Welcome to the latest edition of Executive Matters, our quarterly publication tailored to the legal and strategic challenges faced by senior executives and their organisations.
If this edition has a theme, it is accountability, and the quietly rising cost of getting things wrong.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 continues to reshape the legal landscape at pace, and several pieces in this edition reflect just how much is changing, and how quickly. Senior leaders are being asked to do more: amongst other things, to take "all reasonable steps" to prevent harassment in their workplaces, and (from January 2027) to confront a world in which the cap on unfair dismissal compensation no longer exists. For executives in bonus-heavy or equity-rich environments, that last change is particularly significant: in this edition you will find a helpful explanation from our incentives team on how the uncapped regime is the new pressure point for incentives and remuneration. Our Employment Rights Act Hub remains the best single resource for tracking what the Act is changing and when. Separately, for those working in financial services, the FCA's non-financial misconduct rules are now in force. Aside from making non-financial behaviours such as bullying, harassment and violence a regulatory issue for those firms that were not already in scope, managers now carry direct accountability for enforcing the new regime. The stakes, across all of these areas, are meaningfully higher than they were a year ago.
But accountability is not only about legal risk. Two pieces in this edition explore what it looks like from the inside of an organisation. Our podcast feature on the "Glass Cliff" examines the uncomfortable reality that women and minority ethnic executives are disproportionately placed in the most exposed leadership roles - appointed to lead in crisis, with little margin for error. And our upcoming conversation with business anthropologist Oliver Sweet, on 30 September, asks: what are the invisible cultural rules that shape how organisations behave, and who do they serve? I hope you will join us.
On immigration, we flag two developments with direct personal relevance for many readers: the proposal to double the standard qualifying period for UK settlement to ten years, and the expanded right-to-work compliance obligations that take effect on 1 October, including personal liability for directors and senior managers.
We round off with our Wealth, Investment and Personal Planning section. The three pieces here - the practical case for a family investment company, the legal complexity of protecting assets through a separation, and the new possibilities (and questions) created by PISCES for private company shareholders, are a reminder that good planning, done early, can make an enormous difference.
I hope you find this edition useful. As ever, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any member of the team if you would like to discuss anything further.