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Professor Peter Watson, Solicitor Advocate of PBW Law and President of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences (BAFS), delivered a thought-provoking keynote at the prestigious King’s Forensics conference, co-hosted by BAFS, Inside Justice, and the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The event brought together experts from diverse disciplines to explore the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in reshaping the justice system.

As President of BAFS, Professor Watson opened the conference by underscoring the immense responsibility and opportunity that AI presents to the legal field. His address highlighted the critical intersection between technology and justice, acknowledging that AI holds the potential to address long-standing challenges within the system, from alleviating court backlogs to advancing forensic science.

Professor Watson said: “The promise of AI in the justice system is vast. It offers powerful tools to tackle persistent issues, such as overburdened courts and complex forensic analyses. AI has the capacity to reduce delays, enhance efficiency, and improve the analysis of evidence—ultimately fostering fairer and more consistent outcomes for all who come before the law.”

However, he also addressed the ethical concerns surrounding AI’s integration into the legal system, emphasising the need for caution, transparency, and accountability. Drawing from history, he cautioned against a Luddite-like resistance to progress, urging attendees to embrace AI’s potential while ensuring its deployment upholds fairness, justice, and human dignity.

Professor Watson drew a compelling parallel to Plato’s philosophical views on justice, emphasising balance and harmony. He posited that AI could contribute to a more just and equitable legal system, but only if it supported the integrity of the system, rather than undermining it.

Professor Watson said: “Plato’s vision of justice was one of harmony, not disruption. We must ensure that AI enhances the balance within our justice system, rather than creating new imbalances or eroding its fundamental principles.”

Throughout his speech, Professor Watson explored AI’s diverse applications within the justice system, from judiciary decision-making to policing, legal practice, and forensic science. While emphasising AI’s positive potential to improve fairness and efficiency, he stressed the importance of ethical oversight to mitigate risks such as bias and data breaches.

Professor Watson said: “AI has the power to revolutionise legal work—from research to case preparation—but it’s crucial that legal professionals remain vigilant,” he explained. “Likewise, AI-driven policing and forensic science must be transparent and rigorously validated to ensure that justice is not only done but is seen to be done.”

Professor Watson also addressed AI’s potential in law enforcement, highlighting how predictive analytics could reduce crime and enhance public safety. However, he reiterated that these advancements must not erode public trust, which depends on transparency and accountability.

The conference served as a vital forum for collaboration, with experts and stakeholders engaging in critical discussions about how AI can be leveraged to strengthen the justice system for future generations. Speakers included Lord Clement Jones CBE, Co-Chair of House of Lords Select Committee on AI, Tom Conti, Actor and Trustee of Inside Justice, Tracy Alexander FKC, Director of Forensic Services at City of London Police, and more.

In closing, Professor Watson reaffirmed the firm’s commitment to the rule of law, emphasising the importance of ensuring that technological advancements serve to make the justice system more accessible, transparent, and just.

Professor Watson added: “We must ensure that AI—and technology in general—is used to make the justice system more efficient, accessible, and fair. Together, we can build a justice system that is worthy of public trust and confidence.”

 

See more articles from our member firm in Scotland, PBW Law.

PBW Law Partner, Pamela Rodgers, delivered a seminar to police officers and representative bodies at the Scottish Police Conference last week in Turnberry, Scotland. The seminar discussed changes to the law in Scotland which require police officers to be re-vetted throughout their entire career.

The new law marks a significant departure from current vetting procedures in Scotland whereby police officers are vetted upon entry to the police force, re-entry, and when seeking higher levels of clearance for specialised roles or ranks. For the first time, vetting of law enforcement will be placed on a statutory footing rather than left to policing organisations to self-administer.

The Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2024 introduces continuous vetting for police officers in a surprise addition to a piece of legislation which was initially intended to introduce only a duty of candour for officers. The surprise introduction of statutory re-vetting has sparked concern for serving officers and their representative bodies.  The new law is not yet in force with changes pending whilst Scottish Ministers produce Regulations to define the parameters of the new statutory vetting provisions.  A vetting manual is also required, but there is widespread concern about the implications of the new legislation for those already serving with Police Scotland.

