to determine in Bailey v Stonewall (1) Garden Court Chambers (2) and others. The law Section...
29/01/26
Katie Gledhill
New government guidance on mobile phones in schools – new era for learning?
The government has issued strengthened guidance on mobile phone use in schools. It makes it clear that all schools should be...
28/01/26
Fergal Dowling
Business Services – a resilient sector that helps keep the UK investable
Among the many insights in our recent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) report was that Business Services performed impressively in what...
27/01/26
Alex Delin
The threshold for a 'Relevant Defect' under the Building Safety Act 2022: the First-Tier Tribunal's decision, 6 January 2026
What is and isn’t a ‘Relevant Defect’ under Section 120 of the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) continues to be debated amongst parties to...
23/01/26
Joanne Moseley
Employment law: news in brief – January 2026
How much will changes to the unfair dismissal qualifying period and compensation cap cost UK businesses? The Department for Business and...
21/01/26
Alexandra Addington
Dismissal by association: was it fair to sack an employee whose partner attacked her manager?
That was the question the tribunal had to consider in Mrs P Smith v North West Ambulance Service Trust. Facts Both Mrs Smith and her...
20/01/26
Alexandra Addington
Employment status: was a lifeboat volunteer a worker?
The case of Martime and Coastguard Agency v Martin Groom considered whether a lifeboat volunteer qualified as a ‘worker’ and was...
20/01/26
Joanne Moseley
Workplace conflict is on the rise and costing businesses billions
A report recently published by Acas won't come as a surprise to many of the HR professionals we work with: workplace conflict is...
20/01/26
Katie Gledhill
The Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024: key changes for employers and employees
The Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024 came into force on 29 December 2025. The Act introduces essential, though relatively limited,...
15/01/26
Alexandra Addington
Navigating Trade Union reform: are you ready?
On 18 February 2026, the first set of trade union reforms will come into effect. In this article, we examine these changes alongside the...
14/01/26
Chyna Fairclough-Jones
Planning Court confirms NRW’s lawful withdrawal of flood maintenance
In R (on the application of Williams and Owen) v Natural Resources Wales [2026] EWHC 9 (Admin), the Planning Court dismissed a challenge...
14/01/26