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17 March 2021 / Sarah Moore , Stuart Warmington
Issue: 7925 / Categories: Features , Regulatory , Brexit , Health & safety , EU
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Product liability: into the unknown

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Product liability post-Brexit: Sarah Moore & Stuart Warmington discuss what the post-Brexit ‘new world’ might look like for product regulation in the UK
  • What might the post-Brexit ‘new world’ look like for product regulation in the UK? Can the UK’s domestic regulator alone keep us safe? And what legal challenges will be created?

Irrespective of whether the words in this title trigger Frozen 2 flashbacks, or not, they pose a crucial question in the context of post-Brexit product liability.

On 31 December 2020, we moved out of the Brexit transition period, and into, well, the unknown, with respect to the network of institutions and agencies across the EU that have worked alongside our domestic regulator—the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA)—to protect patients and consumers from unsafe medical products.

The UK entered the European Economic Community, the predecessor to the EU, in 1973. A year prior, Sir Harold Evans at the Sunday Times had broken the story of the Thalidomide tragedy. Evans’s reporting exposed

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

Fieldfisher partner appointed president as LSLA marks milestone year

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

Firm promotes two lawyers to partnership across employment and family

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Foot Anstey—five promotions

Firm promotes five lawyers to partnership across key growth areas

NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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