By Prof Paula Giliker, Professor of Comparative Law (University of Bristol Law School) and former President of the British Association of Comparative Law.
The British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) held its annual seminar, jointly with the Irish Society of Comparative Law, at University College, Dublin on 5 September 2017. The joint seminar was chaired and organised by Professor Paula Giliker. To celebrate BACL’s first annual seminar in Ireland, the seminar reflected on the relationship between UK and Irish law in the fields of land law, banking regulation, language legislation and consumer law. The seminar was sponsored by publishers, Intersentia.
The seminar sought to examine different features of the relationship between Irish and UK law: the tensions of the past, the similar problems faced by two common law jurisdictions in the light of a global banking crisis, linguistic diversity and demands for consumer law reform and the future, with one jurisdiction remaining within the European Union and the other deciding to leave. (more…)
Written and orated by Prof Joanne Conaghan, Professor of Law and Head of School (University of Bristol Law School).
In July 2017, the University of Bristol awarded an Honorary Fellowhip to its former Chancellor the Rt. Hon. the Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE. Professor Joanne Conaghan, Head of the University of Bristol Law School, had the honour of writing the Oration for Lady Hale.
In her Oration, Professor Conaghan stresses the many strengths and achievements of Lady Hale in a career dedicated to the law as it applies to those most vulnerable, such as in the areas of mental health and family law, and to combat inequality, in particular on the basis of gender. Lady Hale’s achievements are indeed particularly remarkable due to the unequal society she lived in through her early years; a society which she is shaping and pushing for transformation, very soon from the seat of the President of the Supreme Court, to which she has been appointed.
The full text of the oration is now reproduced here as a token of the values that the University of Bristol Law School, as a community, strives to foster.(more…)
Back in the 1980s, the Departmental Advisory Committee on Arbitration Law recommended against England adopting the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration (‘Model Law’ or ‘ML’). Nevertheless, during the course of the reform process that led to the Arbitration Act 1996, the Model Law played a significant role and its impact can clearly be seen in terms of the 1996 Act’s structure, style and content. Nevertheless, English law retains a number of distinctive features and, even in those areas in which the objectives of the 1996 Act broadly mirror those of the Model Law, there are places where the two legislative schemes diverge.
One significant area of difference is the setting aside of awards. On this issue, the Model Law is, at first blush, simplicity itself. The six grounds for setting aside under art 34 ML replicate bases set out in article V of the New York Convention of 1958 (‘NYC’) on which an award rendered in country A may be refused recognition/enforcement in country B. (For obvious reasons, art 34 ML contains no provision corresponding to art V.1.e NYC.)
The Arbitration Act 1996 approaches setting aside in a very different way. First, in keeping with the traditions of English arbitration law, the 1996 Act provides that, albeit in carefully circumscribed and narrow circumstances, an award may be set aside on the basis that, as regards the merits of the dispute, the arbitral tribunal made an error of English law (s 69). The Model Law, by contrast, follows the modern international practice of making no provision for setting aside because the tribunal did not reach the correct result, either on the facts or the law. Secondly, the 1996 Act separates ‘jurisdictional’ defects (s 67) from ‘procedural’ and other defects (s 68). Thirdly, section 68 lists a total of twelve ‘procedural’ grounds on which an award may be set aside. This contrasts with the ML’s two ‘procedural’ grounds (art 34.2.a.ii and iv). Fourthly, whereas article 34 ML provides simply that an award ‘may’ be set aside if one of the grounds is established (giving the supervisory court a degree of flexibility), an award cannot be set aside under section 68(2) unless the procedural defect relied on by the applicant has caused or will cause substantial injustice to the applicant.
The combined effect of these differences is to produce setting-aside regimes which, although largely seeking to implement the same policies, work in rather different ways. This point can be illustrated by the quite common scenario in which, after an award has been rendered, one of the arbitrants (typically, a respondent whose defence was wholly or partly unsuccessful) challenges the award on the basis that it fails to address an issue which was raised in the arbitration. (more…)
By Dr Katie Bales, Lecturer in Law (University of Bristol Law School) and Dr Lucy Mayblin, Assistant Professor in Sociology (Department of Sociology, Warwick University).*
In June 2017, ten immigration detainees launched a judicial review action against the Home Office challenging the payment of ‘slave’ like wages for labour undertaken within immigration detention.
This practice, termed ‘paid work’ by the Government, is remunerated at a rate of £1.00 or £1.25 per hour and includes work as cleaners, cooks, hairdressers, gym orderlies and gardeners – roles that are essential to the running of the immigration removal centres. In 2014 this practice resulted in 44,832 hours’ worth of work.
In this blog, we argue that this work is exploitative and ‘unfree’. In recognition that many detainees wish to work however, we do not call for an end to this practice; rather we highlight the structural conditions that render detainees more likely to accept exploitative conditions of work (including but not restricted to low pay), and argue that, at the very least, detainees should be provided with the national minimum wage. (more…)
By Prof Charlotte Villiers, Professor of Company Law and Corporate Governance (University of Bristol Law School).
The UK currently faces huge economic and political challenges. The Brexit negotiations are clearly of central importance and the outcome will strongly influence our country’s future as a trading nation. Our economic prospects will also be dependent on the strength of our corporate governance system. During the past couple of years, a number of corporate scandals and failures such as the demise of BHS with its huge pension losses and the worker exploitation at Sports Direct as well as continued publicity of ‘fat cat’ executive pay have threatened the reputation of the UKs corporate governance framework. In light of these negative reports a corporate governance inquiry was launched by the House of Commons Committee of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Government published a Green Paper on Corporate Governance Reform in November 2016. Despite a busy schedule with Brexit and a slimmed down Queen’s Speech, the Government continues to pursue its plans for corporate governance reform with its publication of a Government Response to the Green Paper in August 2017.
When Theresa May made her speech launching her campaign to become Prime Minister in July 2016 she announced her intention to ‘have not just consumers represented on company boards, but employees as well.’ She repeated the promise as Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference in the same year. In that same campaign speech in July Theresa May also noted that during the previous eighteen years executive pay had more than trebled and there was ‘an irrational, unhealthy and growing gap between what these companies pay their workers and what they pay their bosses’. She said that she wanted ‘to make shareholder votes on corporate pay not just advisory but binding’ and ‘to see more transparency, including the full disclosure of bonus targets and the publication of “pay multiple” data: that is, the ratio between the CEO’s pay and the average company worker’s pay’ and ‘to simplify the way bonuses are paid so that the bosses’ incentives are better aligned with the long-term interests of the company and its shareholders.’
The British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) held its annual seminar, jointly with the Irish Society of Comparative Law, at University College, Dublin on 5 September 2017. The joint seminar was chaired and organised by Professor Paula Giliker. To celebrate BACL’s first annual seminar in Ireland, the seminar reflected on the relationship between UK and Irish law in the fields of land law, banking regulation, language legislation and consumer law. The seminar was sponsored by publishers, Intersentia.
