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Ask a trained lawyer what an “LLM” is, and what first will come to mind may be a “Master of Laws”; ask a tech-savvy teenager what an “LLM” is, and they most probably will answer “large language model”. The former may not be a prerequisite to becoming a qualified lawyer, but knowledge of the latter likely will be crucial for legal practitioners in the coming years. LLMs / Generative AI are on the rise. OpenAI ChatGPT. Microsoft Copilot. Anthropic Claude. Meta AI Llama. Perplexity. Google Gemini. xAI Grok. Quora Poe. DeepSeek. And bespoke legal AI tools, of course, also are on the rise. Harvey. Thomson Reuters CoCounsel. LexisNexis Lexis+ AI. Just to name a few.   It is timely that the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Ciarb) has launched the Ciarb Guideline on the Use of AI in Arbitration (2025) (the “Ciarb AI Guideline”). Issued by the leading arbitration certification organisation in the world, the Ciarb AI Guideline provides welcome guidance to arbitrators, parties, representatives and other arbitration participants alike, while at the same time supporting the arbitration sector’s practical efforts to “… mitigate some of the risk to the integrity of the process, any party’s procedural rights, and the enforceability of any ensuing award or settlement agreement”.

The European Union's securitisation market has struggled to reach its full potential despite the introduction of the Securitisation Regulation (SECR) in 2019. While the market has shown modest growth in recent years, particularly in synthetic securitisations following the introduction of the Simple, Transparent, and Standardised (STS) framework for on-balance-sheet transactions in 2021, it remains significantly smaller than pre-2008 levels and highly concentrated in a few Member States. The Joint Committee (JC) of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) has published on Monday, 31 March 2025, a comprehensive report evaluating the implementation and functioning of the SECR. This report comes at a critical time as the European Commission considers legislative revisions to the securitisation framework as part of its broader push for a Savings and Investment Union (SIU). The report identifies several areas where amendments could enhance clarity, introduce proportionality, and ensure consistent supervision across the Union, all while maintaining robust investor protection.

Welcome to the Corporate Briefing, where we review the latest developments in UK corporate law that you need to know about. In this month’s issue we discuss: Engaging M&A advisers: the importance of agreeing terms for early-stage work Businesses and their advisers may wish to examine their approach to handling engagement terms for early-stage work on M&A deals following the recent decision in H&P Advisory Ltd v Barrick Gold (Holdings) Ltd, which is likely to have significant reverberations for M&A deal making. FCA: Unlawful disclosure of inside information and M&A transactions The FCA has published Primary Market Bulletin No. 54 outlining its concerns around the unlawful disclosure of inside information during the course of M&A transactions. FTSE Russell announces changes to methodology From September 2025 the requirement for securities to trade exclusively in GBP will be removed and to ensure that companies that come to the market through an IPO are included faster in the FTSE UK Index Series, the Fast Entry Thresholds will be lowered. Update report from Parker Review The 2025 update report from the Parker Review on Ethnic Diversity shows significant progress with 95% of FTSE 100 companies having met the target of at least one minority ethnic director on their board and 82% of all FTSE 250 companies. FCA changes its proposed policy on publicising enforcement investigations Following strong feedback, the FCA is not proceeding with its proposals to change the public interest test when deciding whether to announce investigations into regulated firms and listed companies. Equality (Race and Disability) Bill The government has published a consultation seeking views on how to introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for large employers ie. more than 250 employees. Responses are required by 10 June 2025. Coming soon: identity verification at Companies House Identity verification at Companies House, as introduced by the ECCTA, will be available from 8 April and is set to become mandatory this autumn, subject to transitional provisions. In preparation, Companies House has been rolling out new services, rules and guidelines. Court finds that actionable misrepresentations might be made in a draft disclosure letter The judge in this case held that the buyer of a business might have a right to claim for misrepresentation in relation to information provided in a draft disclosure letter.