As reported in our briefing last week, the European Court of Justice has delivered its judgment in the case of Union of Shop, Distributive & Allied Workers (USDAW) and another v WW Realisation 1 Ltd (in liquidation) and others (C–80/14) in relation to long running claims brought by former employees of national retailers Woolworths and Ethel Austin, which arose out of the administration and closure of all of their retail stores. The ECJ had to consider the meaning of “establishment” in the legislation, which triggers an obligation to undertake collective consultation when an employe

spring 2015 contentious business update hilldickinson.com Law in Action Page 6 Consumer Rights Bill - all change? Page 8 Mediation – when is it reasonable to refuse? Page 12 Serious Fraud Office (SFO) -vWest, Stone and Sustainable Agro Energy plc (SAE) Gary West, the chief commercial officer of SAE and Stuart Stone, director of SJ Stone Ltd, were convicted of offences under the Bribery Act 2010 in the context of an overall prosecution for fraud against officers of SAE.

Proprietary trading. Reuters reported that Latvia, which currently holds the European Union presidency, opposes a proposal that would prohibit European banks from engaging in proprietary trading. (3/31/2015) Proprietary trading. 

Background

What’s going on in Brussels? A lot. And trying to follow it all can be difficult.

So this section of AcrossEU seeks to provide you with an overview of what each of the three main EU institutions are doing.

The Commission

This article provides snapshot of some of the more incidental goings-on of which we believe practitioners should be aware. Amongst other things, it covers developments in the reform of the EC Regulation, the consultation on the new-look SIP 16, and the Comet decision on the extent of the court’s S.236 powers.

EU Council adopts agreement on EC Insolvency Regulation reforms

First in the lineup, the Council of the EU agreed a compromise agreement with the EU Parliament on the proposed amendments to the EC Insolvency Regulation (Reg EC 1346/2000).

PRA consults on capital adequacy. The UK Prudential Regulation Authority proposed changes to the PRA’s Pillar 2 framework for the banking sector, including changes to rules and supervisory statements. The proposed policy is intended to ensure that firms have adequate capital to support the relevant risks in their business and that they have appropriate processes to ensure compliance with the Capital Requirements Regulation and Capital Requirements Directive.

Europe's latest legislative response to the recent financial crisis — the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) — is intended to establish a minimum common toolbox for regulators in each member state to address bank solvency issues sooner, maintain key financial functions and minimize the impact of any failure.

The BRRD has to be implemented in each member state at the beginning of 2015 following its adoption by both the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, and it follows other measures to improve banks' capital structure in order to make failure less likely.

Introduction

In this Banking Reform updater we examine the single resolution mechanism (SRM), which together with the single supervisory mechanism (SSM) (Banking Reform updater 10) forms the key pillars of the EU Banking Union.

What is the SRM?

Creditors frustrated by cost and time delays in cross border disputes, as well as from unscrupulous delaying tactics by debtors, will have some comfort in the form of the revised EU Judgments Regulation. The revised Regulation came into force on 10 January 2015 and aims to resolve cross-border legal disputes more easily, bringing huge cost savings to creditors.