The introduction of statutory police vetting in the UK follows the murder of Sarah Everard in England by a police officer.  Ms Everard was abducted, raped and murdered in 2021 by Wayne Couzens, then a serving Metropolitan Police officer, in circumstances whereby he used his warrant card to trick his victim under the guise of a fake arrest for breaching coronavirus guidelines. Couzens handcuffed Ms Everard, abducted her, and later burned her body before being arrested. Couzens is now serving a whole-life term of imprisonment for the murder of Sarah Everard but his actions sparked outrage in the UK with the Metropolitan Police accused of failing to investigate previous incidents of indecent exposure and predatory behaviour.

Following this and several other incidents in England, re-vetting of police officers is to be introduced in England and Wales, with similar provisions now being introduced in Scotland. However, Scotland has become the first jurisdiction in the UK to bring into force legislation.

The implications for serving officers are far-reaching. Those already in service for many years may now be at risk of dismissal if they cannot meet vetting requirements. Whilst this may be a positive development for those officers who display predatory behaviour and should not be in service, there are many others whose employment is now at risk by mere association with a relative with a criminal conviction. There are questions over whether re-vetting can be made a requirement of continued employment for officers who began their employment with no such conditions. Furthermore, the legislation appears to permit Police Scotland to re-vet officers when a need arises, with this vague and unqualified definition permitting seemingly endless vetting if an officer falls out of favour.

Pamela Rodgers discussed the current Regulations in force in Scotland which address matters of unsatisfactory performance or misconduct by police officers, and the prevalence of misuse of those Regulations to dispose of officers unlawfully. She also discussed the potential for abuse of the new vetting provision once in force, and the risk that Police Scotland abuses the vetting provisions to subvert procedural safeguards applicable to officers.

See more articles from our member firm in Scotland, PBW Law.

As economic pressures continue to mount, 2025 is projected to bring a significant increase in insolvencies and bankruptcies across Romania. In a recent analysis featured by leading Romanian business news channels, legal experts from Buju Stanciu & Associates provided an in-depth outlook on this trend and what businesses should anticipate.

With inflationary pressures, tightening financial conditions, and legislative changes, companies across various industries are facing growing challenges in maintaining financial stability. According to the firm’s legal specialists, many businesses will need to take proactive steps to restructure debts, negotiate with creditors, or consider formal insolvency proceedings.

“Insolvency does not have to mean the end of a business. With proper legal strategies, companies can restructure and recover,” the experts emphasized in the report.

Buju Stanciu & Associates assists clients through all stages of insolvency, from pre-emptive legal structuring to crisis management and recovery planning. Their expertise ensures that businesses navigate financial difficulties with the best possible legal solutions.

Access the full article in Business Review: 2025 will increase the number of insolvencies and bankruptcies

See more articles from our member firm in Romania, Buju Stanaciu & Asociatii.

Act No. 201/2022 Coll. on Construction, which was supposed to replace the old Act No. 50/1976 Coll. on Spatial Planning and Building Regulations in the Field of Construction, has not yet even entered into force and is already being repealed by the National Council of the Slovak Republic. The submitter of the proposal, the Ministry of Transport of the Slovak Republic (“Ministry”), states that it did so because the Act No. 201/2022 Coll. on Construction was in a state of institutional unpreparedness and was to be unenforceable by the effective date of April 1, 2025.

The Government’s draft the new Building Act has passed the parliament in an abbreviated legislative procedure and has already been signed by the president. The proclaimed goal of this new Building Act is to simplify and accelerate construction, as well as reduce the administrative burden in permitting procedures.

The biggest innovations include the abolition of the previous multi-stage decision-making (i.e. first a planning permit and then a building permit) and the introduction of single integrated procedure – a construction plan procedure, by which the building authority expresses its consent to the proposed construction activity. At the same time, the list of participants in the procedure is to be narrowed and, according to the Ministry, only persons and entities who objectively may be directly affected by the resulting decision in their rights, such as owners of neighbouring land, should enter the procedure.

On the other hand, an interesting new feature for public authorities in the position of builders of buildings intended for public arose. Such builders will be the obliged to set aside 0.5% of the estimated value of the building (max. EUR 500,000) and use it to procure and place a work of art in such a building. It remains to be seen according to what criteria and in what manner the selection of works of art for these public buildings will take place.

