The recent advances in information technology now allow millions of people to trade and invest in an array of financial assets with the help of online brokerage platforms. This allows retail investors to have more control over their own financial well-being, arguably a positive development. Nevertheless, trading and investing with real money comes with serious risks, especially for vulnerable people. The current UK framework for the regulation of online trading in financial assets overlooks vulnerable groups, such as children, disabled adults, and vulnerable women. By drawing a parallel between online gambling and online trading, the negative effects of online trading can be minimised. The UK regulatory and policy framework surrounding online gambling could provide valuable solutions to tackle the existing lacunae in the protection of vulnerable groups in the online trading environment.

Legal systems around the world apply various strategies to mitigate agency costs between controlling and minority shareholders. A systematic review of the transnational law on the loyalty and care obligations of controlling shareholders reveals various doctrinal choices. This study aims to uncover the evolution of these choices by employing a law-in-context methodology. Accordingly, it seeks to explain the differences in governance selections by exploring the cultural, historical and socio-economic backgrounds of the particular legal systems in which organisations and decisions are embodied. I conduct a macro-level inquiry which focuses on the cultural environment and business history development to understand different doctrinal designs. In particular, I argue that those dissimilarities are a result of unique cultural-non-formal norms of corporate governance regarding the protection afforded to shareholders’ interests and they correspond to the historical development of the law of corporate groups across nations. As the macro-level investigation indicates, any initiative to globally converge corporate law and governance should be carried out with caution because it may distort the delicate normative equilibrium represented in a given jurisdiction.

Loot boxes have recently become a game mechanism of concern to policy-makers and regulators. The similarity between loot boxes and gambling is clear, and loot boxes and their regulation are commonly viewed through the lens of gambling. By contrast, very little attention has been given to tackling them as unfair, and in particular aggressive, commercial practices under consumer law. This article argues that by classifying the provision of loot boxes as a potentially aggressive commercial practice we will see that consumer law may protect gamers from some of the significant harms with which such products are associated.

From a legal and economic perspective, the global financial crisis, terrorist attacks, wars, natural catastrophes, and COVID-19 all have one thing in common: they are potentially ‘material adverse change’ events. Such events are unpredictable and have severe consequences for the global economy. To help manage the fallout from such negative events, businesses in economically valuable and complex deals, such as debt financing or mergers and acquisition (M&A) agreements, include special contractual risk allocation provisions, called Material Adverse Change/Effect (MAC) clauses. The COVID-19 crisis has had a drastic effect on M&A and debt financing deals, often leading to renegotiation and sometimes to litigation of these agreements based on MAC clauses. Termination of such transactions via MAC clauses poses serious risks, including those of causing a domino-effect in the market.

The effects of MAC clauses in debt finance (as opposed to M&A deals), however, have been largely overlooked both in law and in finance. This paper is the first to investigate the pre-contractual (ex-ante) and contractual (ex-post) effects of MAC clauses in commercial debt financing agreements. It proposes a novel Multifunctional Effect Approach of MAC clauses in debt finance. This paper aims to explain why the commercial parties attach high importance to these vague and uncertain MAC clauses in debt financing agreements but hardly ever rely on them. First, the paper argues that apart from acceleration of the credit facilities, MAC clauses have various beneficial effects, such as screening. Secondly, MAC clauses should be regarded not only as mechanisms to solve information asymmetry but also have the following effects: improving governance, decoupling debt, providing restructuring impulses, countering uncertainty, signalling with acceleration. Potentially, MAC clauses also have the effect of a penalty default rule. The paper finds that despite these functions, the potential of MAC clauses in debt finance is not fully utilised, due to the unique characteristics of debt finance. This significantly undermines the efficiency of MAC clauses in debt finance, as lenders overprotect themselves by additionally relying on other contractual protection mechanisms and risk offsetting strategies for more efficiency.

Carl Schmitt and AV Dicey are two of history's most influential constitutional theorists, and they offer two of history's most influential accounts of referendums. In most respects, their approaches to referendums are in direct opposition to each other. On Schmitt's view, the purpose of referendums is to acclaim executive actors. On Dicey's view, the role of referendums is to constrain them. Despite disagreeing about whether referendums should acclaim or constrain the executive, Schmitt and Dicey agree that an agenda-setting role for representatives in referendums is inevitable. This paper argues that, in the UK context, if Schmitt and Dicey are right about the necessary agenda-setting power of representatives in referendums, then the accounts of referendums they each offer must be two sides of the same coin. Given the dominance of the executive over the legislature in the UK and the uncodified nature of the constitution, referendums are processes that necessarily both acclaim and limit the executive.

