The case arose in the context of a dispute between property developer Jaevee Homes (J), based in Norwich, and demolition contractor Steve Fincham (F). The dispute involved demolition works at a former nightclub in Norwich.

The parties had agreed the F would carry out demolition work but disagreed over the terms of that agreement. F argued the contract was formed by an exchange of WhatsApp text messages, whereas J argued it was based on a demolition subcontract.

The Court found that the parties had agreed a contract by the exchange of WhatsApp messages. 

The Court said that the message exchange constituted contract based on the clear agreement on the project’s fee, work scope and payment terms, indicating an intention to create a binding agreement. It rejected J’s argument that it was necessary to agree contract duration or start date for there to be a concluded contract.  It also rejected J’s argument that the contracting party wasn’t identified.

The judge said “In my judgment, the exchange of WhatsApp messages, whilst informal, evidenced and constituted a concluded contract.”

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Ofcom issues guidance on mandatory age checks for pornographic content services

Last week we wrote about Ofcom’s new guidance on protecting children under the Online Safety Act 2023.  Among other things, it requires age assurance requirements for online services allowing pornographic content. From 25 July 2025, affected services must implement ‘highly effective age assurance’ measures to prevent under-18s from accessing such content. The requirements apply to services within scope of the Online Safety Act 2023, with Ofcom sending notification letters to hundreds of services whose primary purpose is hosting pornographic material.

Ofcom launches consultation on extending Online Safety Act user controls

Ofcom is consulting about amendments to the Illegal Content Codes of Practice under the Online Safety Act. The amendments would extend blocking and muting controls and comment disabling features to smaller user-to-user service providers likely to be accessed by children. The consultation ends on 22 July 2025.

Ofcom establishes Online Information Advisory Committee under Online Safety Act 2023

Ofcom has established its Online Information Advisory Committee under section 152 of the Online Safety Act 2023. Five expert members have been appointed to the committee for three-year terms.  The Committee will advise on misinformation and disinformation matters from 1 May 2025. The Committee will support Ofcom’s statutory duty to ensure platforms address illegal content and child-harmful material through appropriate systems, without making decisions on individual content.

CMA publishes guidance on 4Ps under the Digital Markets Competition Regime

The CMA has set out how the CMA plans to implement the so-called 4Ps under the digital markets competition regime. Through pace, predictability, proportionality and process, it says that it will promote business trust and confidence, encourage investment and innovation and deliver positive outcomes for UK businesses and consumers.  It sets out the approach the CMA will take, including how the CMA will pursue deeper collaboration with stakeholders to inform its work; ensure transparency around prioritisation of investigations and interventions and deliver efficient and streamlined processes to ensure stakeholders can meaningfully engage with its work. 

FCA publishes engagement paper for AI live testing

The Financial Conduct Authority has published an engagement paper for its proposal for AI Live Testing. The proposal builds on the FCA’s new five-year strategy which sets out how it aims to support growth through a tech-positive approach. It also aims to support the FCA to be a smarter regulator by embracing data and technology to be more effective and efficient. The FCA has asked for feedback on the engagement paper by 10 June 2025.

ICO issues statement following ramsomware attack on British Library

In October 2023, the British Library reported a ransomware attack to the ICO, which escalated because of the lack of multi-factor authentication on an administrator account.  Following the incident, the British Library published a cyber incident review in March 2024, which provided an overview of the cyber-attack and key lessons learnt to help other organisations that may experience similar incidents.  Having carefully considered this particular case, the Information has Commissioner decided that, due to its current priorities, further investigation would not be the most effective use of its resources. It has provided guidance to the British Library, which has reassured the ICO about its commitment to continue to review and ensure that appropriate security measures are in place to protect people’s data. 

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How do their legal systems address issues of safety in the digital age, privacy rights, and the interests of Indigenous communities? And in what ways do they align with, or diverge from, international standards set by Europe and the United States?

In this episode, host Mauricio Figueroa is joined by three experts to discuss the policy and normative landscape of Australia and New Zealand. Tune in for an interesting conversation and through-provoking conversation about privacy and tech in these two countries. Listen to the episode here: https://bit.ly/3Yquyz8

The Panel:

Mauricio Figueroa is a legal scholar and educator. His area of expertise is Law and Digital Technologies, and has international experience in legal research, teaching, and public policy. He is the host of the SCL podcast “Privacy and Technology Laws Around the World”.

