Jersey: Royal Court considers the legal nature of unit trusts

The Royal Court (Samedi division) gave judgment earlier this month in Barclays v Equity [2014] JRC102D. This judgment, which will be of interest beyond Jersey, contains interesting discussion of the legal nature of unit trusts, drawing on academic commentary from England and case law from Australia.

UK: The Queen's Speech - Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill

The UK Parliament was opened yesterday, for the final session of the current term, by The Queen. The Queen's speech sets out the Government's legislation programme for the final session. The proposed Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Bill will (amongst other things) provide for the establishment of a public register of company beneficial ownership and make changes to the regime for the disqualification of directors. Consultation on these proposals has already taken place: see here.

Europe: ESMA publicly censures two credit rating agencies

The European Securities and Markets Authority - the European Supervisory Authority with direct supervisory responsibility for credit rating agencies in Europe - has, for the first time, issued a public notice censuring two credit agencies (Standard & Poor’s Credit Market Services France SAS and Standard & Poor’s Credit Market Services Europe Limited) for breaches of the Credit Rating Agency Regulation (1060/2009): see here (pdf).

IAASB consults on proposed changes to International Standards on Auditing

The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board has published for consultation proposed changes to the International Standards on Auditing the purpose of which is to clarify the expectations of auditors when auditing financial statement disclosures: see here.

Jersey: States adopt Companies (Amendment No 11) (Jersey) Law 201-

The States of Jersey adopted the Companies (Amendment No 11) (Jersey) Law 201- last month, the purpose of which is to make various changes to the Companies (Jersey) Law 1991: see here or here (pdf). For an overview of the changes, see here (pdf).