Vaccines have continued to play a crucial global role in preventing infectious diseases in the twenty-first century. The Covid-19 pandemic has underlined their importance, with vaccines seen as the best way to protect the public from coronavirus. A longstanding problem of governments has been the extent to which they should assume responsibility for the compensation of those injured by vaccines. This paper reappraises the vaccine damage schemes currently available in the US and UK in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. It argues that any improvements to both US and UK schemes should be included in a revised national vaccine policy which takes into consideration their respective long-term national vaccine strategies to prepare for future pandemics. It supports the adoption of a UK-wide National Vaccine Injury Compensation Programme, similar to the one in the US, to be administered by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. To balance the need for rigorous criteria to determine causation with the need for fairness, the programme should adopt the US practice of allowing negotiated settlements between parties in circumstances where review of the evidence has not concluded that the vaccine(s) caused the alleged injury but there are close calls concerning causation.

So-called ‘conversion therapy’ involves therapeutic attempts to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity. It is widely considered to be harmful to sexual minorities and there have been calls for it to be banned in the UK. In this paper, we examine whether victims of the practice could bring tort claims against ‘therapists’ for mental harm. Focusing on talking therapies, we assess tort doctrine in the law of negligence, the rule in Wilkinson v Downton, the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and deceit. We conclude that while some forms of conversion therapy will be tortious, others will not and so this area of law may fail to assist many victims of the practice.

Automated facial recognition (AFR) is perhaps the most controversial policing tool of the twenty-first century. Police forces in England and Wales, and beyond, are using facial recognition in various contexts, from evidence gathering to the identification and monitoring of criminal suspects. Despite uncertainty regarding its accuracy, and widespread concerns about its impact on human rights and broader social consequences, the rise of police facial recognition continues unabated by law. Both the Government and the domestic courts were satisfied that police use of this technology is regulated adequately by existing statutory provisions regulating the processing of data and police surveillance generally. That is, until the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal in R (Bridges) v Chief Constable of South Wales Police and Others [2020] EWCA Civ 1058, where it was held that the respondent's use of AFR was unlawful. This paper provides an analysis of AFR, reflecting on the outcome of that case and evaluates its nuanced findings. We suggest that the judgment leaves considerable room for police AFR to continue with only minor, piecemeal amendment to the legal framework. Drawing on comparative experience and relevant socio-legal scholarship, we argue that the relatively unfettered rise of police facial recognition in England and Wales illuminates deeper flaws in the domestic framework for fundamental human rights protection and adjudication, which create the conditions for authoritarian policing and surveillance to expand.

There is a growing body of scholarship examining the impact of courts’ social rights judgments, especially their distributive impact (ie the extent to which they deliver social rights-related goods and services to the poor and marginalised). Commentators have used this impact to evaluate the effectiveness of courts in realising citizens’ social rights. This paper contributes to the scholarship by adding a new ‘relational’ dimension to our understanding of such impact. It uses the literature on the concept of trust from philosophy, sociology and other disciplines to analyse the impact that social rights judgments have on the relationship between citizens and the political branches of government, and argues that social rights judgments can modify two elements of this relationship that determine the dynamics at play in it: citizens’ vulnerability to the political branches with respect to the relevant goods and services; and citizens’ uncertainty about the political branches’ exercise of control over the goods and services (which can promote the political branches’ trustworthiness). By broadening our understanding of these judgments’ impact, the paper offers a valuable lens through which to analyse social rights judgments and adds needed nuance to current debates about courts’ effectiveness in realising citizens’ social rights.

In the light of the High Court's decision in R (Khan) v Secretary of State for Justice [2020] 1 WLR 3932 this paper contends that a revised approach to the interpretation of Articles 5 and 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights is needed. The paper argues that the Article 5 ECHR right to liberty and security plays a developing, though overlooked, role in the context of regulating determinate prison sentences. English law's conclusion that Article 5 of the ECHR has little to offer in this context is wrong and needs to be reconsidered. Equally, a more generous interpretation of Article 7 of the ECHR is now required: an approach which reflects the reality of determinate sentences.