Andelka Philipps is an academic and writer and her research interests are broadly in the areas of Technology Law, Privacy and Data Protection, as well as Medical Law, Intellectual Property, Cyber Security, and Consumer Protection. She has taught in law schools in four countries: the United Kingdom; the Republic of Ireland; New Zealand; and Australia. She is currently an Affiliate with the Bioethics Institute Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium and an Academic Affiliate with the University of Oxford’s Centre for Health, Law and Emerging Technologies (HeLEX). She is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand (JRSNZ), the first to be appointed from the discipline of Law. www.andelkamphillips.com

John Swinson is a former partner of a major international law firm and has 30 years of law firm experience in NY and Australia, with principle focus on technology law and intellectual property law. He is a Professor of Law at The University of Queensland, where he teaches privacy law, cybersecurity law, and Internet & IT law.

Raffaele Ciriello is Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems at the University of Sydney, whose research focuses on compassionate digital innovation and the ethical and societal impacts of emerging technologies. His work critically examines issues of digital responsibility, decentralised governance, and public interest technology, with recent projects spanning AI companions, blockchain infrastructures, and national digital sovereignty.

About the podcast

Join host Mauricio Figueroa and guests on a tour of tech law from across the globe. Previous episodes have focused on the use of ‘robot judges’ in several jurisdictions and developments in India, the USA and Japan. Future episodes will look at South America, Africa and Europe.

Where to listen

• podcasts.scl.org
• Spotify
• Apple
• Amazon

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It says that it is critical that viewers can easily find and discover the diverse range of high-quality content public service broadcasters (PSBs) offer for UK audiences, including trusted and accurate news. The Media Act 2024 introduced a new online availability and prominence regime for how PSB TV players – such as BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4 stream, 5, STV player, S4C Clic – are distributed on connected TV platforms – referred to in the Act as television selection services.

Television selection services designated by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will be required to ensure designated PSB TV players and their content are available, prominent, and easily accessible. BBC iPlayer will be automatically designated under the legislation, but Ofcom will designate the other PSB TV players.

Following a consultation, Ofcom has now set out the principles and methods it intends to follow in preparing its recommendations to the Secretary of State on which television selection services should be designated.

Ofcom will:

• Proceed with its proposed principles and methods for assessing the number of users of services in the UK.
• Consider the number of people using such services and the manner of use;
• Consider a service to be capable of functioning as a regulated service if it can carry the designated PSB players, can present TV players and programmes with different levels of prominence, and can include features to ensure players and programmes are accessible to people with disabilities.

In Summer 2025, it will consult on our recommendations on the designation of television selection services, before submitting its final report to the Secretary of State.

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The guidance includes more than 40 measures for tech firms to meet their duties under the Online Safety Act. These will apply to sites and apps used by UK children in areas such as social media, search and gaming. The steps include preventing minors from encountering the most harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography. Online services must also act to protect children from misogynistic, violent, hateful or abusive material, online bullying and dangerous challenges.

Ofcom’s Codes demand a ‘safety-first’ approach in how tech firms design and operate their services in the UK. The measures include:

• Safer feeds. Personalised recommendations are children’s main pathway to encountering harmful content online. Any provider that operates a recommender system and poses a medium or high risk of harmful content must configure their algorithms to filter out harmful content from children’s feeds.
• Effective age checks. The riskiest services must use highly effective age assurance to identify which users are children. This aims to ensure that they can protect them from harmful material, while preserving adults’ rights to access legal content. That may involve preventing children from accessing the entire site or app, or only some parts or kinds of content. If services have minimum age requirements but are not using strong age checks, they must assume younger children are on their service and ensure they have an age-appropriate experience.
• Fast action. All sites and apps must have processes in place to review, assess and quickly tackle harmful content when they become aware of it.
• More choice and support for children. Sites and apps are required to give children more control over their online experience. This includes allowing them to indicate what content they don’t like, to accept or decline group chat invitations, to block and mute accounts and to disable comments on their own posts. There must be supportive information for children who may have encountered, or have searched for harmful content.
• Easier reporting and complaints. Children must have straightforward ways to report content or complain, and providers should respond with appropriate action. Terms of service must be clear so children can understand them.
• Strong governance. All services must have a named person accountable for children’s safety, and a senior body should annually review the management of risk to children.

Providers of services likely to be accessed by UK children now have until 24 July to finalise and record their assessment of the risk their service poses to children, which Ofcom may request. They should then implement safety measures to mitigate those risks, From 25 July 2025, they should apply the safety measures set out in our Codes to mitigate those risks.

