We provide a clear path through the most complex regulatory issues

Whether you are a professional individual or a firm, Regulated Members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) are expected to comply with ethical, conduct and competence-related professional standards. When things go wrong and a Regulated Member has seemingly breached these standards, RICS may investigate and take disciplinary action.

Last week Assistant Commissioner Fire Safety, Paul Jennings of the London Fire Brigade stated that developers are ‘gaming the system’, looking to reach only the minimum standards required for building safety and ‘bending the rules’. AC Jennings explained that we are not seeing the cultural change within the built environment that we would expect, following the tragic events of the Grenfell Tower fire and the subsequent Hackitt review.

The FRC has published a new paper aimed at audit firms and audit stakeholders containing best practice principles concerning how a good audit should be conducted and the elements indicative of a high performing audit practice.

The built environment presents health and safety risks like no other sector. Whether it be the risk of falls from height, hazardous substances, trapped by items collapsing or overturning, fire or moving vehicles there are a wide range of hazards that need to be managed from the outset. Directors can be held personally liable when health and safety duties are breached. In this blog we explore the scope of personal liability for directors in the built environment.

Conviction cases are ordinarily relatively straightforward for regulators. If a registrant is convicted of a criminal offence, the regulator will generally treat the fact of the conviction as proof the offence was committed – and take action to protect the public accordingly. See Achina v General Pharmaceutical Council [2021] EWHC 415 (Admin) for an example of the difficulties registrants face when they attempt to ‘go behind’ the facts of a conviction.

As the legal profession returns to the office after many months ensconced in home offices, many will be looking forward to the increase in social interaction and in-person activities which will inevitably follow. Alongside this, legal services regulators appear to be gearing up for a commensurate rise in bullying and harassment complaints. With developments apace in this area among the UK regulators and further afield, what are we likely to see next from the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA)?

The use of Non-disclosure agreements in sexual misconduct and discrimination cases is back in the headlines.   Iain Miller, Partner in Legal Services Regulation writes for The Times discussing NDA's reform.

As the regulatory landscape around cannabis in the UK evolves, investors are looking toward cannabis companies as a socially conscious investment, but in the UK, the drug is a controlled substance, as such, careful considerations need to be borne in mind. Here, Shannett Thompson explains the legal landscape around cannabis and its implications for investing in cannabis as a UK national.

To mark Suicide Prevention Day and raise awareness of the prevalence of deaths by suicide in the UK, Kingsley Napley is set to host a mental health panel discussion on 10 September 2021.

When a loved one dies, grief is difficult and there can be a lot to deal with.  If someone dies as a result of medical negligence or personal injury, then it’s important to consider who can bring a claim. 

Property analysis: Iain Miller, partner at Kingsley Napley, discusses the Supreme Court
decision in Harcus Sinclair LLP v Your Lawyers Ltd and its possible impacts on solicitors’
undertakings given in property transactions.

Being excluded from school can be a distressing and difficult time for both the student and their parents/carers. The process can be daunting for families, thereby requiring independent and pragmatic advice. This blog explains the types of school exclusion and how it differs between state and independent schools.

New research published in the British Medical Journal, BMJ Open, suggests doctors’ professional behaviours relating to self-reflective practice and raising concerns may be more likely to be influenced by their work environment and intrinsic principles of self-regulation and professionalism, rather than by extrinsic factors such as their obligations to comply with defined behaviours prescribed and monitored by the GMC, or the GMC’s handling of high-profile disciplinary cases.

Much has been said about the 2020 Court of Appeal judgment in Swift dealing with the disputed method by which claims for the cost of special accommodation following severe injuries are calculated, and rightly so; it was a privilege for one of the authors of this article to work on a case of such wide application and with such benefit for so many Claimants. 

The Financial Reporting Council (“FRC”) recently announced that it is intending to amend the Audit Enforcement Procedure (“AEP”) and is consulting on the proposed amendments.

With the consultation open until 7 October 2021, now is the chance for statutory auditors, audit firms, regulatory bodies and professional associations to have a say in what audit enforcement will look like over the coming years.

The Financial Reporting Council (the ‘FRC’) has published its Annual Enforcement Review 2021 (the ‘review’). We highlight the key trends in relation to the Enforcement Division’s activities during the past year, observations in relation to the FRC’s adoption of constructive engagement as a means of early resolution of matters, trends regarding sanctions imposed by the FRC, and priority areas of concern identified by the FRC, which are likely to impact its enforcement work over the coming year.

There have long been calls for better oversight and regulation of the beauty industry. As an example, ahead of the General Dental Council (‘GDC’) taking appropriate action leading to the Court confirming that teeth whitening amounts to the ‘practice of dentistry’ under section 37 of the Dentists Act 1984, these services were regularly being provided by untrained practitioners on the high street, often leading to injury to the public.

One of the hottest topics in solicitor regulation is how far the SRA’s regulatory powers reach beyond a solicitor’s professional life.   This topic has caused heated debate when dealing with allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate posts on social media.   One would expect that the world of solicitors’ undertakings would not be part of this debate.  However, the recent decision of the Supreme Court suggests that a true solicitors’ undertaking arises in relatively narrow circumstances and as such many undertakings given by solicitors fall outside their professional work and should not engage the SRA Codes of Conduct.

The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement will greatly affect the way we do business
with the EU. Jessica Clay and Ilda de Sousa look at the impact on solicitors.

Just a couple of weeks after the BEIS’ white paper consultation on audit and corporate governance reform closed for responses, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has published its annual audit quality inspection results for 2020/21 of Britain’s 7 largest audit firms (the ‘AQR results’).