Many events, including music, theatre, conferences and exhibitions have been cancelled or postponed in the wake of COVID-19 and more will follow. Richard Liddell QC of 4 New Square and Sarah McNally, Partner at Herbert Smith Freehills address some of the issues that policyholders and insurers are likely to be grappling with. Although their focus is on sporting events, the same or similar principles are likely to apply for any cancelled or postponed event, so this article should be of interest across the board.

A new term has entered the employment lexicon: furloughing. What does it mean and how does it relate to the longer established concept of laying-off? Are employers better placed to take advantage of the government’s scheme for paying furloughed employees or to consider laying off their staff or making them redundant?

Banking & Finance analysis: Guarantees executed, but unenforceable, as deeds may take effect as simple contracts where supported by sufficient consideration. Written by Ben Archer, barrister, at 4 New Square Chambers. Click here to read the article on LexisNexis.

Society of Construction Law Conference in Leeds: 6/3/2020
Keynote speech by Sir Ruper Jackson

In the context testamentary succession, it is well-established under the rules of private international law that the court can apply domestic law to a foreign will of a testator who was domiciled in this jurisdiction where the court is concerned with issues of capacity, formal validity, material validity or interpretation. However, no authority one way or the other has ever determined whether the law of rectification should be applied in the same way.

The recent decision In the Estate of Patrick Joseph Brennan, sub nom Kelly v. Brennan [2020] EWHC 245 (Ch) is significant in that the court was called upon to decide that question for the first time. By deciding that the will should be rectified even though it was made in Ireland, the court therefore clarified a hitherto unexplored aspect of private international law. Moreover, in deciding that permission should be given for the claim for rectification to be brought some 2 years and 11 months after the expiry of the six month discretionary time limit, the court confirmed that the law is more flexible when dealing with claims for rectification as opposed to claims for reasonable financial provision, and that a combination of a strong claim and the fact that the estate had not been distributed is more often than not likely to outweigh other considerations.