If companies fail to comply with their new duties, Ofcom has the power to impose fines and – in very serious cases – apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from being available in the UK.

In recent weeks, it has been suggested that the UK government is coming under pressure from the US government to reduce the protections in the Online Safety Act as part of a UK-US trade deal. In addition, the government has been keen that regulators prioritise growth. However, the Times reported on 24 April that Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, said that he was not afraid to encourage Ofcom to use their powers to fine technology companies over breaches.

Ofcom has also announced that it is consulting on proposals that seek to expand blocking and muting user accounts and disabling comments measures in the Illegal Content Codes to a wider range of services. This is because it now considers that it would be proportionate for these measures to apply to certain smaller services that are likely to be accessed by children. The consultation ends on 22 July.

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Under the Digital Markets Act, gatekeepers must seek users’ consent for combining their personal data between services. Those users who do not consent must have access to a less personalised but equivalent alternative.

In November 2023, Meta introduced a binary “Consent or Pay” advertising model. Under this model, EU users of Facebook and Instagram had a choice between consenting to the use of their personal data for personalised advertising or paying a monthly subscription for an ad-free service.

The Commission found that this did not comply with the DMA, as it did not give users the required specific choice to opt for a service that uses less of their personal data but is otherwise equivalent to the ‘personalised ads’ service. In addition, Meta’s model did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.

In November 2024, after numerous exchanges with the Commission, Meta introduced another version of the free personalised ads model, offering a new option that Meta says uses less personal data to display advertisements. The Commission is currently assessing this new option and continues its dialogue with Meta, requesting the company to provide evidence of the impact that this new ads model has in practice.

Without prejudice to this ongoing assessment, the Commission’s latest decision finding non-compliance concerns the time period during which end users in the EU were only offered the binary ‘Consent or Pay’ option between March 2024, when the DMA obligations became legally binding, and November 2024, when Meta’s new ads model was introduced.

The fine imposed on Meta also considers the gravity and duration of the non-compliance, while noting that this is one of the first non-compliance decisions adopted under the DMA.

In better news for Meta, the Commission also found that Meta’s online intermediation service Facebook Marketplace should no longer be designated under the DMA. The decision follows a request submitted by Meta on 5 March 2024 to reconsider the designation of Marketplace. Following a careful assessment of Meta’s arguments and because of Meta’s additional enforcement and continued monitoring measures to counteract the business-to-consumer use of Marketplace, the Commission found that Marketplace had less than 10,000 business users in 2024. Meta therefore no longer meets the relevant threshold giving rise to a presumption that Marketplace is an important gateway for business users to reach end users.

According to the German news outlet Tageschau, Joel Kaplan, Chief Global Affairs Officer at Meta has claimed that the European Commission wants to hinder successful US firms. In addition, he said that it would cost Meta a billion dollars to change its business model and in so doing would provide a worse service to its customers.  The Commission’s decision to levy a fine while it is still reviewing Meta’s revised model has also excited some comment.

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The Committee has considered how the responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools might transform the industry. For AI to be a positive force in film and HETV, the government must strengthen the copyright framework by requiring licensing of creative works in all cases where they are used to train AI models. It also says that the government must also protect our screen heritage. Screen archives face barriers to connecting the public with the UK’s filmmaking culture, and the Committee recommends the government explore a statutory deposit scheme for the moving image, minor changes to copyright legislation and the introduction of a national screen heritage strategy to put archives on a stronger footing.

HETV

The Committee says that the success of the UK’s HETV sector relies on continuing to attract inward investment while maintaining a vibrant domestic industry underpinned by strong intellectual property rights. Yet the dynamic between independent producers and subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) platforms is not sustainable, and successful production companies are being damaged by deals that deny them the ability to fully monetise their IP. While the differences in business models mean it may not be appropriate to extend the existing terms of trade as they stand for public service broadcasters to streamers, similar mechanisms must be considered.  As a result, the Committee recommends the government immediately commissions research on how regulatory measures could be applied to SVoD platforms to ensure that independent production companies developing IP in the UK maintain a minimum level of ownership over those rights.

AI

Industry guidelines based around protecting human creativity in the use of generative AI are welcome, but the film and TV sectors are calling out for help to embrace the growth potential of generative AI in a way that is fair, responsible and legally compliant.

The Committee says that at the next Spending Review, the government should fund the British Film Institute’s development of an AI observatory and tech demonstrator hub to enable it to provide effective leadership around the industry’s use of AI.

