International
Every Folio briefing story that mentions Pinsent Masons, most recent first. Stories are sourced daily from a curated set of legal and business publications.
AI & Law · Fri, 4 Sept 2026
A new **LexisNexis** report titled _Scaling up: The AI-dependent lawyer_ finds that **83% of UK legal professionals** are concerned about lawyers relying on inaccurate or fabricated information generated by artificial intelligence (AI), a figure that has climbed sharply from 57% at the beginning of 2024. AI hallucinations, where an AI system confidently produces information that is factually wrong or entirely invented, now top the list of lawyer AI concerns, ahead of confidential data leakage (53%) and excessive reliance on the technology (52%). The survey of **543 UK legal professionals** found that AI use is near-universal: **94% now use AI for legal work**, with 74% using it at least once a week and 34% using it every day. Legal research is the most common application, cited by 69% of respondents, followed by document summarisation (62%), drafting (53%), and document review (53%). One in ten respondents now describe themselves as **dependent** on AI to do their jobs, rising to **15% at large law firms**. The findings follow a series of high-profile AI errors in legal practice. **Pinsent Masons** was criticised by a judge after a junior lawyer's AI-hallucinated research cited an insolvency rule that did not exist. **Sullivan and Cromwell** apologised to a New York judge after fabricated citations appeared in a court filing. More than three-quarters (77%) of those surveyed believe AI is causing clients or members of the public to misinterpret the law, while four in five (81%) said they feel more comfortable using AI grounded in specific legal sources.
Disputes · Sat, 22 Aug 2026
On 21 August 2026, **Senior Master Cook** handed down judgment in **Adam Hughes and others v World Rugby Limited, Welsh Rugby Union, and Rugby Football Union** ([2026] EWHC 2149 (KB)), alongside related proceedings against the **Rugby Football League** and associated bodies. The ruling addressed applications by the defendant governing bodies for declarations that large numbers of claims stood struck out, following claimants' alleged failures to comply with "unless orders" (court orders specifying that non-compliance will automatically lead to the case being struck out). Claimants opposed the strike-out applications and, in the alternative, sought relief from sanction. The litigation spans approximately **1,000 claimants** drawn from both rugby union and rugby league, including male and female former players, many of whom competed at elite level. The claimants allege that governing bodies owed them a duty of care to protect against neurological injury from repeated head impacts during match play and training, causing conditions including Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, Early Onset Dementia, Parkinson's Disease, and Motor Neurone Disease. For the claimants, **Susan Rodway KC** and **John Platts-Mills** were instructed by **Rylands Garth**. The World Rugby defendants were represented by **Nina Goolamali KC**, **William Clerk**, and **Michael Standing**, instructed by **DWF Law**. **Weightmans** acted for both the Welsh Rugby Union (led by **Michael Kent KC**) and the Rugby Football Union (led by **Neil Block KC**). In the Rugby Football League proceedings, **William Audland KC** and **Gemma Scott**, instructed by **Pinsent Masons**, appeared for the defendants.
AI & Law · Wed, 19 Aug 2026
The **Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)** published a warning notice to the solicitors' profession, disclosing that it received **42 reports of potential AI misuse** between July 2025 and July 2026, with a number of investigations currently ongoing. The notice addresses two categories of risk: AI-generated hallucinations in legal research, advice, and court submissions; and confidentiality breaches arising from entering client information into AI tools without adequate safeguards. The SRA cited the case of **Pinsent Masons**, which self-reported after a junior solicitor used AI to draft two misleading letters in an insolvency application. The case is referred to by name in the warning notice as *Cork and another v Smith*, in which Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Mullen publicly admonished the firm. **Sullivan and Cromwell** is also referenced in coverage of the notice for a separate incident in which AI-hallucinated citations appeared in a filing to a New York judge. The notice states that solicitors remain accountable for their work regardless of how it was prepared, and that firms must have effective governance structures and controls in place to manage AI risks. On confidentiality, the SRA warned that entering client information into open-source tools such as ChatGPT would amount to a waiver of privilege, and that client data should only be entered into AI systems where appropriate contractual, technical, and organisational safeguards exist. The **Bar Standards Board (BSB)** had earlier in 2026 issued a similar notice warning barristers that free AI tools would generally be unsuitable for legal work. Law Society of England and Wales vice president Brett Dixon welcomed the notice.
Capital Markets · Fri, 14 Aug 2026
The **IFLR Middle East Awards 2026** shortlist names **A&O Shearman**, **White & Case**, and **Linklaters** across multiple **debt capital markets** and **sukuk** categories. Shortlisted transactions include the **Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company RMBS Sukuk** and the **Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Sukuk issuance**, with HSBC named as in-house counsel on both. **Baker McKenzie** and **Freshfields** appear in the Domestic category for the Gulf Navigation / Brooge Petroleum deal, alongside Hadef & Partners, Ibrahim N Partners, and Pinsent Masons. White & Case is sole adviser on the Sagasse Investment Company Direct Listing. The awards cover equity, debt, loan, and domestic deal categories across the Middle East region.
