Law Society advice on UK/EU Transition.
The UK-EU transition period ended on 31 December 2020. This useful article on the Law Society website offers plenty of reading for UK based law firms when it comes to dealing with the EU post transition. In Gibraltar we already have underway a transitional arrangement ongoing for the next 3 1/2 years before finalising what we hope will settle our position within the Europe benefitting both ourselves and those living in the Campo. Cruzlaw are already across this so please visit our offices or website for contact information.
Take a read and understand the complexities our the law within and without the EU.
The UK left the single market and the EU lawyers’ directives and EU laws no longer apply to England and Wales qualified solicitors.
We held a series of webinars and are regularly publishing guidance to support you and your firm in adapting to the end of the transition period.
On 24 December 2020, the UK and the EU reached a Trade and Cooperation Agreement. This agreement affects how our members can provide services and how establishments work in the EU area. It has consequences for areas such as intellectual property (IP) law, anti-money laundering (AML) and value added tax (VAT).
The agreement does not cover civil or commercial judicial cooperation or family law. In these areas, the guides that we prepared earlier are still relevant.
Read our initial analysis of legal services in the agreement
Solicitors can send their specific queries to brexit@lawsociety.org.uk.
What you can do now
- Use the government’s transition checker tool, which helps businesses quickly identify the specific steps they need to take to be ready
- Implement our 10 step checklist for law firms
- Read our country guides on practice rights:
- Review our guidance on:
- legal services in the free trade agreement
- the impact of the end of free movement of people
- EU legal professional privilege
- registered European lawyers and how England and Wales remains open after the end of the transition period
- EU data flows
- intellectual property
- anti-money laundering
- law enforcement and judicial cooperation in criminal matters
- VAT
- civil judicial cooperation (taking of evidence, service of documents, rules on jurisdiction, alternative dispute resolution, enforcement of foreign judgments and choice of court agreements)
- practice rights of EU/EFTA lawyers in the UK and UK lawyers in the EEA and Switzerland
- family law (private family law and public children law)
- Attend upcoming Law Society events and listen to our podcast on data flows and the end of transition
- Sign up to the government’s business readiness bulletin, which shares new guidance for your business and for your clients, and read the letter to the professional services sector from business secretary Alok Sharma MP