If the sole purpose of everything is to be monetized and sold for profit, human data may be deemed the “new oil”. Yet, human data offers far greater opportunities and its reduction to a commodity creates substantial costs. The business with data has not created free markets, but conglomerates with excessive power. Data producers are denied a voice and the economic benefits to what they produce, and society is deprived of social welfare enhancing opportunities. Human data deserves a better governance structure that can be crafted from known organisational forms enhanced by modern technology.
13 June 2024LIBOR will be replaced by SONIA from the beginning of 2022. With SONIA rates typically lower than LIBOR, banks will seek to make up the difference by application of a Credit Adjustment Spread (CAS), likely to be calculated by reference to the median difference between LIBOR and SONIA over the previous five-year period. This article considers the extent to which banks will be required to disclose the existence of the CAS and its method of calculation to customers in the light of previous findings by the court of the lack of an obligation on banks to disclose the Credit Line Utilisation (CLU) to customers.
13 June 2024The 5 March 2021 announcement by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) signalled the definitive end of LIBOR. With attention turning to the post-LIBOR landscape, we examine the key features of forward-looking rates derived from RFRs (RFR Term Rates) as an alternative to other rates derived from RFRs and the circumstances and considerations for their use.
13 June 2024This article seeks to identify where friction points in borrower/lender relations may arise during the LIBOR transition process and how they may result in litigation. It then outlines some prudential measures banks should take to minimise the risk.
13 June 2024This article considers the EU Commission’s Proposal for a Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets. Premised on what is submitted to be a disjunct in the approaches taken to regulatory and private law rights and obligations, it considers the consequent private law issues arising in misrepresentation, negligence, proprietary interests, and private international law.
13 June 2024The scope for misalignment between the payments and the data protection regimes in Europe and the UK gives rise to a number of challenges for banks and fintechs. This issue is particularly evident in relation to the potentially inconsistent requirements for individual consent.
13 June 2024Dov Ohrenstein reviews how the courts approach applications to amend claims after the end of relevant limitation periods.
13 June 2024This article explains that a fundamental purpose of the court’s discretion whether to exercise its cram down power under the new Pt 26A process now found in the Companies Act 2006 would be to ascertain whether the dissenting class was promised a just and equitable distribution of the restructuring surplus, ie the value expected to be preserved and perhaps created by the proposed plan itself. By way of comparison, Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, which contains the best-known cram down mechanism, requires the court to ensure a “fair and equitable” treatment of members of the dissenting class. In the US, however, the much-misunderstood Absolute Priority Rule (APR) supposedly governs this exercise. This article shows that the APR is untenable and is honoured as much in breach in US practice as in observance. Similarly, the cram down powers under the new Dutch and the proposed German restructuring regimes also envisage “exceptions” to the APR which in practice may well overwhelm the rule. Understanding why the APR cannot and should not govern the distribution of the restructuring surplus goes a considerable way to establishing that distribution of the restructuring surplus by reference to the relative contributions to the restructuring surplus by the dissenting and all junior classes provides the appropriate starting point. The article also considers the appropriate treatment of “new money” and “sweat equity”, and of classes excluded from the plan.
13 June 2024In this article the authors examine how US transactions that rank new money claims senior to existing lenders were structured and assess the options for European borrowers looking to achieve similar results.
13 June 2024A recent High Court decision in a knowing receipt claim against a Saudi Arabian bank has considered the vexed issue of whether a beneficiary must have a continuing equitable interest enduring upon receipt of the property by the recipient to establish a knowing receipt claim. In a detailed and well-reasoned judgment Mr Justice Fancourt answered that question in the affirmative.
13 June 2024