The government’s AI Sector Champion for the creative industries, once appointed, should work with the industry to develop an AI certification scheme for the ethical use of generative AI in film and HETV. In setting out guidelines for the responsible use of generative AI, the scheme should consider the interests of copyright holders, creative workers and audiences. To ensure compliance and protect the industry from irresponsible use of AI tools, the government should mandate certification for UK-based broadcasters or productions claiming tax incentives and National Lottery funding.

Proposed “opt out” regime and copyright reform

Getting the balance between AI development and copyright wrong will undermine the growth of the UK’s film and HETV sectors, and wider creative industries. The Committee says that proceeding with an ‘opt-out’ regime stands to damage the UK’s reputation among inward investors. The government should abandon its preference for a data mining exception for AI training with rights reservation model, and instead require AI developers to license any copyrighted works before using them to train their AI models. Although the film and HETV industry may be motivated to protect performers’ interests, with the history of collective bargaining agreements equipping it do so, that situation is not common across all the creative industries. The UK’s patchwork of copyright, intellectual property and data protection legislation is failing to protect performers from the nefarious use of generative AI technologies, such as unauthorised voice cloning and deepfakes. The government should legislate to prevent historical contract waivers from being interpreted to allow the use of recorded performances by AI tools.

Within the next six months the government should also conduct a review of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the UK’s GDPR framework to consider whether further legislation is needed to prevent unlicensed use of data for AI purposes.

The Committee has also repeated its predecessor Committee’s calls for the government to implement the Beijing Treaty within the next six months, including extending unwaivable moral rights to audiovisual performances. The Government should introduce targeted copyright exemptions that allow for greater access to archive material without harming copyright holders. Those include adjusting legislation concerning ‘dedicated terminals’, broadening the definition of ‘educational establishments’, amending the ‘2039’ rule, and introducing exemptions for orphan works and commercially unavailable works.

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Courts and Tribunals Judiciary publishes updated AI guidance and introduces Copilot Chat for judges

The Courts and Tribunals Judiciary has published updated guidance to help judicial office holders to use AI. It updates and replaces the guidance document issued in December 2023. It sets out key risks and issues associated with using AI and some suggestions for minimising them. Examples of potential uses are also included. Any use of AI by or on behalf of the judiciary must be consistent with the judiciary’s overarching obligation to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. The guidance also introduces a private AI tool, Microsoft’s “Copilot Chat”, which is now available on judicial office holders’ devices through eJudiciary. This guidance applies to all judicial office holders under the Lady Chief Justice and Senior President of Tribunal’s responsibility, their clerks, judicial assistants, legal advisers/officers and other support staff.

Ofcom investigates misuse of telephone numbers

Ofcom is investigating if communications provider Primo Dialler has misused numbers sub-allocated to it, including to perpetrate scams. Ofcom allocates telephone numbers, usually in large blocks, to telecoms firms. They can then transfer the numbers to individual customers or other businesses. In line with Ofcom’s consumer protection rules and industry guidance, phone companies must not misuse numbers which have been sub-allocated to them. Services must also ensure numbers are being used correctly in accordance with the National Telephone Numbering Plan. Ofcom believes that the numbers sub-allocated to Primo Dialler are potentially being misused, including to facilitate scams. Its investigation will seek to establish whether Primo Dialler is complying with its obligations, specifically neral Conditions B1.8, B1.9(b), B1.9(c), and the Communications Act S128(5). The investigation falls under Ofcom’s enforcement programme, launched last year, looking specifically at phone and text scams. The aim of the programme is to protect customers by supporting best practice in the use of phone numbers and to ensure providers are following Ofcom’s rules. If Ofcom has reasonable grounds to suspect that rules have been broken, it may launch further investigations.

Ofcom takes action regarding “Global Titles” in mobile sector

Mobile operators use Global Titles as routing addresses for the exchange of signalling messages between 2G and 3G mobile networks and to support their provision of mobile services. Ofcom has now announced new rules to ban their leasing. This is because criminals can use Global Titles to intercept and divert calls and messages, and obtain information held by mobile networks. This could, for example, enable them to intercept security codes sent by banks to a customer via SMS message. In extreme cases they can be exploited to track the physical location of individuals anywhere in the world. The ban on entering new leasing arrangements is effective immediately. For leasing that is already in place, the ban will come into force on 22 April 2026. This will give legitimate businesses who currently lease Global Titles from mobile networks time to make alternative arrangements.  Alongside this, Ofcom has published new guidance for mobile operators on their responsibilities to prevent the misuse of their Global Titles.

