The Agenda

In this episode of The Agenda from Lewis Silkin, partners Matthew Rowbotham and Kathy Granby discuss the significant changes to the UK's Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) option regime that came into effect on 6 April 2026. It will cover: 
the increase in the gross assets limit from £30 million to £120 million and the rise of the company-wide scheme limit to £6 million
the increase in the employee cap from 250 to 500
the extension of the option lifespan from 10 to 15 years 
Matt and Kathy explore what these changes mean in practice for businesses that already have incentive arrangements in place, including those with unapproved options, CSOP options, and growth shares, weighing up the benefits and pitfalls of replacing existing awards with EMI options. They will also outline the legal and compliance steps involved in transitioning to EMI, from obtaining employee consent and executing deeds of surrender to registering schemes with HMRC and meeting annual reporting deadlines.

The US has become a real-world test case for pay transparency, with states rolling out their own versions of rules on salary disclosure, pay equity, and hiring practices. But what’s actually changed, and what hasn’t?
In this episode, Tom Heys and David Lorimer are joined by Lulu Seikaly from Payscale to unpack the US experience. They explore how state-level laws are working in practice and the challenges employers are facing. 
They also look ahead to Europe’s Pay Transparency Directive: how it compares to the US approach, where it may run into trouble, and what employers should be doing now to prepare.
This episode cuts through the theory and gets into the reality of making pay transparency work.

Northern Ireland is set to become the first part of the UK to introduce statutory paid miscarriage leave from 6 April 2026. In this episode, Emmie and Johanna break down the new regulations and what employers need to do before April 2026.

In this first episode of our international privacy podcast series, we welcomed Partner at Davis+Gilbert, Gary Kibel, to discuss what’s hot in the U.S. privacy and AI landscape, including the state vs federal approach to data privacy, ongoing regulatory changes and enforcement and the rabidly developing frameworks around AI across the U.S..

Romania’s name traces back to the Roman Empire, but its employment law regime is firmly rooted in the modern EU framework. In this episode, Tom Heys and David Lorimer are joined by Adelina Iftime-Blagean from Wolf Theiss to explore how Romania is approaching the EU’s Pay Transparency Directive. Armed with draft legislation hot off the press, with the ink still drying, the conversation looks at how Romania is tackling the PTD’s challenges, and how legacy pay decisions, like the Romanian proverb says, can have a remarkable tendency to stick around.