Month: June 2016

Implementing Brexit – what happens next?

I hoped I would not have to write this post, but here we go…

Summary

  1. The Brexit referendum does not automatically mean the UK’s departure from the EU, but it will very likely start the process.
  2. Legally, the UK would need to start both an EU exit process (known as ‘Article 50’) and begin its own internal legal arrangements for exit.
  3. This is likely to take some time: at least two years for the formal EU exit and almost certainly several years more in practice for the full process to complete.
  4. Brexit will have a substantial impact on UK laws from employment to business regulation to intellectual property. Some areas, such as contract and corporate law, may be comparatively less affected.
  5. It is very early days yet and there is much still to be established – many businesses will likely adopt a ‘watch and wait’ approach in the short term.

Continue reading Implementing Brexit – what happens next?

Brexit, digital entertainment, tech and why I’m voting Remain

It would be against the UK’s interests to vote to leave the European Union: this is my attempt to explain why I believe this and why I will be voting ‘Remain’ on the Brexit referendum on 23rd June 2016.

For those of you who don’t know me: I’m a digital entertainment and tech lawyer with more than a decade of experience working in the UK, continental Europe and Silicon Valley. I advise video games, eSports, digital broadcast and tech businesses from indies and startups to global leaders on UK and EU legal and business matters. I’d like to think I have a pretty fair understanding of the legal and business realities of the UK’s membership of the EU. So, I’m going to focus on legal and policy issues for Brexit, partly because it’s my specialism, but also because there has been relatively little discussion about it and how it would affect the industries I advise. It is not even close to an exhaustive treatise on the topic, it is just my own thoughts a couple of days before the referendum. If you want to hear what the industries themselves think, here’s some links about what tech thinks about Brexit, and what the games industry thinks about Brexit (1, 2) [spoiler: they are all against Brexit]. Here we go… Continue reading Brexit, digital entertainment, tech and why I’m voting Remain