The principle of open justice is a constituent element of the rule of law: it demands publicity of legal proceedings, including the publication of judgments. Since 2017, the UK government has systematically published first instance Employment Tribunal decisions in an online repository. Whilst a veritable treasure trove for researchers and policy makers, the database also has darker potential – from automating blacklisting to creating new and systemic barriers to access to justice. Our scrutiny of existing legal safeguards, from anonymity orders to equality law and data protection, finds a number of gaps, which threaten to make the principle of open justice as embodied in the current publication regime inimical to equal access to justice.

In England, Parliament introduced the ‘necessary interest rule’ through the enactment of section 115 of the Charities Act 2011 (England and Wales), allowing ‘any person interested’ in a charitable trust to initiate charity proceedings against defaulting trustees in their administration of charitable assets. Nevertheless, insufficient attention has been paid to this rule despite it being initially enacted in 1853. Parliament has refrained from clearly defining the rule, and the courts have long been grappling with its meaning in determining whether a person is eligible to sue. This paper studies the necessary interest rule by exploring the way in which the courts have interpreted it and the uncertainties surrounding its operation. It is shown that, in the context of charitable trusts, the concern of securing the due administration and execution of the trust lies at the heart of the rule. The final section of this paper discusses the significant theoretical implications of the necessary interest rule. It considers the beneficiary-enforcer debate concerning the conceptual nature of express trusts and highlights the insights that analysis of the rule can provide into this debate.

Streaming services now provide the dominant way in which music is distributed and consumed online. Digital rights management (DRM) lies at the heart of this trend and has evolved alongside a movement from copy-based to streaming-based consumption. This shift poses a number of new and unique issues. Music streaming services have changed the nature of the product offered, with musical content becoming de-bundled and reduced to a series of permissions covered by DRM and associated licences, leaving users trapped in a permission-based system. This may create tension with copyright law principles regarding personal ownership and exhaustion of rights in relation to secondary markets, but through analysing relevant US and European case law it can be demonstrated that there is little, if any, legal opportunity for digital secondary markets to emerge. There are also further specific consequences which may affect artists relating to musical diversity and the composition of popular music and, also, consequences regarding the changing nature of the Internet itself. In this context copyright remains centrally important, but only in establishing the initial proprietary rights that enable subsequent DRM and licence-based online exploitation, indicative of a re-establishment of record industry power that is now allied to streaming platforms.

The appointment of recent Attorney-Generals for England and Wales has occasioned much comment about their experience. This paper considers whether, following the transmogrification of the Lord Chancellorship over a decade ago, the backgrounds and activities of recent leaders of the Attorney-General's Office suggest the time is now right for similar changes to the Law Officers’ roles. In doing so, it presents a range of original data on aspects of the role and on characteristics of Attorney-Generals, which suggests that unless self-restraint is exercised (by the Prime Minister and the post-holders) we may ineluctably be on the path to reform.

For any field of law, the goal it was designed to achieve permeates every aspect of its application and interpretation. This is particularly true when the black letter of the law is cryptic and silent on most aspects of how it should be interpreted and applied, as is the case with competition law, which for the most part revolves around a small number of highly abstract provisions. It is only natural then that ample scholarly work has been devoted to identifying the goals and purposes of competition law. By and large these attempts have been textual, historical, and teleological. We introduce here instead a quantitative analysis of the case law and present the results of the first empirical study into the goals and purposes of EU competition law as they emerge from the entirety of the case law of the European Court of Justice, opinions of the Advocate Generals, Commission decisions, and speeches of Commissioners for Competition. This body of almost 4,000 sources paints a comprehensive picture of the underlying goals of EU competition law, and helps conclusively confirm some previous insights while debunking others, thereby helping to advance the present application and future evolution of competition law.

