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Mishcon & The World

Issue 26: January 2026

Mishcon & The World

Editors note

Adam Rose - Mishcon de Reya

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions – if something needs doing, I’d rather just do it than make a promise to myself. But as I started preparing this editorial for Mishcon & the World, I wondered: is the whole resolutions thing even universal? Would mentioning it make sense to you?

So, what does one do in 2026 to find out? Ask AI, of course.

The answer I got was clear: yes, resolutions are made pretty much everywhere as the calendar flips from December to January. I can’t easily verify that, so I’m taking it on trust – which raises two realities we all need to get used to with AI. First, deciding when to trust its accuracy (and I think we increasingly can). Second, resisting the temptation to copy and paste its answers – too many lawyers have been caught doing exactly that, even in court pleadings.

And speaking of going global, Mishcon de Reya has just expanded with new offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and secured a licence to practise in Hong Kong. These moves strengthen our ability to support clients wherever they live and do business – and you can read more about this in this edition.

So, having said not, here’s one resolution you should copy and paste: attend international conferences, join cross-border practice groups, and engage with lawyers worldwide. It’s what I’m doing.

News
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The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025: Digital asset ownership

We recently opened new offices in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, strengthening how we support clients whose business, capital and family interests span the Middle East. We also took an important step in Hong Kong, establishing our own local law practice while continuing our longstanding association with Karas So LLP - creating even more opportunities for connected growth across Asia.

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Ground view of large buildings in London

When payment obligations meet sanctions regimes: Beneathco v RJ O'Brien Ltd

In Beneathco v RJ O’Brien Ltd [2025] EWHC 3079 (Comm) the English Commercial Court held that an FCA-regulated broker was not obliged to transfer US$16.5 million held in its client account to a petroleum trader designated under US Iran sanctions, as doing so would breach US sanctions law.

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A circular, tunnel-like structure with a glowing blue center resembling Earth, surrounded by dark, radial grid patterns that create a sense of depth and perspective.

Privacy is dead? Long live privacy

It is often said that privacy is dead. Over a decade ago, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg claimed that privacy was no longer a "social norm"; that people had become so comfortable sharing more information, more openly and with more people, that the notion of holding back and protecting personal information was antiquated, even obsolete.

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Getty Images v Stability AI: Unpacking the High Court's judgment

The High Court has rejected Getty Images' secondary copyright infringement claim against Stability AI, finding that Stable Diffusion's model weights - though trained on datasets that included Getty's images - did not constitute 'infringing copies'. However, the court did find limited and historic trade mark infringement relating to watermarks appearing in outputs from certain versions of Stable Diffusion.

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Autumn Budget 2025

The Chancellor delivered her second Budget today as she sought to balance financial constraints and political ambitions without breaking manifesto promises.

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Patents Court responds to UPC anti-interim-licence injunction in InterDigital v Amazon

Recent weeks have seen a flurry of activity before both the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and national courts in the UK and Germany in a dispute between InterDigital and Amazon relating to digital streaming patents and FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licence terms. For ease of reference, this article uses the term 'FRAND', although the standards in this case technically refer to 'RAND' (reasonable and non-discriminatory); there is no practical difference between the two.

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