The Technology Platform

Mishcon de Reya is advising Group François, the group behind London restaurants Maison François and Café François, on its joint venture with Keybourne Hospitality Group to bring Café François to the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) in early 2027.

Victoria Pigott, Chair of Private at Mishcon de Reya, has commented for Luxury London on the rise of AI deepfakes and how high net worth and ultra-high net worth people can protect their wealth.

On 20 October 2026, a "power event" at Google Cloud's London data centre knocked out services for around six hours. Millions of end users were said to be affected, with service providers, including major banks and the courts of England and Wales, among those reported to have experienced disruption. The event has attracted significant media attention. On the same day as the outage, Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Treasury Committee, wrote to the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chief Executive of the FCA seeking details of the incident's impact on UK financial services, the authorities' response and lessons learned for the resilience of the UK's financial system.

Mishcon de Reya has advised University of Leeds spinout adsilico on its £10 million Series A funding round. The round was led by PXN Ventures, with participation from existing investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk.

Age assurance implementation triggers dual-regime compliance obligations under both the UK's Online Safety Act 2023 (the OSA) and the UK's data protection framework, consisting mainly of the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

AI has transformed how content is produced, consumed and verified. Reputation is no longer shaped primarily by news articles or social media posts. AI-powered search increasingly shapes reputation through AI-generated summaries – not a list of links, but responses that distil vast amounts of information into what appears to be an authoritative answer.

The High Court has handed down its quantum judgment in the trade mark dispute between the Swatch Group and Samsung, concerning watch face apps. The Swatch Group's expert valued the claim at approximately US$170 million; Samsung's expert valued it at just US$301. However, the court rejected both extremes and awarded "negotiation" damages of US$11.6 million.

Partner and the Head of Technology Group Ashley Williams was quoted in the Financial Times' 'The Big Read' this weekend. Speaking on the risks of AI usage in writing and commercial work.

Welcome to our August 2026 Unified Patent Court update. With the UPC recently passing its third anniversary, in this edition we report on a series of significant Court of Appeal and Local Division decisions addressing: the availability of provisional measures, including the urgency requirement and the treatment of late-stage applications; jurisdictional reach, covering both the UPC's "long-arm" jurisdiction over non-UPC territories and the limits of that reach; and procedural aspects, including the scope of evidence production orders, security for costs for SME claimants, access to pleadings by third parties, opt-outs and calculation of court fees on appeal.