The UK hosts a significant number of data centres, with concentrations in several key areas including London and the Home Counties (particularly Slough, which is home to one of Europe's largest data centre clusters), the London Docklands, Hayes, Uxbridge and Park Royal.

The EU AI Act is one of the most significant pieces of technology regulation to emerge in recent years and it is still taking shape. In May 2026 alone, the EU provisionally agreed material changes through the Digital Omnibus on AI (see our previous briefing on the "AI Omnibus"), postponing key compliance deadlines, and published draft guidance on high-risk system classification and transparency requirements.

Many businesses make loans as part of their employee incentive arrangements typically to fund the purchase of shares in the company by employees or the trustees of an employee benefit trust.  These loans are often on relatively "soft" terms which can give rise to corresponding benefit in kind tax charges where the recipient is an employee or director.  If the company making the loan is a "close" company for tax purposes and the recipient is a "participator" (which includes shareholders and those entitled to acquire shares) an additional tax charge can arise for the company.  Under proposals set out in a current government consultation, on top of these considerations, close companies will have to comply with additional reporting obligations in respect of transactions with participators to avoid penalties.

At the beginning of this year, the Government published draft legislation to reform leasehold and to mandate the use of the commonhold tenure for new flats, as explored in an earlier briefing.  It also asked the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee to interrogate its proposals in order to suggest some improvements. The Committee published its report on 27 May 2026.  This proposes some changes to the leasehold reform provisions in the draft Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Bill, and also puts forward several recommendations about reinvigorating commonhold, which are discussed below:

Whatever the strategy, the judgement and experience of your investment team is the key to success. And, in launching the sovereign AI fund – a £500m venture capital fund – the UK government seems to have got that right.

This article was first published in the May 2026 issue of Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law.

By James Bell and Sarah Lauder

The Upper Tribunal ("UT") dismisses appeals of two companies against the decision of the First-tier tribunal ("FTT") to uphold HMRC's denial of Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) tax relief to investor shareholders.