M&A · Wed, 5 Aug 2026
**Mourant**, the offshore law firm with a headcount of around 1,000 across nine locations, has sold a minority stake to **MML**, a mid-market private equity (PE) firm backed by a €1 billion fund that specialises in providing minority growth capital to owner-managed businesses. The Financial Times first reported the transaction, placing the stake at 27%, though the specific deal terms were not formally disclosed by the parties. The capital will be invested into **Mourant Group Limited**, a holding company established last year that fully owns the group's corporate, entity management and fund administration businesses, and supplies managed services to its separate law firm entities. Control and ownership of the law firm partnerships themselves will remain with the locally-qualified partners in each jurisdiction. Mourant's existing owners are co-investing alongside MML and will retain control of both the group and its leadership. Mourant's revenue last year would, by one report's estimate, place it among the top 50 UK law firms, meaning it exceeds £127 million. The firm's client list includes **Goldman Sachs** and **CVC**. Proceeds are earmarked for technology investment including AI, international expansion, acquisitions, law firm partnerships, and lateral hiring. The transaction is described as the first time capital has been raised for the combination of legal, corporate services, and consulting services offered by Mourant, and the first PE investment at group level for one of the offshore Magic Circle firms. MML previously took a minority stake in intellectual property firm Rouse in 2022, giving it prior legal-sector experience. **Pinsent Masons** advised MML on the deal. **Addleshaw Goddard** advised Mourant. Mourant also instructed Dejonghe and Morley on elements of the transaction.
AI & Law · Wed, 1 Jul 2026
Two developments this week crystallise the central tension in legal AI adoption. First, **Pinsent Masons** has been criticised by the **UK High Court** after a junior lawyer cited a fictitious authority produced by an AI tool in the case of **Cork & Anor v Smith**, with criticism extending to supervising partners — placing AI governance squarely in the frame as a professional conduct issue in English litigation practice. Second, a report published by the **University of Hong Kong** finds that law firms and in-house legal departments across **Hong Kong** and **Singapore** are deploying **generative AI** (AI tools that produce text, drafts, and analysis from prompts) into day-to-day workflows faster than many are building the governance structures needed to manage them — mirroring the pattern identified in the UK and US markets over the past year. Together, these stories describe a global legal AI adoption curve in which tool deployment is consistently outpacing oversight infrastructure. The Pinsent case provides the English courts' first clear signal that AI-related citation failures will be treated as supervisory failures at partner level. The Hong Kong/Singapore report confirms the governance lag is not a UK-specific problem but a market-wide structural issue across common law jurisdictions. Both stories point toward an urgent demand for AI governance frameworks — policies, audit trails, verification protocols, and partner sign-off requirements — as the default advisory response across disputes, litigation, and in-house legal operations.
AI & Law · Thu, 25 Jun 2026
A new study on AI adoption across the legal market, analysed by **Law.com's Legal Technology News**, finds that **legal AI** has moved from an experimental tool to the basic operational infrastructure of legal practice. The study's headline finding — characterised in commentary as AI transitioning from "shiny novelty to the basic machinery of legal practice" — reflects a maturation point where questions are no longer about whether to deploy AI but how to govern and maximise its use. The study identifies a significant disconnect: while AI is being embedded in workflows across both law firms and in-house legal teams, **law firms** — the part of the legal market with the longest-standing client relationships — are the segment least likely to be talking to their clients about the **efficiency gains** their AI tools are generating. This creates a commercial risk: if firms do not proactively communicate the productivity improvements AI delivers, clients will begin to question whether AI-driven efficiency is being passed through in pricing or retained as margin. A separate analysis from **Diginomica** examining AI's role in the English legal profession notes that the human professional remains indispensable as a quality-control gate — summarised as the need to put "the human touch not behind the machine, but in front of it, at the gate." The piece references the recent example of **Pinsent Masons** being criticised for submitting AI-generated references containing hallucinations to a court, then compounding the error by using AI to draft the explanatory letter, which also contained errors. The incident underlines that AI output in contentious and court-facing work requires active professional oversight, not passive review.
International · Sat, 23 May 2026
**Pinsent Masons** has referred itself to the **Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)** after one of its junior lawyers used artificial intelligence to generate fictitious legal citations that were then included in letters sent to court. Judge **Mark Mullen** of the **Insolvency and Companies Court** (High Court of Justice, England and Wales), on being informed of the incident, declined to initiate contempt of court proceedings. The case in which the fabricated citations appeared was a block transfer application, where the AI cited an Insolvency rule from 2016 that had nothing to do with block transfer applications. The self-referral is a significant act of regulatory transparency from a Magic Circle-adjacent firm. Proactive engagement with the SRA — reporting the incident before being required to do so — is consistent with the obligations on regulated entities to cooperate with their regulator and may be a factor the SRA weighs in deciding how to respond. The firm's decision to self-report also reflects a broader awareness that AI-generated hallucinations (fabricated legal references produced by AI tools that present false information as real) represent a professional conduct risk requiring immediate escalation when discovered. The incident at Pinsent Masons mirrors a pattern seen in other jurisdictions — most notably in the US, where several firms have faced sanctions after AI-generated citations were submitted to federal courts — but this appears to be one of the first instances of a UK firm taking the formal step of self-reporting an AI misuse incident to the SRA. The London judge's decision not to initiate contempt proceedings suggests the court was satisfied by the firm's corrective response, though any SRA investigation and its outcome remain pending.
