Winter2012
Policy and Committees Coordinator’s Report
The CLLS’s 19 Committees have continued to actively represent the members on issues of policy and practice and, since the start of the year, have produced and published close to 90 papers and submissions on a variety of issues. In terms of submissions, since early October the CLLS Committees have responded to the following consultations:
• DCLG: “Renegotiation of Section 106 planning obligations”. •
Defra: “Habitats Directive: consultation on draft guidance on the application of Article 6(4)”.
• HMRC: “Foreign currency assets and chargeable gains”; “Lifting the Lid on Tax Avoidance Schemes” and “Implementing the UK-US FATCA Agreement”.
• OFT: “Applications for leniency and no-action in cartel cases: a supplementary consultation on OFT guidance”.
• The Takeover Panel’s Code Committee: PCP2012/1 (“Profit forecasts, quantified financial benefits statements, material changes in information and other amendments to the Takeover Code”)., PCP 2012/2 (“Pension Scheme Trustee Issues”) and PCP 2012/3 (“Companies Subject to the Takeover Code”). In addition to responding to specific consultations, the Committees also submitted the following papers:
Details of all the Committees’ submissions can be found on the CLLS’s website at
www.citysolicitors.org.uk
In addition, on November 15th Lord Currie (Chair Designate to the new Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)) and Kam Roopra from BIS attended a meeting of the Competition Law Committee. The meeting was a good opportunity for Lord Currie to hear from private sector competition lawyers as to their views and concerns about the amalgamation of the OFT and CC and the establishment of the CMA.
The discussion was wide ranging but there were several main themes. These were:
• The independence of decision making.
• The need to ensure there was continuity of staff during the transition between OFT/CC and CMA so that cases could be completed in a seamless way
•
Concern over the time the OFT takes to complete Competition Act 1998 cases.
• The need to ensure statutory time limits for merger and market investigations are fully respected in both the spirit and letter of the law.
•
Concern about the removal of the dishonesty requirement in the amended cartel offence currently before the House of Lords.
A working party of the Financial Law Committee recently produced a discussion paper on secured transactions reform (a topic which has been the subject of wide-ranging discussion over the last fifteen years). As the working party mentioned, while there is a general consensus amongst those who deal with secured transactions in practice that it works reasonably well,
there are undoubtedly areas where it could work better. Areas of specific concern included:
• The distinction between fixed and floating charges. •
Problems caused by restrictions on assignments in contracts.
• The broader question of whether existing security interests should be replaced with a single universal security interest, in order to enable the law to be set out in one place in a clearer, simpler and more accessible manner.
The paper’s purpose is to encourage interested parties to discuss the above issues. The paper is available on the CLLS website (<
http://www.citysolicitors.org.uk/FileServer. aspx?oID=1290&lID=0>).
The Land Law Committee recently published the new CLLS Land Law Committee Certificate of Title and Note to Users (Seventh Edition 2012) and the accompanying “Letter to Company seeking confirmation on draft CLLS Certificate of Title 7th Edition” and “Letter to Company seeking confirmation on final draft of CLLS Certificate of Title 7th Edition”. The Committee also published in October 2012 a response to the Law Commission’s consultation on the Electronic Communications Code. Furthermore, the Committee recently published notes on “Assets of Community Value” and a draft form of overseas legal opinion on transactions relating to real property in England & Wales (November 2012). The documents are available on the CLLS website (http://www.
citysolicitors.org.uk/Default.aspx?sID=923&lID=0).
Furthermore, the Professional Rules & Regulation Committee (PR&RC) held an Open Forum with the SRA on 26th September 2012 (with Charles Plant and Anthony Townsend). (The meeting provided an update on current SRA issues and gave participants the opportunity to put their questions to the senior management team.) One of the outcomes of the meeting was that the SRA asked the PR&RC to provide it with 10 examples of “red tape” regulation affecting law firms. The PR&RC quickly compiled a shortlist, based on suggestions received from CLLS firms, and the SRA confirmed that they would agree to nine out of the ten suggestions. In addition, the PR&RC has been following up with the SRA on a number of amendments to the Handbook which it feels are needed, and which were put forward as long ago as May last year. It is now clear that the SRA will agree most of these changes, which will feed through to the revised Handbook next year. A relatively small number of issues remain outstanding for further discussion.
Robert Leeder, Policy & Committees Coordinator, CLLS City Solicitor • Issue 80 • 9
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