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Briefing Notes
Disputes
UK Supreme Court rules Forthwell could not have recovered Rogano restaurant's lost profits from landlord Pontegadea in transferred loss claim
Groups that let subsidiaries trade from leased premises without landlord consent now face a double exposure: no transferred loss claim, and a potential breach of the head lease.
M&A
CMA Launches Phase 1 Inquiry into McCormick's Acquisition of Majority of Unilever's Foods Business
The CMA clock is running, McCormick has until 11 November to clear Phase 1.
Banking & Finance
Bank of England sets out multi-year gilt sale plan at £20bn annually and Chancellor exchanges open letters with Governor as CPI hits 3.1%
Selling £146bn of mid-dated gilts to the DMO at £20bn a year reshapes gilt market supply for a decade and tests whether government self-purchase can substitute for open-market QT.
Energy & Tech
Bank of Japan raises rates to 1.25%, a 31-year high, as global central banks tighten in tandem amid energy-driven inflation
Synchronised global tightening unwinds the yen carry trade and raises the floor on cross-border financing costs for every leveraged deal with a Japanese funding leg.
AI & Law
Employment Appeal Tribunal judge warns litigants in person that submitting unverified AI-generated documents risks judicial sanctions, after 300-page ChatGPT skeleton argument filed
Courts will not absorb the cost of checking AI output: the accuracy obligation runs with the litigant, qualified or not, and sanctions are the enforcement mechanism.
Capital Markets
Investec doubles down on full-year targets as South African wealth surge offsets UK operating profit decline
A 14% South African wealth surge masking a UK profit decline shows how rate-sensitive net interest margins are cannibalising the returns from Investec's UK growth strategy.
M&A
Aon Raises $13.5bn Bond Sale to Finance USI Insurance Services Acquisition
A $65bn order book shows debt markets remain open for transformative M&A.
Regulation
NCA credits law enforcement with 41% fall in small boat Channel crossings in first half of 2026, as arrests linked to organised immigration crime rise by more than 55%
When the NCA claims a 41% drop in crossings but EU arrivals are also down 37%, the enforcement win may be a pipeline effect, not a policy one.