Key legal issues to watch in 2025

1.       The new Procurement Act 2023

The new Procurement Act 2023 is due to come into force on 24 February 2025. Robert Bell, our competition and regulatory specialist, recently shared a helpful overview of:

• What you need to know about the new Procurement Act 2023
  
• Implications for private sector bidders
• Tips for navigating the new Procurement regime

You can download the full article here:
Are you ready for the new procurement regime? What you need to know about the New Procurement Act 2023.

On 9 December 2024, the Government published a substantial suite of guidance documents to support implementing the Procurement Act 2023. We will be sharing a practical summary of that guidance shortly. If you’d like to receive our updates straight to your inbox, please subscribe to our mailing list by filling out your details here: Sign Up.

2.       The new Arbitration Act

Following last year’s General Election in the UK, the new Labour Government reintroduced the Arbitration Bill 2024 to give effect to recommendations issued by the Law Commission in 2023 for amending the Arbitration Act 1996.

We have previously written about what the changes will mean, our views on the same and our experience advising on high-stakes arbitration in previous articles, which you can find here:  The King’s Speech: Arbitration on the Agenda and Fine-tuning the fundamentally sound: recommended reforms to the Arbitration Act 1996.

The exact date for implementation has not yet been confirmed, but it is anticipated to be this year.

3.       Fraud

The new Failure to Prevent Fraud offence for large organisations (under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023) coming into force on 1 September 2025. This new offence makes large organisations criminally liable if an associate (including an agent, employee or subsidiary) commits any fraud offence in order to benefit the organisations, its customers or clients.

The High Court case of Terna Energy Trading v Revolut Limited [2024] will also go to appeal this year. In that case, the High Court ruled that a victim of Authorised Push Payment Fraud could pursue an unjust enrichment claim against an electronic money institution like Revolut, asserting that the institution was enriched by the payment at the victim’s expense. This decision potentially broadens the scope for such claims against banks and payment service providers in cases of push payment fraud.

As always, we will keep you updated on key developments, including those covered here.