AI & Law · Sat, 23 May 2026
Insurers providing professional liability cover to law firms reported an increase in the frequency of legal malpractice claims in 2025 — the first such rise in several years — with uncontrolled use of **artificial intelligence** cited as a contributing factor, according to this year's legal professional liability insurance survey by **EPIC Law Firm Group**. The finding is commercially significant because it links the accelerating adoption of AI tools in legal practice directly to a measurable uptick in the claims that erode law firms' professional indemnity insurance records and, over time, their premiums. Legal malpractice — negligence in the provision of legal services — has historically been driven by missed deadlines, conflicts of interest, and inadequate advice. The emergence of AI-related causes marks a structural shift in the risk profile of legal professional liability. The survey's reference to 'uncontrolled' AI use is precise: it is not AI per se that generates liability, but AI deployed without adequate supervision, quality-checking, and governance frameworks. For firms that have rolled out AI drafting and research tools without corresponding verification protocols, the insurance data now provides a concrete, quantified signal that the risk is real and is already materialising in claims. This development sits alongside the **Pinsent Masons** SRA self-referral reported elsewhere in today's briefing, together painting a consistent picture of the professional conduct and liability exposure accumulating across the profession.
International · Fri, 22 May 2026
**London International Disputes Week (LIDW) 2026** is scheduled for the first week of June, positioning London as the global hub for international dispute resolution and celebrating the city's commitment to the rule of law. **NERA Economic Consulting** is co-hosting three sessions at the event, bringing together leading lawyers and economists across litigation, competition, ESG, and tax. Session highlights include a seminar on carbon offsets and corporate carbon neutrality claims, led by **NERA** Senior Managing Director George Anstey alongside **Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer** Of Counsel Louise Barber and Partner Craig Tevendale, South Pole General Counsel Kushal Bhimjiani, and Marsh Carbon Credits Senior Advisor Lara Whitmore. A competition law and international arbitration crossover session will feature NERA's Grant Saggers and **Monckton Chambers** barrister Kassie Smith KC. A dedicated session on international tax disputes and cross-border tax controversies will involve **Pinsent Masons** partners Jake Landman and Sylvia Tonova alongside tax barristers and academics. LIDW's platinum sponsor is **EY**; gold sponsors are **Ankura**, **Berkeley Research Group**, **FTI Consulting**, **HKA**, and **Teneo**.
Regulation · Sun, 12 Apr 2026
Three environmental groups — **Friends of the Irish Environment**, **Friends of the Earth Ireland**, and **ClientEarth** — have forced a High Court judicial review against Ireland's energy regulator, the **Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU)**, over new rules that permit data centres to use fossil fuels to generate a portion of their own energy requirements. The claimants argue that the CRU's policy runs counter to Ireland's **Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act**, which sets binding carbon reduction targets. The challenge threatens to stall the Irish government's plans to accelerate data centre development at a time when Ireland has become the default EU location for hyperscale data infrastructure investment, hosting facilities for **Microsoft**, **Amazon**, **Meta**, and **Google**. Law firm **Pinsent Masons** has noted that under the new CRU policy, data centres would be eligible to use fossil fuel backup generation in circumstances that the environmental groups contend cannot be reconciled with national climate law. The judicial review sits at the intersection of energy regulation, administrative law, and climate litigation — a combination that is becoming an increasingly common feature of European courts as regulators attempt to balance energy security with decarbonisation obligations. A successful challenge could force the CRU to rewrite its policy, introducing significant uncertainty for data centre developers and their financiers who have committed capital on the basis of current grid access and backup generation rules.
M&A · Wed, 25 Mar 2026
**Danone**, the French food and beverage giant, has agreed to acquire **Huel**, the UK-based functional nutrition brand, in a deal valued at approximately **€1 billion** (around £855 million). **Freshfields** advised Danone on the transaction, while **Pinsent Masons** acted for Huel. Huel, founded in 2015 and best known for its meal-replacement shakes and ready-to-drink nutritional products, has built a direct-to-consumer business with a strong international footprint. The acquisition gives Danone a foothold in the fast-growing functional nutrition and consumer health segment, extending beyond its existing dairy and plant-based portfolio. The deal is structured as a full acquisition. As a cross-border transaction involving a French buyer and a UK-incorporated target, it will require standard competition clearances. Given the combined parties' market positions in functional food and nutrition, a **CMA (Competition and Markets Authority)** phase one review is the most likely UK regulatory step, though substantive concerns are not immediately apparent given the limited horizontal overlap. The transaction reflects broader strategic consolidation in the branded nutrition space, where legacy FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) players are acquiring digitally native challenger brands to access younger consumer demographics and higher-margin product categories. For Danone specifically, the deal follows a period of portfolio rationalisation and signals a renewed appetite for growth-stage acquisitions in health-oriented consumer categories.