In addition to the above, unlike the originally proposed changes (Act No. 201/2022 Coll. on Construction), when the Regional Offices for Spatial Planning and Construction were to decide, it leaves the agenda of the constructions office to the municipality.

Only practice will show whether the proclaimed benefits will actually be to the benefit or detriment of residents. That is, whether they will speed up and simplify their construction activities aimed at building a home or make it more difficult or even impossible for them to apply objections to buildings encroaching on their living space, the quality of which may be irreversibly affected.

See more articles from our Slovakia member firm Ružička and Partners.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority has introduced the 2023 Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 to combat manipulative online business practices. These guidelines address 13 categories of unfair trade practices, marking a crucial step in safeguarding consumer autonomy and ensuring transparency in the digital marketplace.

Read the full article on Dark Pattern Guidelines.

See more articles from our member firm in India, Universal Legal.

Government Prohibits Operation of BETs that have not submitted authorization requests.

Ordinance SPA/MF 1,475/2024, in effect since September 17, 2024, has shortened the operating period for active BETs that have not yet requested authorization from SPA. Starting October 1, 2024, only those BETs that are currently operating and have submitted their authorization request to the SPA by the publication date of the Ordinance will be allowed to operate during the adjustment period, which ends on December 31, 2024.

Conversely, BETs that have not submitted an authorization request by that date shall be prohibited from operating in Brazil starting October 1, 2024. Bettors can withdraw their deposited amounts until October 10, 2024, after which betting sites and applications without a filed authorization request in SPA will be blocked.

For more information on this prepared by Partner Ricardo Barretto Ferreira and Attorney Ingrid Santos from the TMT team, you can access the full article:

Government prohibits operation of BETs that have not submitted authorization requests

See more articles from our Brazilian member firm Azevedo Sette.

Overview. Since the beginning of 2024, the Austrian commercial register courts have been required to check whether there is an obstacle to registration due to a criminal conviction (“disqualification”) for the person registered as a representative body by means of an automated query from the criminal register (and, if necessary, from the European register interconnection system “BRIS”) when registering managing directors and board members. Disqualified persons may not become or remain managing directors or board members for a period of three years. This amendment is based on an EU directive, which was transposed into Austrian law by the Company Law Digitalization Act 2023 (GesDigG 2023).

Bodies affected by disqualification. The new regulation applies to managing directors of an Austrian Limited Company (GmbH) and Flexible Company (FlexCo) (Section 15 para. 1a and 1b GmbHG and Section 1 para. 2 FlexKapGG) and to members of the management board of a stock corporation (AG) (Section 75 para. 2a, 2b and 2c AktG) and cooperative (Section 15 para. 2a, 2b and 2c GenG).

Disqualification only if the materiality threshold is exceeded. “Disqualified” as managing director and board member is anyone who has been sentenced to at least six months’ (conditional or unconditional) imprisonment for the criminal offenses listed in the law. The regulations apply to convictions that become final after December 31, 2023. Under certain circumstances (if there are no special or general preventive reasons to the contrary), the legal consequence of disqualification can be conditionally reviewed by the criminal court. In addition to convictions by a domestic court for one of the aforementioned offenses, disqualification is also triggered by a conviction for a comparable criminal offense by a foreign court.

Classic economic offenses relevant. The offenses that can lead to disqualification include classic white-collar crimes in accordance with Section 15 (1a) GmbHG and Section 75 (2a) AktG, whereby a factual connection to the managing director or board member’s activities is not required. The relevant offences include fraud (Section 146 of the Austrian Criminal Code), breach of trust (Section 153 of the Austrian Criminal Code), fraudulent fraud (Section 156 of the Austrian Criminal Code), organized illegal employment (Section 153e of the Austrian Criminal Code), grossly negligent impairment of creditor interests (Section 159 of the Austrian Criminal Code), misuse of subsidies (Section 153b of the Austrian Criminal Code), money laundering (Section 165 of the Austrian Criminal Code), agreements restricting competition in public procurement procedures (Section 168b of the Austrian Criminal Code) or tax fraud (Section 39 of the Austrian Fiscal Tax Act).

