UK legislation

The Commercial Court is a sub-division of the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, the major civil court in England and Wales. It is based in the Rolls Building, the world's largest dedicated business dispute resolution centre. The Commercial Court is a specialist subsection of the Queen’s Bench Division alongside courts including the Admiralty Court and Technology and Construction Court, as defined by the Civil Procedure Rules. It deals with complex cases arising out of business disputes, both national and international. There is a particular emphasis on international trade, banking, insurance, and commodities. It is also the principal supervisory court for London arbitration disputes.The Commercial Court was set up in 1895 following demands from the City of London and the business community for a tribunal or court manned by judges with knowledge and experience of commercial disputes which could determine such disputes expeditiously and economically, thereby avoiding tediously long and expensive trials with verdicts given by judges or juries unfamiliar with business practices. The commercial list was originally heard by two judges of the Queen's Bench Division with the appropriate knowledge and experience. As the work of the Court has expanded, eight judges now sit in the Court at any one time.

A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organisations such as cities (with municipal charters) or universities and learned societies. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and letters of appointment, as they have perpetual effect. Typically, a Royal Charter is produced as a high-quality work of calligraphy on vellum. The British monarchy has issued over 980 royal charters.^[1] Of these about 750 remain in existence. The earliest was to the town of Tain in 1066, making it the oldest Royal Burgh in Scotland, followed by the University of Cambridge in 1231. Charters continue to be issued by the British Crown, a recent example being that awarded to The Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors, in 2014. Charters have been used in Europe since medieval times to create cities (that is, localities with recognised legal rights and privileges). The date that such a charter is granted is considered to be when a city is 'founded', regardless of when the locality originally began to be settled (which is often impossible to determine). At one time, a royal charter was the sole means by which an incorporated body could be formed, but other means (such as the registration process for limited companies) are generally used nowadays instead. Among the past and present groups formed by royal charter are the Company of Merchants of the Staple of England (13th Century), the British East India Company (1600), the Hudson's Bay Company, Standard Chartered, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), the British South Africa Company, and some of the former British colonies on the North American mainland, City livery companies, the Bank of England and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

In the United Kingdom, a hybrid instrument (or hybrid bill) is a public bill proposing a law which affects the private interests of a particular person or organisation. It is generally initiated by the government on behalf of non-parliamentary bodies such as local authorities and is treated like a private bill for the beginning of its passage through the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This gives individuals and bodies an opportunity to oppose the bill or to seek its amendment before a select committee in either or in both Houses. The bill is then treated as a public bill. Examples of hybrid instruments have been those to construct the Channel Tunnel, the Dartford Crossing, and Crossrail. The use of hybrid instruments originated as part of the parliamentary procedure of the United Kingdom Parliament, but the procedure is also occasionally used by other parliaments and assemblies set up on similar lines to that of Westminster. Historically, hybrid instruments have often been used by government on behalf of railway companies and transport agencies to obtain authorisation for major projects deemed to be in the national interest, but which would affect a large number of private interests. Statutory instruments can also be hybrids. When opposed, such instruments are referred to the Hybrid Instruments Committee to report to the House on whether a select committee should be appointed to consider the petition or petitions against the instrument.

Magna carta
- http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta

The Statute of Merton or Provisions of Merton (Latin: Provisiones de Merton, or Stat. Merton), sometimes also known as the Ancient Statute of Merton, was a statute passed by the Parliament of England in 1235 during the reign of Henry III. It is considered to be the first English statute, and is printed as the first statute in The Statutes of the Realm. Containing 11 chapters, the terms of the statute were agreed at Merton between Henry^[1] and the barons of England in 1235. It was another instance, along with Magna Carta twenty years previously, of the struggle between the barons and the king to limit the latter's rights. Amongst its provisions, the statute allowed a Lord of the Manor to enclose common land provided that sufficient pasture remained for his tenants, and set out when and how manorial lords could assert rights over waste land, woods, and pastures against their tenants. It quickly became a basis for English common law, developing and clarifying legal concepts of ownership, and was one of the English statutes carried over into the law of the Lordship of Ireland.Having long been disused, it was revived under Duke of Northumberland John Dudley in January 1550 to enable lords to enclose their land at their own discretion, out of keeping with the traditional Tudor anti-enclosure attitude.The Statute also dealt with illegitimacy^[3] — stating that "He is a bastard that is born before the marriage of his parents". It also dealt with women's rights — dowries ("A woman shall recover damages in a writ of dower"), and widows' right to bequeath land ("Widows may bequeath the crop of their lands").