ICO fines law firm £60,000 following cyber attack

The ICO has fined Merseyside-based DPP Law Ltd (DPP) £60,000, following a cyber attack that led to highly sensitive and confidential personal information being published on the dark web. It found that DPP failed to put appropriate measures in place to ensure the security of personal information held electronically. This failure enabled cyber hackers to gain access to DPP’s network, via an infrequently used administrator account which lacked multi-factor authentication and steal large volumes of data. DPP specialises in law relating to crime, military, family fraud, sexual offences, and actions against the police. The very nature of this work means it is responsible for both highly sensitive and special category data, including legally privileged information. As the information stolen by the attackers revealed private details about identifiable individuals, the ICO highlights that DPP has a responsibility under the law to ensure it is properly protected. In June 2022, DPP suffered a cyber-attack which affected access to the firm’s IT systems for over a week. A third-party consulting firm established that a brute force attempt gained access to an administrator account that was used to access a legacy case management system. This enabled cyber attackers to move laterally across DPP’s network and take over 32GB of data, a fact DPP only became aware of when the National Crime Agency contacted the firm to advise information relating to their clients had been posted on the dark web. DPP did not consider that the loss of access to personal information constituted a personal data breach, so did not report the incident to the ICO until 43 days after they became aware of it.

ICO fines compensation company £90,000 for unlawful marketing calls

The ICO has also fined AFK Letters Co Ltd (AFK) £90,000 for making more than 95,000 unsolicited marketing calls to people registered with the Telephone Preference Service, in a clear breach of electronic marketing laws. AFK writes letters seeking compensation and refunds for its customers. Between January and September 2023, AFK used data collected through its own website and a third-party telephone survey company to make 95,277 marketing calls without being able to demonstrate valid and specific consent from the people contacted. Despite AFK claiming it could not provide evidence of consent because it deleted all customer data after three months, when challenged by the ICO, it was also unable to provide consent records for several calls made within a three-month timeframe. AFK’s third-party data supplier was using consent statements which did not specifically name AFK when asking the public for consent to be called. Additionally, AFK’s own privacy policy only mentioned contact by email, and did not state that people would also receive phone calls. The ICO’s investigation found that AFK failed to comply with Regulation 21 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations.

EU law

European Commission consults on revision of EU Cybersecurity Act

The European Commission is consulting about revising the 2019 EU Cybersecurity Act. The consultation focuses on the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity mandate, the European Cybersecurity Certification Framework, and ICT supply chain security. It aims to simplify cybersecurity rules and streamline reporting obligations. The consultation ends on 20 June 2025.

Irish Data Protection Commission announces inquiry into X

The DPC has announced an inquiry into the processing of personal data comprised in publicly-accessible posts posted on the ‘X’ social media platform by EU/EEA users, for the purposes of training generative AI models, in particular the Grok Large Language Models (LLMs). The inquiry will examine compliance with the GDPR, including the lawfulness and transparency of the processing. Grok is the name of a group of AI models developed by xAI. They are used, among other things, to power a generative AI querying tool/chatbot, which is available on the X platform. Like other modern LLMs, the Grok LLMs have been developed and trained on a wide variety of data. The DPC’s inquiry considers a range of issues concerning the use of a subset of this data which was controlled by X, that is, personal data in publicly accessible posts posted on the X social media platform by EU/EEA users. The purpose of the inquiry is to determine if the personal data was lawfully processed to train the Grok LLMs. The DPC has notified X of its decision to conduct the inquiry under Section 110 of the Irish Data Protection Act 2018.

Coimisiún na Meán publishes Strategy Statement and Work Programme

Coimisiún na Meán has published its first three-year strategy, which sets out its vision for the media landscape in Ireland. The Strategy Statement 2025-2027 is accompanied by a 2025 Work Programme, which lists priority projects across Coimisiún na Meán’s remit of online safety, media sector development and regulation.  The Strategy Statement 2025-2027 is built on six key outcomes: children, democracy, trust, diversity and inclusion and public safety. Among the priority projects outlined in Coimisiún na Meán’s 2025 Work Programme are the development of a pilot programme for children at imminent risk of harm from online content, the development of an Election Integrity Strategy across all media sources, the creation of educational materials relating to online hate, the preparation of a new Broadcasting Services Strategy and a revised Media Plurality Policy, and the continuation of the Sound & Vision and Journalism funding Schemes.