The regulatory protection of credit consumers, in general, is paramount due to the considerable use of credit, the imbalanced bargaining positions of the contracting parties and the adverse effect of over-indebtedness on individuals and society alike. These concerning factors are worsened in the case of High-Cost Short-Term Credit (HCSTC) consumers owing to their disadvantaged financial position and other recognised vulnerabilities. In this respect, the paper argues that direct regulatory intervention, despite its importance, is not always a silver bullet. Through the analysis of the overhauling of the UK HCSTC regulatory framework, this paper demonstrates the shortfalls of these regulatory changes. Accordingly, the paper shifts the argument towards improving the decision-making mechanisms of HCSTC consumers, ie the role of ‘libertarian paternalism’-based interventions. By using a bespoke experimental survey, the paper demonstrates the type of behavioural interventions that can assist in this endeavour and which the regulator could possibly mandate.

A lively debate progresses about change to the professions, including law, especially change in the form of managerialism. ‘Managerialism’ covers the methods and beliefs of managers within organisations, used to actively influence, evaluate, and ‘market’ professional work. But what about when that managerialism is change itself? How do we understand managerialism-as-change? This paper reports on an interview study with change managers, or ‘transformation leaders’ in the legal profession. Transformation leaders offer rich insights into the dynamics of professional change because they are incontrovertibly change agents. They are also themselves a form of managerial change as a new cadre of managers within the professions; managers with ‘hybrid’ identities whose legitimacy in professional settings is not assured. The findings presented include: the change leaders’ identities; the types of change being introduced; the constraints on and affordances for change in legal practices; and how change leaders secure, and sometimes struggle to secure, the authority needed to implement change. The concluding discussion highlights the study's contributions to our understanding of professional change and managerialism in the legal context – both what changes are being pursued and how they are materialising through certain ‘managerial’ goals, strategies, and the interactions of those with mixed identities and status.

An injunction is typically characterised as the primary remedy to prevent a continuing interference with a claimant's property rights. It can be easier to obtain such a remedy against a cynical defendant who knowingly interfered with those rights, as opposed to a naïve or unwitting party who was unaware of them. It is not obvious, however, why the defendant's state of mind should affect what remedy the claimant is afforded in vindicating their property rights. This paper examines the role played by the defendant's state of mind when considering whether to grant an injunction. It argues that a defendant who knowingly infringes a property right in respect of land for material gain assumes the risk that an injunction will be granted to stop that infringement. As a consequence, the question of whether such an order will create hardship or oppression is either diminished or eliminated as a factor. This approach also vindicates the proprietary nature of such rights, which may be difficult to assess in financial terms.

This paper focuses on the drivers steering companies’ behaviour over uses of patented health technologies, taking Covid-19 as a case study. Global equitable access to health technologies is vital to bringing the pandemic under control. Reflecting this, global mechanisms for rightsholders to share intellectual property rights, data and know-how over such health technologies have been developed. Yet, to date, there is limited support from corporate rightsholders for such mechanisms. Instead, health technologies have been licensed largely based on bilateral deals, with vast global inequalities emerging. Given the traditional focus within company law on prioritising shareholders' short-term financial value, we argue that it is unsurprising that many corporate rightsholders adopt a protectionist approach to patents, even in the face of health crises. However, we argue that the tide may now be starting to shift, catalysed by an emergence of engaged shareholders petitioning for socially responsible corporate behaviour, including for uses of intellectual property over health technologies in a manner that more clearly aligns with public interests. If harnessed and encouraged, such engaged shareholder behaviour could present an opportunity to reframe the conception of shareholder value towards one that considers a long-term sustainable approach and ultimately to shift corporate behaviour around uses of intellectual property over health technologies to take public interests into account.

As part of its response to Covid-19 the government paused the use of the ‘Minimum Income Floor’ (MIF), which restricts the Universal Credit (UC) entitlement of the self-employed. This paper places the MIF in the wider context of conditionality in the social security system and considers a judicial review which claimed that the MIF was discriminatory. The paper focuses on how UC affects the availability of real choices for low-income citizens to limit or escape from wage labour, with two implications of the move to UC highlighted. First, the overlooked labour decommodifying aspect of tax credits, which provided a minimum income guarantee and a genuine alternative to wage labour for people who self-designated as ‘self-employed’, even if their earnings were minimal or non-existent, has been removed. Secondly, UC has in some respects improved the position of low-paid wage labourers in ‘mini-jobs’, who are not subject to conditionality once they work for the equivalent of approximately nine hours a week on the minimum wage.