Smaller M&A deals now in scope of UK merger control rules
The thresholds for UK merger control have changed, putting some smaller M&A deals beyond the reach of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) while also giving it greater scope to...
Inheritance tax changes leave sour taste for family firms
British farmers dominated the initial debate over the Budget’s change to inheritance tax (IHT), but it is all types of family businesses that are impacted with profound implications on succession...
Women in Scotland’s Legal World: 25 Names to Watch in 2025
Women have prospered and succeeded in Scotland’s legal world. Their levels of attainment within the legal profession easily outstrip professional achievement in most other areas of commerce and business. According...
Legal Review 2024: Inheritance tax makeover in 2025
The Chancellor’s Autumn Budget calls time on three decades of a relatively benign inheritance tax treatment of wealth comprised in trading business. Since 1996, 100 per cent business property relief...
Legal Review 2024: Employment reform and the law of unintended consequences
Recent government policy announcements, from Rachel Reeves’s maiden Budget speech as the UK’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer to Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s introduction of legislation for a...
Legal Review 2024: Highlights of a Transformative Year
This past year has been transformative for Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie LLP, particularly since we welcomed Irwin Mitchell Scotland into our offices following our successful combination earlier this year. Thirteen...
Legal Review 2024: Planning is core to economic growth
Last month, CMS in partnership with Scotland’s Fraser of Allander Institute launched the insightful Skills for Today and Tomorrow report that explores the current skills landscape as well as key...
Legal Review 2024: UK Budget delivers generational change in taxes for savers
In the hunt for new sources of tax revenue, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has sent wealth managers, financial planning firms and client advisers back to the drawing board to find...
Legal Review 2024: Facing the challenge of IHT changes
For decades, agricultural property relief (APR) and business property relief (BPR) have enabled farmers and other businessowners to pass their business to the next generation without any inheritance tax (IHT). ...
Legal Review 2024: Scotland’s legal firms continue to make indelible mark on the wider world
The lawyers and their legal associates who represent the interests of companies, firms and individuals in Scotland are among the best in the world. We should all be grateful for...