A warm welcome to the second of our quarterly regulatory reviews.
Regulation continues to be a hot topic of legal developments which affect us all, as evidenced by the range of articles produced by our expert team in the past three months. In this edition we bring together insights on the latest case law on privilege by Nick Bamber, Oliver Cooke’sreview of packaging requirements, a summary of recent ASA pronouncements in the world of advertising from Jenna Coad and John Doherty on supply chains.
These can be areas of great complexity, but our team is highly skilled in helping clients find commercial solutions to the challenges they face, in a wide range of sectors and regulatory regimes.
Watch out for further insights and briefings from Penningtons Manches. As the Brexit process shuffles tortuously to some sort of decision, the various potential outcomes (at the time of writing being the Prime Minister’s deal, no deal, or extension) all have important, and potentially very different, regulatory implications.
Consumer product safety: understanding your obligations and meeting the compliance challenge
Defective products pose a serious safety risk to their consumers and the public generally, as was so tragically illustrated by the Grenfell fire, supposedly caused by a single defective fridge-freezer. In addition, however, they present a significant financial and reputational risk to all those involved in the process of their production and supply to consumers. Lest there be any doubt, unsafe products are not just a matter of concern for their manufacturers / producers. Others in the supply chain may become liable too, including wholesalers and retailers.
After the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned four car advertisements – by Ford, Nissan and Fiat Chrysler - in the latter part of last year, we examine the factual background to each investigation, the regulatory framework governing advertising in the automotive industry and the practical implications arising from the ASA’s rulings. Given the low threshold for an ASA investigation and the potential commercial ramifications of an ASA ruling, it is important for automotive manufacturers and advertisers to carefully consider their obligations.
Limited enforcement action and relatively small fines have caused compliance with the UK’s packaging waste regime to be neglected by businesses. However, public agitation and new European legislation, such as the restrictions placed on single-use plastic bags, have forced the issue up the political agenda, resulting in proposals to expand businesses’ liability. In anticipation of increased enforcement activity and potentially new draconian legislation, we revisit the current regime to assess what needs to be done to comply - both now and in the longer term.
2018 finished with a series of important privilege cases. We highlight the takeaways for regulated organisations that may conduct an internal investigation, ranging from the decision in SFO v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd that documents created during such an investigation were covered by litigation privilege, reversing a widely criticised High Court judgment, to rulings in Sotheby’s v Mark Weiss Ltd and WH Holding Ltd & Anor v E20 Stadium LLP that the relevant correspondence was not protected in this way.
