Budget highlights Tax rates on savings income and property income will rise by a further two percentage points from 2027/28 for basic, higher and additional rate taxpayers, taking the rates to 24%, 44% and 49% respectively. Dividend tax rates will be unchanged. A new pensions tax allowance will be introduced for three years to take pensioners with income equal to no more than the new state pension out of tax.…
Quick Hits The DOL’s Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) recently released final rules requiring more financial transparency and disclosures from PBMs to health plans. The rule’s purpose is to give large employers and plan fiduciaries more information to evaluate their contracts with PBMs and affiliated brokers and consultants. The regulations are applicable to plan years beginning on or after July 1, 2027. The final regulations will require both initial disclosures…
Quick Hits The role of HR in disciplinary proceedings is generally to guide the process and provide advice to the managers taking the decisions. In most situations, HR will not participate in taking the final decision. Nevertheless, cases are fact-specific, and someone from HR taking the decision in a disciplinary process does not automatically render a dismissal unfair. Background and Analysis In Shing v University of the Arts London, WYC…
3 November 2026By Elisabeth Beckmann, Justus Meyer and Katharina Allinger[1]Despite the expansion of the Single Euro Payments Area, or SEPA for short, many households continue to rely on costly channels for transferring money across borders in Europe. New survey evidence suggests that public awareness of European payment integration is still surprisingly limited.The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) offers seamless cross-border payments between 41 European countries, but its silent success creates…
On November 23 at 11:00 Moscow Time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club will host the presentation of Valdai Paper No.130 titled “Will Greater Asia Become the New Geopolitical Centre?” If Greater Asia were to become the world’s geopolitical centre, continental Eurasian corridors would gain a significance equal to that of traditional maritime trade routes. The sphere of security could also shift; the most critical diplomatic efforts of the great powers, as…
The University of Manchester has appointed Professor Lee Pugalis as Director of the Masood Entrepreneurship Centre (MEC).MEC is the University’s home for enterprise and entrepreneurship, working with students and graduates from every discipline. Through its strategy, Manchester 2035, the University has committed to supporting entrepreneurship for all and to becoming the university of choice for starting a company or social enterprise. Lee will lead MEC in making that ambition a…
2 November 2026By Chiara Osbat, Christian Höynck, Umberto Maglione and Elisabeth WielandHas the latest energy shock triggered a new wave of food price increases? To find out, we’ve used innovative AI tools to track changes in price setting by supermarkets. So far, the rise in the repricing momentum has been weaker than in 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.When an energy price shock hits the economy, food prices are among…
Women professors are more likely than men to leave their jobs. And when they do, people often assume it’s because of difficulties juggling their professional and personal lives. “Much of the past literature on women academics—tenure-line professors in particular—talks about how one of the major barriers to success that may push them out of the workforce has to do with work–life balance, especially in terms of managing career and family,”…
Time and again, people settle for mediocre loans. It’s a baffling outcome, given that, with just a bit more searching, they could secure better rates and potentially save themselves thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. In the economist’s eye, the simple explanation for this behavior is that many people aren’t willing to put in the time and energy to do that extra bit of research. Seeking rates at different…
Lebron James versus Stephen Curry. Victor Wembanyama versus Luka Doncic. When the biggest names in the National Basketball Association get together to compete in the league’s annual All-Star game, fans from all around the world flock to the chosen city. The popularity of the event opens a brief but tremendous window of opportunity, not just for the NBA but for many other kinds of companies as well. An online travel agency…
When an organization seeks transformational change—whether that’s a new approach to sales, a better product, or a cultural reset—it’s often left to the C-suite to generate new ideas. “The top decides a strategy, and they expect people to go out and execute on it,” says Sanjay Khosla, a senior fellow and adjunct professor of marketing at the Kellogg School. But that’s not always the best approach. “Change doesn’t just come from…
On August 18, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) released its 2025–2026 Year in Review, covering the first year of work under the CSA’s 2025–2028 Business Plan. The review period runs broadly from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2026. During that period, the CSA released 54 publications spanning rule amendments, consultations, blanket orders, guidance, policy initiatives and market updates, and participated in more than 95 stakeholder engagements. The report groups…
On Aug. 18, 2026, the Honourable Marie-Christine Hivon of the Superior Court dismissed the class action brought against Société Telus Communications Inc. (Telus) in Bergeron v. Société Telus Communications Inc. The plaintiff argued that international roaming charges of $0.60 for receiving SMS messages while abroad were disproportionate to the value of the service and constituted consumer exploitation within the meaning of section 8 of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA). She…
