Feature

The landscape of consumer claims against financial services firms is entering a new era. In this article, we examine: (i) the structural forces accelerating consumer mass claims in the UK; (ii) recent judgments shaping the scope of consumer claims in practice, including the broadening concept of unfairness under the Consumer Credit Act 1974; (iii) key procedural developments, including the Law Commission’s project considering a standalone consumer class actions regime; and (iv) the next litigation frontiers for the financial services sector.

This article traces five regulatory stages for AI in financial services: conduct risk, governance, operational risk, prudential risk and financial infrastructure. Agentic AI has accelerated the transition towards prudential and infrastructure frameworks, shifting regulation from addressing AI itself to addressing AI-dependent financial systems – a fundamentally different undertaking with profound implications for trading documentation.

Electronic trade documents can remove paper from trade finance without removing the legal work that paper possession used to perform. For a lender, the practical question is not whether a platform calls a record “controlled”, but whether the transaction can prove a legally operative record, exclusive and divestible control, the relevant perfection or priority route, alignment with the goods and bailee, and durable evidence after failure or change of medium. This article uses the UK Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023, Ontario’s electronic-chattel-paper rules and Canadian federal trade-document statutes to frame five closing questions for financing counsel. 

This article argues for a dual format model in which the traditional opinion letter retains its status as the authoritative legal instrument and is accompanied by a structured, machine-readable data layer linked to the relevant source text. It explains why this approach is increasingly necessary, identifies which elements are suitable for structuring, proposes a five-layer standards stack as well as outlining a pragmatic implementation roadmap. The objective is not to automate professional judgement, rather it is to make the standardised outputs of that judgement more usable, traceable and interoperable within modern capital markets infrastructure. We believe that is necessary to bring the digital agenda to legal opinions that are currently left behind in an analogue world.

In this article, the author questions the decision reached in West One Loan Limited v Okroyan  [2026] EWHC 142 (Ch) in light of the Supreme Court decision in Celestial Aviation Services Ltd v UniCredit Bank AG  [2024] EWCA Civ 628.

This article examines hedging failures: premature trade terminations, HedgeBK suspending ongoing settlement payments, default contagion and adverse impact on hedged facilities. These emerge from different layers or facets of a trade.As an "ISDA Agreement", a trade faces termination risk and Section 2(a)(iii) Risk. Ongoing settlement payments by HedgeBK to HedgeCO may be suspended, unpaid, under MA s 2(a)(iii). A weakness for all hedging products, suspensions would become particularly vexing (1) after minor or "mid-grace period" Events of Defaults; or (2) for Prepaid Caps with premia already paid upfront on trading.
"Hedging Agreement" status is a double-edged sword. Once a trading or related document becomes a Hedging Agreement, it may, from there, evolve into a "Finance Document" for certain Facility Agreement events of default, increasing a Borrower's facility default risk. Conversely, in multi-tiered structures, Hedging Agreement status may be valuable. Hedge Counterparties are reined back, through the Intercreditor Agreement, from taking certain action under Hedging Agreements. For trades hedging debt in such structures, not being a Hedging Agreement presents risk: a common concern for some Prepaid Caps.
Finally, "Finance Document" breaches from hedging issues, substantively or definitionally, afford wide-ranging Lender remedies, culminating in acceleration of the very facilities the hedging was designed to protect.We build on concepts and definitions set out in Part 1 of the series.
 

Its damages calculation raises questions about its anticipated impact on concurrent LME litigation in the US and in Europe. 

This Part 3 focuses on the protection of stablecoin holders’ interests in instances of fraud and misappropriation and on who bears the burden of AML compliance.

Part 1 of this two-part series, published in the last edition of this journal, focused on the dynamics in the UK and EU. This article, Part II of the series, summarises the current TPLF landscape in the US, as well as suggesting the key takeaways from Parts I and II taken together.

Article 21c requires non-EU lenders to establish a locally authorised branch before providing core banking services within a Member State’s territory, replacing the patchwork of national regimes with a single EU-wide framework. However, key elements of CRD VI are drafted on a minimum-harmonisation basis and Member States have transposed the Directive with markedly different speed and rigour, meaning non-EU lenders continue to face a nuanced, jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction landscape. This article examines that landscape together with some particular challenges: the reverse solicitation exemption, the scope of grandfathering protections, and the meaning of carrying out activities “in the relevant Member State”.