By Emma Wrenn As obesity rates increase worldwide, sales of weight loss drugs have increased by approximately ten-fold in the last four years. Currently, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are the biggest players in this market. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy was approved for weight loss by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021, and sold worldwide shortly after. Eli Lilly launched their weight loss drugs Mounjaro  and Zepbound  in 2022 and 2023. However, legal concerns including

By Tanisha Zaman I’m Tanisha Zaman - you may not know me (and I’d be genuinely flattered if you do). I won’t go into a full rundown of my background, experience, or admittedly brilliant sense of humour, but what I will say is that lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the uneasy relationship between law, health, and choice.   This all started when I wrote a research paper from 2024-2025 called A Breath of Fresh Air: A Smoke-Free Future  - commissioned by the London Tobacco A

By Alex Feeney The BBVA-Sabadell merger exemplifies a critical problem in competition law: the influence of political factors in company mergers. One of competition law’s key risks is excessive political interference, where political objectives override the fundamental principle of maintaining a healthy, competitive market. Significant tension lies in the extent to which such factors should shape merger decisions. In certain cases, intervention serves the public interest, but

By Rowan Rutherford In 2022, The UK’s Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act legally recognised the sentience and consequent welfare needs of all vertebrate animals. This landmark legal recognition of sentience acknowledges that animals have a capacity to feel emotions such as pleasure, pain, joy, and fear. Scientific research has found that in more nuanced cases, animals can even experience emotions like grief — for example, the mourning rituals of elephants, who cover the body of t

By Velimira Ekova A rampant plague has spread across the Balkans. Serbia, Albania, Bosnia all lay sick, dying. They have been poisoned from within. Bulgaria rests unmoving, silenced by illness, across the hospital ward. The cause? Corruption. Bulgaria is no stranger to allegations of corruption. Eight parliamentary elections in the span of four years are rarely a sign of stability, nor do they hint at a healthy democracy. Varna, Bulgaria’s biggest seaport, rests to the northe

Blackstone and TPG's joint acquisition of Hologic signals new trends in PE By Esme Glover This week, the private equity (PE) world has seen a wave of activity. Most notably, TPG and Blackstone, two of the largest PE firms, have been involved in an $18.3 billion takeover of Hologic. Unlike many private equity transactions, this is a ‘take-private’ offer, meaning Hologic will be delisted from public stock exchanges such as the Nasdaq once the acquisition closes. This size and t

By Luisa Hardman On 1 July 2024, the Indian Penal Code (1860) (IPC), was  repealed and replaced by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (2023) (BNS), overhauling India's criminal justice system and emphasising justice and rehabilitation over punishment. This marked a watershed in India’s legal history, addressing the colonial legacies which still play a significant role in the way the country operates.  The Indian Penal Code was enacted during British colonial rule, based on a simplif

By Angelica Bidlack ‘Is that even legal?’ That’s a question which has surely been asked by many in relation to Trump’s shocking tariff policies for the past few months— especially the recent threat of another 100% tariff on China. A US appeals court decided in August ‘No’; Trump’s imposition of tariffs on almost all trade partners is not legal. The Trump administration however has defended that ‘yes’, their tariffs are legal, citing the International Emergency Economic Powers

By Sarah Wagner After Brexit, the Conservative Party has turned its attention to another European institution: the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Adopted in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World War, the Convention was designed to safeguard core liberties, the right to life, liberty, and privacy across Europe. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg enforces these protections, and its rulings are binding on member states. The UK, a founding

By Andrea Berkovic Financial Times statistical comparison of Trump's use of executive orders vis-a-vis predecessors Biden and Obama. In the past 25 years, there has been a notable increase in the use of executive orders, underlining the rise in a highly politically polarized environment in which successfully getting policies through Congress and acquiring presidential assent has taken more time and is often more problematic. Indeed, Trump’s second term has marked an unprecede

By Cassius Joseph As a student looking to pursue U.S. law, I often receive puzzled glances when explaining how the system stateside actually functions. Rather than an undergraduate LLB degree or the alternative ‘conversion course’ route, the U.S. system requires all students to complete an undergraduate degree in any field before applying to law school. Therefore, any undergrads looking at their next steps would be fully eligible to apply to U.S. law schools. The question thu

By Esme Glover This week’s article will analyse some of the wider commercial news that is impacting businesses, consumers and the legal industry. 1. A Shift Towards Safer Bonds? Geopolitical tensions have had a notable ripple effect on global markets, particularly within the realm of bonds. Bonds function as instruments through which governments or corporations raise finances by borrowing funds from investors. This is typically done at a fixed interest rate and duration. At t

By Darcie Dudding The UK’s Magistrate’s Courts operate in a manner that should raise significant concern. This argument will be substantiated through an examination of three key areas: the lack of training and expectation of magistrates, the demographic composition of the magistracy, and the extent of judicial power vested in lay adjudicators by the legal system. One of the most common criticisms levied against magistrates is their lack of legal qualification, beyond the 10 d

By Arafath Ahmad An Introduction to In-House Lawyers   The legal profession is often perceived as divided between solicitors in private practice and barristers at the Bar. However, this perception is evolving as more companies recognise the benefits of having lawyers work within their organisations on a permanent basis.   In recent years, there has been a marked increase in the size and influence of in-house legal teams, with lawyers taking on roles across organisations of al

By Mei Rose When the European Commission fined Google €2.95 billion in one of the largest antitrust cases in EU history this September, it was a familiar scene: a drawn-out investigation, a multi billion-euro penalty, and yet another clash between Brussels and Silicon Valley. The case illustrated a recurring problem - by the time traditional antitrust law catches up with Big Tech, the market has already forged ahead, leaving regulators to punish behaviour that has long since

By Zuha Malik In mid-2025, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) authorised the United Kingdom’s first AI-driven law firm, Garfield.Law Ltd. The firm use s a large language model to guide individuals and small businesses through the small claims and debt-recovery process, offering a lower-cost, more accessible route to justice in comparison to traditional legal advice. For the SRA, authorising such a firm reflects a deliberate effort to encourage innovation while maint

Edited by Cathy Liu Introduction: For the inaugural blog of the new year, we are honored to have Xiao Yang to share his enriched study...

A conversation with Kyra, an LLM graduate from New York University, School of Law By Cathy Liu This week, I had an in-depth talk with...

An interview with Sara Qi- a 1L student from the Juris Doctor (JD) program at the University of California Berkeley, School of Law By...

By Emma Sinden Earlier this month we were welcomed into Herbert Smith Freehills’ (HSF) Primrose Street Office to sit down with Trevor...