Opinion

Caroline Gillespie looks at proposals to change the laws of surrogacy. “The current law is out of date, unclear and not fit for purpose”. This was one of the conclusions reached last year in a joint consultation document by the Law Commission of England & Wales and the Scottish Law C

Julie Keir looks at the key issues for employers as we face the spread of the coronavirus. So what do employers need to know and do?

Dr Kasey McCall Smith is a senior lecturer in public international law at Edinburgh University. She first travelled to Guantánamo Bay Naval Station in 2016 and has returned nine times since as part of a project examining the effects of torture on fair trial rights. In 2017 I wrote a piece for

The safekeeping of digital assets by professional custodians remains uncertain territory. Solicitor Benjamin Bestgen provides an overview. With the increasing popularity of digital assets, parties interested in buying, holding and trading them face a common problem: how can assets like cryptocurrenc

Duncan Batchelor, partner at Clyde & Co, examines how environmental activists have advanced their goals through the courts. In November, the eyes of the world will be on Scotland as Glasgow plays host to the 2020 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26). Recent events like the Australian bush fires

Neeraj Thomas, specialist in IP and sports law at CMS, explores how Scotland's IP regulations will apply to the EURO 2020 tournament. This summer’s UEFA EURO 2020 tournament will be held in 12 different cities, with Glasgow’s Hampden Park included as a host venue. It’s another coup

The Court of Appeal finds that restrictive covenants can be enforced despite the potential for indefinite application, write Innes Clark and Iain Young. Where an employee, agent or director of a business is also a shareholder, termination of their position may trigger compulsory share transfer provi

As the consultation for the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill draws to a close, equality practitioners could be forgiven for deciding not to comment on what has become a fraught debate. The government appears to consider there will be no impact on sex-based rights, a curious position when st

Martin Mackay extolls the benefits of working in the Highlands. There’s a common misconception that having a thriving career in law means you have to work in a large city such as London or Edinburgh.

Sarah Alexander discusses the case of Babcock Marine (Clyde) Ltd v HS Barrier Coatings Ltd [2019] CSOH 110 and its impact on what an adjudicator needs to do if they use other people (like a QS) when preparing their decision. In December 2019, Scottish Construction Now published an article by Ki

The climate emergency has risen to the top of the UK’s political agenda in recent years, with green issues set to become one of the biggest political hot potatoes of the decade. Last year, the UK legislated for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This was recommended by the Committee on

In the first of her interview series for Scottish Legal News, legal journalist Margaret Taylor interviews Angela Grahame on her time as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Advocates.  Angela Grahame QC didn’t just break the mould when she became Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, she complete

A mere "one-and-a-half cheers" for the Inner House's five-judge ruling in Pert v McCaffrey, in which there was "no need" to invoke a doctrine of enrichment's subsidiarity in an analysis that was "much less sophisticated than it needed to be", writes Professor MacQueen. One cheerThe decision of a cou

The Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Bill was introduced into the Scottish Parliament on 2 December 2019. Implementing many of the Scottish Law Commission’s recommendations on reforming the law of defamation in Scotland, it seeks to codify the current piecemeal approach to an ar

Legislation is required to tackle high rents in Scotland as efforts to date have failed to make an impact, argues Mike Dailly. Truth be told we haven’t done much to address unfair rents for more than a century in Scotland.