- ????? [ginsburg and halliday] Jennings observed that many pakistani legislators resembled the barons at merton in 1236 pronouncing "nolumnus leges angliae mutare" "we do not want to change the laws of england"

Act of uniformity

The first Act of Supremacy was legislation in 1534 still in force today that granted King Henry VIII of England and subsequent monarchs Royal Supremacy, which means that he was declared the supreme head of the Church of England. It is still the legal authority of theSovereign of the United Kingdom. Royal Supremacy is specifically used to describe the legalsovereignty of the civil laws over the laws of the Church in England.

The Corn Laws were measures enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846, which imposed restrictions and tariffs on imported grain. They were designed to keep grain prices high to favour domestic producers. The laws did indeed raise food prices and became the focus of opposition from urban groups who had far less political power than rural Britain. The Corn Laws imposed steep import duties, making it too expensive to import grain from abroad, even when food supplies were short. The laws were supported by Conservative landowners and opposed by Whig industrialists and workers. TheAnti-Corn Law League was responsible for turning public and elite opinion against the laws, in a large, nationwide middle-class moral crusade with a Utopian vision. The first two years of the Irish famine of 1845–1852 forced a resolution because of the urgent need for new food supplies. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, a Conservative, achieved repeal with the support of the Whigs in Parliament, overcoming the opposition of most of his own party. "Corn" included any grain that requires grinding, especially wheat. The laws were introduced by the Importation Act 1815 (55 Geo. 3 c. 26) and repealed by the Importation Act 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c. 22). The laws are often considered examples of British mercantilism. The economic issue was food prices. The price of grain was central to the price of the most important staple food, bread, and the working man spent much of his wages on bread. The political issue was a dispute between landowners (a long-established class, who were heavily over-represented in Parliament) and the new class of manufacturers and industrial workers (who were under-represented). The former desired to maximise their profits from agriculture by keeping the price at which they could sell their grain high. The latter wished to maximise their profits from manufacture by reducing the wages they paid to their factory workers—the difficulty being that men could not work in the factories if a factory wage was not enough to feed them and their families; hence, in practice, high grain prices kept factory wages high also.

- Economic historians see the repeal of the Corn Laws as a decisive shift toward free trade in Britain, a cause promoted by the then-newly-founded Economist newspaper. 

The Chantry Acts 

-The two acts of Parliament (fn. 4) which gave rise to the chantry surveys of 1546 and 1548 were quite different in emphasis. The Henrician act fulminated against the misappropriation of godly endowments for colleges, chantries, hospitals, free chapels, gilds and stipendiary priests, and enabled the crown to appropriate all their revenues that were being poorly governed. It did not proscribe similar foundations where misappropriation was not suspected, but merely authorised the issue of commissions of investigation. The commissioners were thus not empowered to dissolve, but only to report on, the foundations, and it is their reports which constitute the Henrician 'chantry certificates'. Henry's act lapsed with his death, and by the end of 1547 when the subject was again raised in Parliament the mood had decisively shifted. Endowments concerned with prayers for the dead were now denounced as intrinsically superstitious and were to be dissolved, provided that any by-products beneficial to society at large—such as education, poor relief and chapels of ease—were protected, and the rights of cathedrals and corporations safeguarded. Endowments for obits and lamps were added to the list of proscribed foundations, but hospitals were taken off the list. Those priests who were considered supernumerary to the needs of a parish were to be pensioned off—a provision unnecessary in the Henrician act. As before, commissioners were to report on the foundations.

The Defamation Act 2013 (c 26) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which reformed English defamation law on issues of the right to freedom of expression and the protection of reputation. It also comprised a response to perceptions that the law as it stood was giving rise to libel tourism and other inappropriate claims. The Act changed existing criteria for a successful claim, by requiring claimants to show actual or probable serious harm (which, in the case of for-profit bodies, is restricted to serious financial loss), before suing for defamation in England or Wales, setting limits on geographical relevance, removing the previous presumption in favour of a trial by jury, and curtailing sharply the scope for claims of continuing defamation(in which republication or continued visibility constitutes ongoing renewed defamation).

Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015- http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/26/contents/enacted

The UK Government has recently published its 'Cyber Security Regulation and Incentives Review' in which it confirms that it will be implementing the European Network and Information Security Directive – more colloquially known as the Cyber Security Directive – regardless of Brexit.http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1e59b40f-0939-4f2e-bbaa-4fb84ef6810b
UK Insurance Act 2015
- http://www.strategic-risk-global.com/how-the-uk-insurance-act-2015-will-shake-up-the-industry/1410474.article

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is designed to tackle slavery in the UK and consolidates previous offences relating totrafficking and slavery. The act extends to England and Wales. The bill was introduced to the House of Commons in draft form in October 2013 by James Brokenshire, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Crime and Security. The bill's sponsors in the Home Office were Theresa May and Lord Bates. It received Royal Assent and became law on 26 March 2015.

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) came into force on 6 April 2015, replacing CDM 2007. This publication provides guidance on the legal requirements for CDM 2015 and is available to help anyone with duties under the Regulations. It describes:

• the law that applies to the whole construction process on all construction projects, from concept to completion
• what each dutyholder must or should do to comply with the law to ensure projects are carried out in a way that secures health and safety

CDM 2015 is subject to certain transitional provisions which apply to construction projects that start before the Regulations come into force and continue beyond that date.http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/l153.htm


Public Contracts Regulations 2015 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/contents/made


cheques act 

The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (c 50) is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which regulates contracts by restricting the operation and legality of some contract terms. It extends to nearly all forms of contract and one of its most important functions is limiting the applicability of disclaimers of liability. The terms extend to both actual contract terms and notices that are seen to constitute a contractual obligation. The Act renders terms excluding or limiting liability ineffective or subject to reasonableness, depending on the nature of the obligation purported to be excluded and whether the party purporting to exclude or limit business liability, acting against a consumer. It is normally used in conjunction with the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (Statutory Instrument1999 No. 2083), as well as the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982. The Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission have recommended that the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 and the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 should be replaced by a more unified and coherent regime.

payment services regulations  
real estate
- A new draft bill will be introduced to Parliament today (1 November 2017) to ban letting fees. The draft Tenant Fees Bill will set out the government’s approach to banning letting fees for tenants, helping millions of renters by bringing an end to costly upfront payments. Evidence shows the level of fees charged are often not clearly or consistently explained, leaving many tenants unaware of the true costs of renting a property. This latest action will help improve transparency, affordability and competition in the private rental market. It will also prevent agents from double charging both tenants and landlords for the same services. Today the government has also launched a consultation on making membership of client money protection schemes mandatory for letting and managing agents that handle client money. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-action-to-end-letting-agent-fees

public order
- The Riot Act 1714 (1 Geo.1 St.2 c.5) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that authorized local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action. The act, whose long title was "An Act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters", came into force on 1 August 1715. It was repealed in England and Wales by section 10(2) of, and Part III of Schedule 3 to, the Criminal Law Act 1967. Acts similar to the Riot Act passed into the law of countries such as Australia, Canada, and the United States that were at the time colonies of Great Britain, and in several of them such provisions, in their original or modified forms, remain as law today. The phrase "read the Riot Act" has passed into common usage for a stern reprimand or warning of consequences.
- The Public Order Act 1986 (c 64) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It creates a number of public order offences. They replace similar common law offencesand parts of the Public Order Act 1936. It implements recommendations of the Law Commission. Before the introduction of the Public Order Act 1986, policing public order was based on various relevant common law offences, and the Public Order Act 1936. Several factors influenced the introduction of the Public Order Act 1986. Significant public disorder, such as the Southall riot in 1979, the Brixton riot that extended to other cities in 1981, and the national miner's strike and associated disorder between 1984 to 1985 – in particular the Battle of Orgreave in June 1984 – and the Battle of the Beanfield in June 1985. Furthermore, the 1983 Law Commission report, Criminal Law: Offences Relating to Public Order recommended updating the law.

