The Employment Rights Bill has received Royal Assent, becoming the Employment Rights Act 2025. The Act paves the way for significant reforms to UK employment law, with the key changes to be phased in starting from April 2026.

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Here we look ahead to the New Year, which looks set to be another year of change for the real estate sector. Key themes include increasing regulation, planning change and ongoing transparency measures.

His Majesty's Treasury (HMT), published the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Regulations 2025 (the Regulations) on 15 December 2025. While they may well ultimately be dated 2026 (Parliament rises for Christmas on 18 December and the Regulations must be approved by both chambers), this marks a key milestone in the UK's journey on digital assets, which will sit squarely within the regulatory perimeter of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The Regulations will come fully into force on 25 October 2027, meaning that (if one were minded to be critical) it will have taken the best part of seven years for the UK to establish a regulatory framework for cryptoassets, dating back to the consultation and call for evidence of January 2021.      

The FCA has published its final guidance for firms when considering non-financial misconduct as an FCA conduct rule breach and as part of fit and proper assessments:  PS25/23: Tackling non‑financial misconduct in financial services.  This will apply as from 1 September 2026.

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The UK Government is consulting on a proposed change to the inflation indexation measure underpinning two of its cornerstone renewable energy relief schemes: the Renewables Obligation ("RO") and the Feed-in Tariff ("FiT"). The Government ultimately hopes that changing these from the Retail Price Index ("RPI") to the Consumer Prices Index ("CPI") will deliver savings for consumers, at a time when the purported cost of Net Zero has become a heavily politicised issue. However, these changes could have a significant commercial impact on existing projects (and their financing) and also dampen investor confidence in the UK's historically stable renewable energy regulatory regime, at the exact moment that the Government needs to crowd in private capital to deliver its Clean Power by 2030 goal.

The FCA is consulting on improvements to the UK transaction reporting regime under UK MiFIR, inviting feedback from market participants by 20 February 2026. This consultation follows client and industry input highlighting the complexities and inefficiencies in the current reporting framework across various regulations, including UK EMIR and UK SFTR.

The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission concluded negotiations late on 8 December on the Sustainability Omnibus, the highly politicised proposal to amend the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Though the agreed text is not available at the time of writing, the Council and the Parliament issued press releases with key details.

On 4 December 2025, the European Commission published three legislative texts, known collectively as the "Market Integration Package" (MIP). The MIP legislation forms part of the EU's wider Savings and Investments Union initiative, which in turn is a product of the EU's current drive to improve competitiveness and encourage growth.

The government yesterday, 4 December 2025, published an updated draft of the legislation implementing the UK's new carried interest tax regime coming into force from 6 April next year. The key principles of the regime have not been changed – broadly, all carried interest will be taxed as trading income (with a bespoke effective rate of around 34.1% being available for so-called "qualifying carried interest") - but there have been some helpful amendments to the mechanics. 

It's been a long time since a UK Budget and especially its behind-the-scenes mechanics (leaks, briefings and uploads) caused such a row. Looking behind those headlines, there was lots in the Budget of potential value to venture capital, but with a tax raising sting in the tail which we'll come to at the end. 

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In our first COP30 article we highlighted the difficult challenges facing the conference, amidst a backdrop of a general sense of retreat and pessimism in the international climate community. With an energetic presidency and aims of focusing on climate implementation and nature protection, COP30 was seen by many to be pivotal.

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The London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) November 2025 Feedback Statement signals a new phase for AIM, focusing on proportionality, flexibility, cost reduction, and reaffirming AIM’s risk/reward profile, as well as efforts to reposition AIM for the future as a distinct founder- and growth-focused market that can be competitive with private equity. Immediate changes have been confirmed, while more substantial reforms are on the horizon.

Following the publication of the Immigration White Paper and the government’s recent emphasis on reforming both legal and illegal migration, significant changes have been proposed to the process by which individuals can obtain settlement or Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) status in the UK. These proposals aim to reshape long-term settlement options for overseas workers and their families, with a focus on contribution, integration, and compliance with immigration rules.

The ABSF Global Conference, hosted by DealCatalyst at the Royal Lancaster in London on Monday 24 November 2025, again brought together a great mix of structured and specialty finance originators, investors and service providers.