Karen Collins

Briefing for Charities & Social Enterprises | 21 May

Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector. To help you navigate this week’s content, the links below will take you straight to content by topic. Charity Commission Updated guidance on finding and appointing new trustees (CC30) The Commission has published an updated version of its guidance ‘Finding and appointing new …
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Briefing for Charities & Social Enterprises | 14 May

Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector. To help you navigate this week’s content, the links below will take you straight to content by topic. Charity Commission Speech from David Holdsworth The Charity Commission’s Chief Executive, David Holdsworth, delivered a speech at the Trustee Exchange 2025 to celebrate trustees. He …
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Briefing for Charities & Social Enterprises | 29 April

Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector. To help you navigate this week’s content, the links below will take you straight to content by topic. Charity Commission Updated guidance on charities paying a trustee or a connected person (CC11) The Charity Commission has redesigned its guidance on charities paying trustees …
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Briefing for Charities & Social Enterprises | 23 April

Our weekly round up of news and updates from across the sector. To help you navigate this week’s content, the links below will take you straight to content by topic. Charity Commission The Charity Commission has shared a new interactive tool for ‘Building Financial Resilience’. This asks a series of questions to help charities reflect …
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Event | London International Disputes Week: Defending international tort class actions in the London courts | 4 June 2025

As part of London International Disputes Week, we will be co-hosting a hybrid event with Henderson Chambers on Wednesday 4 June, from 9am – 11am. We are witnessing a rapid rise in new forms of international claims against London-based defendants, targeting supply chains, foreign subsidiaries, investors and NGOs. The London Courts are showing an increased …
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Bates Wells discusses Charitable Funds with Independent Schools Management Magazine

Laura Soley and Alice Faure Walker have published an article in the Independent Schools Management Magazine, April 2025 edition. Their article, “Unlock your funds” gives top tips for independent schools on unlocking charitable restricted and endowment funds for broader use, including changing purposes of funds and accessing capital of endowments.This article should be timely, as we’ve …
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Protecting your intangible assets: Intellectual Property for charities and non-profits

Charities and non-profits own and use intellectual property – including their brand (often involving trade marks), copyright materials and rights in software and technology. These can be some of an organisation’s most valuable assets and should be appropriately safeguarded and managed. We’ve created a series of videos to discuss key considerations for charities and non-profits …
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How to prepare for new changes to consumer law – drip pricing

The DMCCA came into force on 1 January 2025. It has replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) and amended certain parts of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (CCRs). In this series we’ll be looking at key sections of the Act …
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Bates Wells advises Tearfund on innovative financing transaction

Bates Wells has advised the international charity Tearfund on a ground-breaking risk transfer transaction supporting their humanitarian relief activities in Nepal, Ethiopia, Malawi and Pakistan. The transaction involves the provision of a natural disaster risk transfer facility from Global Parametrics, part-funded by Humanity Insured. Global Parametrics is an organisation that structures parametric risk transfer solutions …
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Is your charity ready for the Online Safety Act?

The Online Safety Act (the “OSA”) imposes a range of duties on in-scope online services, aiming in particular to protect children from harmful content and to protect all users from illegal online content and activity. While the OSA received Royal Assent in 2023, the majority of its provisions will come into force in 2025 with …
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Is it worth appealing against a Charity Commission trustee disqualification order?

In February 2025 we saw the first successful overturning of a Charity Commission trustee disqualification order. The Commission had disqualified Mr Mond, a former trustee, for two and a half years, based on some social media activity while Mr Mond was a trustee. Mr Mond appealed the order to the First Tier Tribunal.  The Tribunal found that …
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Bates Wells advises ICAPE Holding on the acquisition of Kingfisher PCBS Ltd

Bates Wells has advised ICAPE Holding on their second acquisition in as many months, of Kingfisher PCBS Ltd, a company which is at the forefront of the supply of printed circuit boards (PCBs). Founded in 1999, the ICAPE Group acts as a key technological expert in the PCB and technical parts supply chain. With a …
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