immigration

- The Aliens Act 1793 (33 Geo 3 c 4) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain regulating immigration into the country. Introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Grenville on 19 December 1792, the act was given high priority during the parliamentary session.^[1] Despite concerns of Opposition party, the Act became law on 8 January 1793. The Act itself was only temporary, and was renewed and revised by a series of subsequent changes. At end of the war period, the act was revoked.French Emigration (1789-1815) refers to the mass movement of citizens from France to neighbouring countries in reaction to the bloodshed and upheaval caused by the French Revolution and Napoleonic rule. To escape political tensions and save their lives, a number of individuals emigrated from France and settled in the neighbouring countries (chiefly Great Britain, Germany, Austria, and Prussia), however quite a few also went to the United States. The number of refugees fleeing into Britain reached its climax in autumn of 1792. In September alone, a total of nearly 4000 refugees landed in Britain.^[1] The country appealed to people because it had a channel separating them from the revolutionaries and because it was known for being tolerant.^[2] Emigrants primarily settled in London and Soho, the latter had grown into a thriving French cultural district, complete with French hotels and cuisine, although it had long been a haven for French exiles, housing many thousands of Frenchmen from the last mass migration, of Huguenots, which occurred in reaction to the 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes,^[2] and the ensuing Foreign Protestants Naturalization Act 1708.The uncontrolled influx of foreigners created significant anxiety in government circles. Particularly, the British Government feared the presence of spies and Jacobin agents disguised as refugees in the country. 

- The Aliens Act 1905 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.^[2] The Act introduced immigration controls and registration for the first time, and gave the Home Secretary overall responsibility for matters concerning immigration and nationality.While the Act was ostensibly designed to prevent paupers or criminals from entering the country and set up a mechanism to deport those who slipped through, one of its main objectives was to control Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe.^[3] Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe significantly increased after 1880^[4] which served as some basis for the creation of the Aliens Act 1905. Although it remained in force, the 1905 Act was effectively subsumed by the Aliens Restriction Act 1914, which introduced far more restrictive provisions. It was eventually repealed by the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act 1919.
- The Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968 (c. 9) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act amended the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, further reducing rights of citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations countries (as of 2010, comprising approximately 1.9 billion people, including New Zealand, Australia, The Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Pakistan (which included East Pakistan province), some Africannations including Nigeria and many Caribbean islands) to migrate to the UK. The Act barred the future right of entry previously enjoyed by Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, to those born there or who had at least one parent or grandparent born there. It was introduced amid concerns that up to 200,000 Kenyan Asians fleeing that country's "Africanization" policy, would take up their right to reside in the UK. The 1968 Act was superseded by the Immigration Act 1971.
- The Immigration Act 1971 (c 77) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdomconcerning immigration. The Act, as with the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962, and that of 1968, restricts immigration, especially primary immigration into the UK. It introduced the concept of patriality or right of abode. It was also partly passed to legally clarify the rights of Commonwealth citizens within the United Kingdom in preparation for future membership of the European Communities which the UK became a member state on 1 January 1973 which gave new automatic rights to EC member state citizens. It is connected in relation to deportation notices, at sections 11 and 23 of the Terrorism Act 2000.Harold Wilson's Labour government proposed the commonwealth Immigrants act of 1968 in response to the threat of 200,000 Asian immigrants leaving Kenya due to its attempts at 'Africanisation' in 1967.^{[citation needed]} The act was passed in just three days, partly due to the support and fierce drive of then home secretary James Callaghan. This broke from the non-discriminatory immigration policy that had preceded it. The government saw a need to appease Canada, New Zealand and Australia over the future negative impact on them when Britain would join the European Economic Community that would be hardest on people who had immigrated from Britain in the expectation of continued close ties.One result of the Act was to stop the permanent migration of workers from the Commonwealth of Nations. It further elaborated the definition of "patrial" migrants, first introduced in the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, as persons born in the United Kingdom and persons who had resided there for the previous five years or longer.


EU
- The European Communities Act 1972 (c. 68) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which legislated for the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities (EC) (which was the collective term for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community (EEC) (also known at the time as the "Common Market") and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC)) and also legislated for the incorporation of European Union law (then Community law) into the domestic law of the United Kingdom. All three of these institutions would later form part of what is now known as the European Union. The act has been amended several times to give legal effect to the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty which formed the European Union, and most recently the Treaty of Lisbon. It may or may not be repealed or amended following the decision in the EU Referendum to "Leave the European Union" on Thursday 23 June 2016. In an interview with BBC News on 2 October 2016, Theresa May promised that the Government would introduce a bill to repeal the Act.