Osborne Clarke's best legal reads of the week - September 21 - 25

What are the top reads of the week around the web written by Osborne Clarke people? Which posts have been shared the most via social?

Here’s the best legal reads of the week…

• Asset Tracing and Enforcement Update: September 2015

This week we published the latest edition of Osborne Clarke’s Asset Tracing and Enforcement Update. In the issue we look at recent developments relating to equitable receivership, a recent case involving bribery in Brazil and we also highlight two recent international developments: the Hague Convention on Choice of Courts and the UN Conference, read the update here. 

• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) extends the deadline for concluding its energy market investigation

The CMA has revised the timetable for concluding its market investigation into the energy markets. In accordance with the statutory timetable, the industry anticipated publication of the CMA’s final report by the end of December 2015 but this is not now expected before April 2016. The investigation focuses on a wide range of issues across both the retail and wholesale markets for the supply of gas and electricity in the UK. Read about the key upcoming dates here. 

• Is MNO convergence reaching its limit?

On 11 September 2015, Telenor and TeliaSonera announced that they were abandoning their plans to merge their Danish businesses, indicating that discussions with the European Commission (Commission) had “reached a point where it [was] no longer possible to gain approval for the proposed transaction”. The merger would have created the largest MNO in the Danish market and resulted in a reduction in the number of MNOs in Denmark from four to three. Read the full blog post here. 

• “Engagers” beware: Major increased tax risk for users of contractors and umbrella workers 

The consultation on the withdrawal of tax and NIC relief on travel and subsistence expenses for workers and contractors engaged via employment intermediaries ends on 30 September. The consultation proposals affect not only the intermediaries who pay the workers but also the organisations who use their services. Read about what this means for you here. 

• Employee share plans: some annual returns may need to be re-submitted due to HMRC technical problems

HMRC has confirmed that, due to recent technical problems with its IT, some companies will need to re-submit their annual returns for employee share plans. HMRC is writing to the affected companies over the next few weeks, so companies which submitted annual returns online should look out for correspondence from HMRC to find out whether any further action is required. Read more about the issue here. 

• Happy Birthday to Patty

The news is full of the revelation that a US judge has ruled Warner/Chappell, which has been collecting royalties on commercial uses of the song Happy Birthday to You at the rate of $2m a year, is not entitled to it, since the rights it acquired in 1988 included only the music and certain piano arrangements. Read more about this revelation and the complexities of copyright here.