Before Harsh Vardhan Goenka joined Kalpa Labs, he was at Rubrik Inc., where he helped build Rubrik Cloud Vault from its early days and rewrote the company's testing infrastructure so that test suites that took hours ran in minutes. He'd always gravitated toward small teams and hard problems — competitive programming took him to the ICPC World Finals, and engineering at scale brought him to Rubrik. But the pull toward…
This commentary was adapted from episode 243 of the Health & Veritas podcast. Subscribe for weekly doses of expert insight on health and the healthcare industry.We are taping this the week before an important election, the midterms of 2026. One of the common themes has been healthcare costs, and one of the most talked-about strategies is to introduce Medicare for All—the idea of covering all Americans through a single payer…
Quick Hits The EEOC voted to rescind its 2012 enforcement guidance related to using arrest and conviction records in employment decisions. The Commission stated that the agency voted 2-to-1 in favor of rescinding on October 28, 2026, and that the rescission is effective immediately. The 2012 guidance had indicated that employers’ use of information on arrest and conviction records could implicate their obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights…
Shareholder disputes can destabilize a company. They often paralyze the decision-making process and impair governance. When shareholder disputes arise, the courts are often asked to intervene. While many parties turn to the oppression remedy under s. 227 of the Business Corporations Act (BCA), which was discussed in our December 2024 article on the oppression remedy, British Columbia courts have another powerful tool at their disposal: the “just and equitable” liquidation and…
Quick Hits President Trump signed Executive Order 14426, “Accelerating Access to Veterans’ Benefits and Employment Opportunities,” on September 8, 2026, to address the transfer of records between DOW and the VA. The executive order sets a series of deadlines for the DOW and the VA to modernize both the technology and the policies governing records sharing. The executive order also directs changes to help veterans move more quickly into employment…
The federal government recently introduced Bill C-41, the Medical Assistance in Dying Safeguards Act. Through Bill C-41, the government proposes to permanently prohibit MAiD for those whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness, allow practitioners, in certain circumstances, to provide MAiD to those who have made advance requests for MAiD and update reporting requirements for practitioners. Background MAiD has been legal since 2016, and access was expanded in…
The most important task of humanity’s functioning is reproducing itself for the sake of development and evolution. But what if the development of people has come into collision with their reproduction, creating the risk of humanity losing the key elements of control over the world’s affairs? The question is pondered by Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club. Perhaps…
This commentary was originally published in Fortune. The views expressed are the author’s own.The past three years, Big Tech and Wall Street have financed the artificial intelligence boom on a simple premise: build the infrastructure now, and a historic wave of corporate productivity will soon pay the tab. Within 48 hours, two of the market’s most closely watched economists, both at firms financing that buildout, challenged the premise, publishing back-to-back…
Major development is already taking shape across the Corridor, from Sister at its northern end to the continued expansion of Citylabs and Manchester Science Park in the south. The Strategy also looks ahead to the transformation of Manchester Piccadilly and Oxford Road stations, alongside better connections with surrounding communities. An independent assessment underpinning the Strategy estimates that the development pipeline could support around 15,800 additional jobs and generate £1.9 billion…
Much of your recent work explores how people in lower-power roles can exert agency and influence in their organizations. How did you arrive at that research interest?My interest came as a byproduct of doing lots of ethnographic studies and being blown away, over and over again, by the wisdom of people I was spending time with. Observing them in their day-to-day work, I saw they had insights they didn’t feel…
Transcript Harlan Krumholz: Welcome to Health & Veritas. I’m Harlan Krumholz.Howard Forman: And I’m Howie Forman. We’re physicians and professors at Yale University, and we’re trying to get closer to the truth about health and healthcare.Harlan Krumholz: Howie, we got a treat today. Christine Won is with us.Howard Forman: Oh, my God. Yep.Harlan Krumholz: She leads our sleep center and she’s going to answer all of your questions about sleep.…
Quick Hits A growing number of states and localities are passing laws to prohibit workplace discrimination based on menopause or perimenopause. Menopause symptoms may be covered under the ADA, depending on the woman’s limitations and essential job functions. Employers often cover menopause treatments in group health plans. Legislative Action and Case Law Legislation (H.R.9671) is pending in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require covered employers to provide reasonable…
Quick Hits Oregon OSHA has finalized a workplace violence prevention rule that expressly covers home health agencies and home hospice programs in addition to hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers. The rule defines “workplace violence” to include threats, harassment, and intimidating behavior not just physical assault. Oregon OSHA’s Discrimination Complaint Rule (OAR 437-001-0295) now includes reporting workplace violence incidents. Covered employers must record incidents on the Health Care Workplace Violence Incident…
As geopolitical uncertainty grows, governments are reassessing their defence priorities and increasing military investment. Last March, the Government of Canada announced that it had met NATO’s spending target on defence of 2 per cent of the GDP, bringing Canadian defence expenses to more than $63 billion for 2025 to 20261. Canada has now committed to NATO to increase its defence spending to 4 per cent of GDP by 2030 and…