Effect and time limit of the disqualification. The legal consequence of disqualification is ex lege. From the time the conviction becomes legally binding, there is a material obstacle to the appointment as managing director or board member or the continued exercise of this function. Disqualified persons may therefore not become or remain managing directors or board members. The legal consequence of disqualification is limited in time and ends three years after the conviction becomes final. If the conviction became final more than three years ago, the disqualification expires and the convicted person may be reappointed as a representative body.

Practical tip: Proof of non-disqualification for new appointments. Whether a disqualification exists must generally be checked by the commercial register court (as already explained above). In practice, however, this requirement is not always applied uniformly. In particular, an application for entry in the commercial register of appointed board members with a foreign connection can lead to delays. In the case of new appointments of board members, it has therefore proven useful to submit a corresponding affidavit from the appointed managing director or board member to the commercial register court. In such a declaration, the representative body confirms that he/she has not been sentenced by a domestic court or a foreign court to more than six months’ imprisonment for the relevant offenses.

Notification in the event of conviction. In the event of any conviction by a domestic court that triggers a disqualification, the court must notify the commercial register court responsible for the company of the conviction of the member of the governing body concerned by means of an automated process. In this case, the commercial register court must request the company to immediately remove the disqualified person as a representative body and – if necessary (e.g. because the disqualified person is also the only managing director) – to appoint another representative. If the company does not comply with this request in due time, the disqualified person must be deleted from the company register without delay in order to protect legal transactions and to clean up the company register.

Resignation / dismissal for good cause. An already appointed managing director or board member who is disqualified must resign immediately. If, contrary to this obligation, the representative body does not resign of its own accord, its disqualification can also be used as good cause for dismissal.

Conclusion. The amendment will result in a significant change in practice for existing and future managing directors and board members. The restriction is in the public interest and the associated protection of business transactions is to be welcomed. However, managing directors and board members who are named as defendants in criminal proceedings now face – in addition to personal criminal liability – mandatory dismissal as a representative body in the event of a correspondingly qualified conviction.

See more articles from our Austrian member firm Brauneis Rechtsanwalte.

Since October 2014, building registers have had to be kept for new buildings, conversions and extensions to buildings with more than 2 main storeys in Vienna. With the latest amendment to the Vienna Building Code, this obligation has now also been extended to old buildings.

This latest amendment to the Vienna Building Code (13 December 2023) stipulated that the city council must set up the so-called “building database” by 1 July 2024 at the latest (Section 128 c).

Data and documents to be transmitted
The owners of a building for which a so-called building register has been created must submit the following data and documents to the authority via the portal of the building register database published by the authority on the Internet:
1. date of creation of the building logbook
2. electronically signed confirmation of creation by the creator (§ 128a para. 2)
3. date of the first review pursuant to Section 128a (3)
4. Confirmation of the initial inspection of the building signed by the inspector (§ 128a Para. 3).

What is the building logbook?
Since the amendment to the Vienna Building Code, owners of existing buildings are now also obliged to draw up a building register.
For existing buildings, such a building register must be created by the following deadlines and registered in the building register database from 1 July 2024
1. by 31.12.2027 for buildings constructed before 1.1.1919,
2. by 31 Dec. 2030 for all buildings constructed between 1 Jan. 1919 and 1 Jan. 1945

Contents of the building register
In accordance with § 128 a, the building register must contain
1. the building permits and notices of completion or authorisations for use relating to the building;
2. the designation of the building components (Para. 1) that are to be subject to regular inspection;
3. the time of the first inspection and the intervals at which the inspections are to be carried out subsequently;
4. the requirements that the persons carrying out the inspections must fulfil in each case;
5. the results of the inspections carried out, with the exception of those inspections that must be carried out for components in accordance with other federal or provincial regulations;
6. a current list of building defects and a plan for their rectification, if such defects were identified in the course of an inspection;
7. documentation of the measures or changes in accordance with § 118 para. 3.

Conclusion
Once again, the owners of buildings are faced with burdens. The building file held by the Vienna Building Authority is no longer sufficient. The burden of documentation (partly relating to documents that should be held by the authority anyway) is passed on to the owners. In individual cases, it can be quite difficult to obtain the required documents.

See more articles from our Austrian member firm Brauneis Rechtsanwalte.