Having recently been required to enforce my consumer rights shortly after purchasing a rather expensive item, a fridge/freezer, from a well-known online store here in the UK, I realised, not for the first time, how appreciative I am for the clarity of the UK consumer protection legislation, which is mainly contained within The Consumer Rights Act 2015. As a former lawyer, I’m well aware of my statutory rights and am never particularly impressed with the attempts of salespeople to tread all over them. Perhaps right in the middle of Covid lockdown was not the best time to purchase a new fridge/freezer, and I had been putting it…

This week in London, a woman was threatened with arrest at the Black Lives Matter protest in London for wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Fuck Boris”, in reference to the Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Given the conflict here between freedom of expression and statutory law, I’m especially interested in a comparison between English and Italian law. Now, one might assume that here in the United Kingdom we have freedom of speech; unfortunately, it’s not quite so simple and it transpires that the police do have certain powers under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986, which refers to “harassment, alarm or distress”, and which states…

Last month, the latest project of the entrepreneurial futurist Elon Musk, “Neuralink”, gained international attention, with extremely brief newspaper articles which suggested that his technology could “render human language obsolete” in as short a time as five years. The articles were long on shock value and short on verifiable detail…

Something truly disturbing is happening in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis. We are overloaded with confusing information; attention is currently focused on lockdown; how long it will last, and how it is being policed. Deaths become statistics, and people tend not to pay attention to matters that don’t impact…

A visit to Milan- Coronavirus, Force Majeure and Tourism This is a personal (and legal) article focusing on the effects of COVID-19 or “Coronavirus”; specifically, the issue of Force Majeure in contracts. Like many, my travel plans have been disrupted this week; this is minor, numerous people are ill, many have died, and the uncertainty over the true reach…