India and Russia approach maritime navigation from different circumstances, but share an interest in dependable access to the seas. Cooperation will be most effective when it combines candid discussion of differences with practical measures to protect legitimate commerce, Sanjeev Chowdhry writes. Freedom of navigation is commonly understood as a legal principle that enables ships to move through the world’s seas. Its practical meaning, however, becomes apparent when a tanker cannot…
Quick Hits The NJDOL proposes capping the difference between a posted range’s maximum and minimum at 60 percent of the minimum. The 60 percent cap was the most striking feature of the September 2025 proposed regulations. No other jurisdiction currently limits the size of an employer’s posted pay range beyond requiring a good faith estimate. The NJDOL’s FAQs also remove reference to the cap. New Jersey’s pay transparency statute took…
At the CIRO booth: Dealer regulation and compliance developments Client Focused Reforms guidance The Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) is developing a series of three targeted compliance bulletins to help Dealer Members and Approved Persons apply the Client Focused Reforms (CFRs) in practice. The bulletins build on Joint CSA/CIRO Staff Notice 31-368 Client Focused Reforms: Review of Registrants’ Know Your Client, Know Your Product and Suitability Determination Practices and Additional…
Before Alex Lee joined Magic Patterns (W23), he was running his own company, Iago — one that's still self-running today. But when his former Robinhood colleague Teddy co-founded Magic Patterns, a tool that helps product designers create interactive mockups and prototypes, Alex saw something he couldn't pass up: an AI-first approach to a problem he'd hit himself while building new features at Iago. "It's pretty clear that Figma is going…
Quick Hits In Winn v. Blakeslee Vineyard Estate, Inc., 352 Or App 803 (2026), the Oregon Court of Appeals resolved a previously unsettled question under ORS 652.615 in the employer’s favor. The court affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiff’s class claims under ORCP 32 I’s notice-and-cure mechanism and separately affirmed the dismissal of her individual claims for failure to prosecute. Chief Judge Lagesen dissented, concluding that the plain text of…
How should litigants and trial judges approach the causation analysis in negligence cases? In Hemmings v. Padmore, 2026 SCC 34, released on October 23, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified and restated the law of causation in negligence cases, including complex medical negligence cases. The decision underscores the distinct roles of factual causation and remoteness and the need to address each separately in the causation analysis. BLG is proud…
This loss of an important pressure-balancing mechanism could help explain why blood vessels remain abnormally constricted in preeclampsia, driving dangerous increases in blood pressure.The team also tested HBD2, a naturally occurring immune-system molecule that helps the body fight infection."Although the molecule – known as a peptide - did not restore the faulty calcium sparks, it was still able to relax blood vessels by activating a different part of the same…
Quick Hits New York City recently adopted final amended rules implementing the Fair Chance Act, which limits employers’ criminal history inquiries and consideration of criminal histories in taking adverse actions against applicants or employees being considered for promotion or transfer. The rules requires employers to allow at least five business days for candidates to respond to inquiries about their criminal history before revoking offers or taking adverse actions—up from three…
Quick Hits The U.S. Department of Labor recently updated its tipped-employee guidance to reflect the Fifth Circuit’s 2024 decision in Restaurant Law Center and the reinstatement of the original dual jobs regulation. The FAB withdraws outdated materials and clarifies how employers should distinguish tipped and non-tipped work. Among other things, the bulletin states that percentage-based limits on duties within a tipped occupation no longer reflect Department policy. The Dual Jobs…
When conservation planners want to protect habitat, they generally can’t simply set aside one giant parcel of land. Planners often need to choose many small patches of land while minimizing the cost of buying them, considering how well each spot protects species, and making sure all the pieces are connected so that animals can move freely among them.“You have all these different objectives at the same time,” says Jamie Tucker-Foltz,…
Seyfarth Synopsis: The New York State Department of Labor (“DOL”) has issued guidance addressing several open questions under New York’s Trapped at Work Act (“Act”), which takes effect December 19, 2026. Among other clarifications, the DOL confirms that the Act applies only to new agreements or new or amended terms in existing agreements entered into on or after the effective date, and that genuinely voluntary repayment arrangements may fall outside the Act…
Quick Hits In the event of a discriminatory rejection, employers in Germany are, in principle, liable for lost earnings under Section 15 (1) AGG. The claim ends once the affected person has become established in other employment. The chain of causation is broken once the person has taken up suitable new employment that has become established. Proportionality and the general risks of life limit liability. The Case—Age Discrimination in an…
Graham Page joins Press Gazette to explore how publishers can embrace the creator economy while protecting trust. As the creator economy reshapes how audiences consume content, traditional publishers face new challenges and opportunities. Q5’s Head of Media & Creative Industries, Graham Page, joins Press Gazette and The Guardian’s Leah Green to discuss creator-led journalism, evolving business models and how publishers can innovate while protecting their most valuable asset: trust. Reading…