29 January 2021
Business and Human Rights Legislation and the Enforcement Question - A report by Kingsley Napley and Dr Rachel Chambers
Globally, a trend is taking shape towards legislation that asks more from businesses than the reporting obligations of the UK’s Modern Slavery Act, in the area of business and human rights.
4 December 2020
Regulation and Uptake of the COVID-19 Vaccine
The government has now approved the supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The reason they have been able to do this so quickly is because they have taken advantage of the temporary authorisation regime laid out by the Human Medicine Regulations of 2012 and 2020. The 2012 Regulations were updated in 2020 specifically to facilitate the smooth rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. In the public consultation preceding the introduction of these updated regulations, several respondents raised concerns regarding unlicensed vaccines and immunity from civil liability. In practice, very little is known about these regulations and their application. This article seeks to shed some light on the temporary authorisation regime and suggest a means of alleviating concerns in the context of “vaccine hesitancy”.
11 November 2020
Parliamentary scrutiny in the time of Coronavirus
As a new nationwide lockdown comes into effect, Stephen Parkinson and Charlie Roe from our Public Law team, consider the often limited role of Parliament in scrutinising restrictive regulations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
30 September 2020
ICO enforcement action – key considerations for charities in the GDPR era
It is now more than two years since the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR came into force, significantly increasing the enforcement powers of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). With the passing of the Act, the ICO gained the power to issue fines amounting to millions of pounds and increased powers to bring criminal prosecutions against organisations who fail to comply with the data protection regime.
26 August 2020
Office for Students refusal to register higher education provider unlawful due to failure to delegate and ‘secret policy’
The Bloomsbury Institute was fighting to survive financially after the Office for Students refused its application for registration. It brought a judicial review challenge which revealed that an unpublished policy had been followed. The policy had been formulated by an official who did not have the power to make the relevant decisions.