The UK Government is making major changes to the law on late payment – including fines for businesses which fail to pay suppliers on time, a prohibition on payment periods over 60 days and a new adjudication system for certain payment disputes. These measures are likely to lead to a significantly tougher regulatory environment, particularly for larger businesses which regularly use SME suppliers.

It's now over a year since the Competition and Markets Authority gained a raft of tough new powers to enforce UK consumer law under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA). We look at the key takeaways for consumer-facing businesses from the CMA's early enforcement activity in this space.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rt Hon John Healey MP, will deliver his first Budget on Wednesday 28 October 2026.

Welcome to Frontline by Travers Smith – our series addressing the key issues affecting the defence sector. 

Alongside a number of other consultations launched this summer, HMRC has opened a consultation seeking views on the administration of treaty reliefs from the UK's withholding tax on interest payments.

Split trials have become a hot topic in securities claims brought under the provisions of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. In particular, the question of when the issue of reliance should be heard in section 90A / schedule 10A cases has proved to be rather knotty, with the conclusions of judges appearing to vary from case to case.

Just before Parliament broke for summer recess on 16 July 2026, the Department of Work and Pensions published several papers and consultations, all focused on driving forward the changes affecting defined contribution (DC) pension schemes being introduced by the Pension Schemes Act 2026 (the PSA2026). This briefing summarises the main points for DC trustees and providers.  

Phase 3 of the UK's Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme ("ESOS") might feel uncomfortably fresh in the minds of those responsible for their organisation's compliance with it, but Phase 4 is already in sight. ESOS, which requires large organisations with UK operations to audit their energy usage and consider opportunities for reducing it, operates on a four-year cycle, but delays to Phase 3 reduced that to around two years.

The revisions to the AIM Rules for Companies proposed by the London Stock Exchange, following on from its June 2026 consultation paper (AIM Notice 62), are now in force.

The key changes adopted by the London Stock Exchange ("LSE") and contained in the revised AIM Rules for Companies (the "Revised AIM Rules") (found here), are summarised below:

Latest episode: HMRC's consultation on modernising the distributions framework (Part 2: Demergers and the Loans to Participators rules)

Welcome to the August 2026 edition of Travers Smith's Quarterly Listed Company Update. This issue highlights the latest regulatory developments and guidance relevant to listed companies, as well as key trends and practical points for consideration in the coming months.

Published in IFLR: Finance Partner Ryan Ayrton explores how defence finance is converging with infrastructure investment and what it means for lenders, investors and lawyers.

The message from Dame Anne Glover at Travers Smith's 5th annual Alternative Insights Summit last month was direct: UK pension funds should invest more in early-stage venture and growth stage capital. The figures certainly support that view.

Signs of a marked acceleration in UK sanctions enforcement continue to emerge. In the months since our last update, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation ("OFSI") has now deployed its new settlement scheme across multiple cases, imposed penalties on both UK and non-UK entities (including where proactive approaches to establishing ownership and control linkages to designated persons were not taken), and signalled clearly that its enforcement focus will extend beyond Russia to other sanctions regimes - most notably, Iran.

A chatbot that sounds human, an image generator that produces photorealistic content, a voice cloning tool - they all make it harder to distinguish machine-produced content from human-created work. The risks of sophisticated generative and interactive AI - misinformation, manipulation at scale, impersonation, and fraud - are growing.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry 

Every firm carrying out payment, e-money or banking services in the UK should pay close attention to the consultation paper titled Modernising Payment Services Regulation (the CP), published by His Majesty's Treasury (HMT) on 14 July 2026. While Bastille Day may not have been a deliberate choice of publication date (and we are not cynical enough to suggest that there is a pre-summer holiday race to publish taking place among policymakers), it is suitably appropriate, as this paper may herald a genuine revolution in the regulation of payments in the UK.

The draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill was published in January 2026 and has been controversial from the start. One of its key aims is to cap ground rents in existing long residential leases at £250 a year from an implementation date in late 2028, reducing in 2068 to a peppercorn.  This follows from a previous consultation under the last Conservative government in 2023/24 which weighed up five different options for tackling excessive ground rents.