Legal News ()

Hayes solicitors LLP is delighted to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day 2023 with you. This year's theme is "Empowering Women Innovators: Generating Solutions for Global Challenges" and we are excited to recognise the immense contributions of women to the field of intellectual property.

After an inflation-ravaged 2022, the industry looks set for further uncertainty in 2023. In October last, the CIF published its Economic Outlook following a survey of the industry. The survey found that 96% of construction companies have reported a rise in the cost of building materials.

On 28 March, the Department of Justice published the draft General Scheme of the Defamation (Amendment) Bill. The proposed Bill gives effect to recommendations of the Report of the Review of the Defamation Act 2009, published last year by the Minister for Justice.

Following several delays to full commencement of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 in its entirety, the Act is now expected on 26 April according to an announcement by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Minister of State for Disability.

In recent months, particularly in the tech sector, we are seeing a sharp increase in redundancies. The majority of affected employees will not have previously faced the burden of their role being placed at risk of redundancy and will not be familiar with the process.