Legislation / Legal
OFT: The OFT has imposed requirements on Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS) and National Westminster Bank plc (NatWest), both members of the RBS Group, to address concerns about the way some customer debts are enforced via charging orders.
MoJ: Albanian prisoners can now be sent back to Albania to finish their prison sentences, following a new agreement signed by Prisons Minister Jeremy Wright recently. The UK currently holds almost 200 Albanian national prisoners and the Prison Service has already identified those who are eligible for transfer.
This is the UK's first major bilateral prisoner transfer agreement providing for compulsory transfer outside the European Union. Albania is a Council of Europe member state and is subject to regular prison inspections.
OFT: The OFT has launched a market study to examine whether defined contribution workplace pension schemes are set up to deliver the best value for money for savers. The market for these pensions is going through a period of significant change which will see an expected rise in the value of annual contributions of around £11bn by 2018.
Ofcom: Ofcom has recently fined Playboy £100,000 for failing to protect children from potentially harmful pornographic material. Two websites owned by Playboy (Playboy TV and Demand Adult) allowed users to access hardcore videos & images without having acceptable controls in place to check that users were aged 18 or over.
Unlike other pornographic websites, these websites are regulated by Ofcom and its concurrent regulator, the Authority for Video On Demand (ATVOD). This is because they provide access to videos in a similar way to adult services broadcast on television – and fall within UK jurisdiction. Ofcom concluded that Playboy’s failure to protect children from potentially accessing these sites was serious, repeated & reckless.