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Closure of investigation into Apple’s user choice obligations

The Commission closed the investigation against Apple regarding the DMA obligation that gives users in the EU the opportunity to easily uninstall any software applications and change default settings on iOS, as well as choosing their default web browser from a choice screen. This follows what the European Commission describes as a constructive dialogue between the Commission and Apple. As a result, Apple changed its browser choice screen, streamlining the user experience of selecting and setting a new default browser on iPhone. Apple also made it easier for users to change default settings for calling, messaging, call filtering, keyboards, password managers, and translation services on iPhones. A new menu now allows users to adjust their default settings in one centralised location, streamlining the customisation process. In addition, users can now uninstall several Apple pre-installed apps, such as Safari, a functionality which was previously unavailable. The Commission will keep monitoring Apple’s measures and continue its regulatory dialogue to ensure full and effective user choice, as required by the DMA.

Commission’s fine regarding Apple’s steering rules

Under the DMA, app developers distributing their apps via Apple’s App Store should be able to inform customers, free of charge, of alternative offers outside the App Store, steer them to those offers and allow them to make purchases.

The Commission has found that Apple fails to comply with this obligation. Due to several restrictions imposed by Apple, app developers cannot fully benefit from the advantages of alternative distribution channels outside the App Store. Similarly, consumers cannot fully benefit from alternative and cheaper offers as Apple prevents app developers from directly informing consumers of such offers. It has failed to demonstrate that these restrictions are objectively necessary and proportionate. The Commission has ordered Apple to remove the technical and commercial restrictions on steering and to refrain from perpetuating the non-compliant conduct in the future, which includes adopting conduct with an equivalent object or effect.

The fine imposed on Apple takes into account the gravity and duration of the non-compliance. Apple has indicated that it will appeal the fine.

Preliminary findings on Apple’s contract terms

Under the DMA, Apple is required to allow for the distribution of apps on its iOS operating system by means other than through the Apple App Store. In practical terms, this means that Apple should allow third party app stores on iOS and apps to be downloaded to the iPhone directly from the web.

Following an investigation, the Commission takes the preliminary view that Apple failed to comply with this obligation in view of the conditions it imposes on app (and app store) developers. Developers wanting to use alternative app distribution channels on iOS are disincentivised from doing so as this requires them to opt for business terms which include a new fee (Apple’s Core Technology Fee). Apple also introduced overly strict eligibility requirements, hampering developers’ ability to distribute their apps through alternative channels. Finally, according to the Commission, Apple makes it overly burdensome and confusing for end users to install apps when using such alternative app distribution channels.

Therefore, the Commission has preliminarily found that Apple has failed to demonstrate that the measures put in place are strictly necessary and proportionate. Apple can now respond.

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The Committee highlights that the UK government has described raising growth as its number one mission and has a target for the UK to achieve the highest rate of sustained growth in the G7. Currently the UK is not on course to meet that target, and the Committee says that a closer relationship with the UK’s largest export market, the EU, is mission critical to helping realise ambitions for growth. 

Among other things, it has made the following recommendations which may be of interest to tech lawyers:

• Any new UK-EU security arrangements should include an explicit recognition that it would be mutually beneficial to act together to guard the critical national infrastructure on which the UK and EU business community depends.

• The UK should work closely with the EU to strengthen coordinated action against non-market economies that undermine the international trading system through unfair practices, including abuse of forced labour, industrial subsidies, state-owned enterprise advantages, and forced technology transfers. Enhancing cooperation on trade defence instruments—such as anti-subsidy and anti-dumping measures—along with alignment of safeguards against use of forced labour in supply chains will help ensure a more effective and consistent response to market distortions that threaten fair competition.

• The Committee recommends that the UK government consults with the business community, unions, workers and consumer groups and identifies sectors of the economy where, over the next ten years, there will be mutual gains from maximising compatible regulation with the EU. This should include an assessment of the flexibilities the UK might need to maintain membership of existing trade deals like CPTPP, and to agree the free trade deals currently under negotiation with Switzerland, the Gulf Cooperation Council and India. Where there is significant mutual gain from compatible regulation with the EU, the government should commit to a regulatory roadmap that maintains compatible regulation with the EU and seek, where beneficial for both parties, mutual recognition of conformity assessments.

• The Committee notes the extensive cooperation between the UK government and the European Commission on the Data (Use and Access) Bill. It recommends that the government continues monitoring the EU’s Data Union Strategy when it is published and assess any relevant implications for UK policy, and take whatever steps are required to ensure a permanent data adequacy agreement is secured.

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