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No said some recent court decisions – read on for further details.The BackgroundShared parental leave is an incentive introduced by the Shared Parental Leave Regulations 2014 to encourage parents to share the leave after baby is born for the purposes of caring for their child.  It replaces the former benefit available to partners of additional paternity leave.  Essentially, mothers choose to end their maternity leave, and at this point the rest of what would be maternity leave is converted to shared parental leave available for both parents to share.  Whilst shared parental leave sounds like the perfect solution the uptake by...

MBM Commercial recently assisted Carbogenics, a University of Edinburgh spinout that turns difficult-to-recycle paper waste including disposable coffee cups into a carbon product that boosts green energy production, in its seed investment round raising nearly £500,000.The investment round was led by Techstart Ventures and joined by Old College Capital, the University’s venture fund, and private investors.Carbogenics takes low-value paper waste and turns it into CreChar®, a proprietary carbon-rich porous material. The company’s first application of its product adds CreChar to the feed material of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants.This significantly increases the plant’s output and can reduce feedstock costs. At the end...

You may have seen the headlines about Jingye, a Chinese conglomerate, recently acquiring long-suffering British Steel with promises of a huge £1.2 billion investment over the next decade. When a takeover occurs, whether with a major conglomeration or a small start-up, standard corporate transactions and due diligence are matters we typically handle. But, we also frequently advise on how to deal with the company’s commercial contracts during a change of control. Generally, there will be either an assignment or a novation.AssignmentThe assignment (or the assignation, if you’re in Scotland) of a contract will not transfer the entire contract to a third...

MBM Commercial was delighted to secure a position in The Times Best Law Firms 2020 list. The report was completed to the highest journalistic standards, recognising the very best law firms across England, Scotland and Wales in 26 legal fields. The report underlines how MBM Commercial has distinguished itself from the competition in a tough marketplace.Each of the 40 firms in the list of Best Law Firms in Scotland has been commended in one or more of 26 categories of law by its peers in other firms. MBM Commercial is commended in Commercial Dispute Resolution. You can read more on MBM’s...

Royal CopyrightRecently, a former actress best known for her role as a lawyer in a hard-hitting law firm made waves by filing her own, personal high-profile lawsuit. Meghan Markle, former Suits actress and current Duchess of Sussex, brought a court action against Associated Newspapers, the parent company to some of the largest tabloids in the United Kingdom, after it published a letter she had written to her father last year.Her claim involves issues of copyright infringement, among other assertions of invasion of privacy. There is no doubt this case is salacious – but does her claim of copyright infringement have merit?Copyright...