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Stuart McInnes MBE Joins Quastels As Senior Counsel

Quastels LLP is pleased to announce the arrival of Stuart McInnes MBE, who has joined the firm as Senior Counsel, further strengthening the firm’s dispute resolution and sports law capabilities.

Stuart McInnes MBE is a solicitor, previously with Squire Patton Boggs, with over 40 years’ experience in complex disputes and sports law and is an internationally recognised sports arbitrator. He is widely regarded as one of the leading figures in global sports arbitration and governance.

Internationally Recognised Expertise

Stuart has served as an arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for around two decades, including appointment to the CAS ad hoc division for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and he has also sat on major-event tribunals. His practice is shaped by substantial cross-border dispute experience, particularly in football and wider sports regulation. In addition, he is Chairman of the Ordinary Arbitration Division of the Qatar Sports Arbitration Tribunal, and sits as an arbitrator at the Saudi Sports Arbitration Center, where he oversees (predominantly football-related) proceedings.

Stuart has acted for and advised governing bodies and stakeholders internationally, including a seven-year consultancy to the Saudi Arabian Football Federation on governance and regulatory matters, dispute resolution, reputation-critical issues, and the drafting and implementation of emergency COVID-19 rules. He has also advised at ministerial level in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on sports-law issues, including the development of women’s football and broader participation in sport. Alongside his work in Saudi Arabia, Stuart has advised the Governments of the UAE and The Sultanate of Oman. Stuart undertook high value commercial arbitrations as Counsel and as an arbitrator.

Recognition and Contribution

Stuart was appointed MBE in 2006 in recognition of his charity work in the City of London, and he is active in sports governance and legal education, including as a Visiting Professor on international sports law programmes. 

Joining Quastels

In his role as Senior Counsel at Quastels, Stuart will support the firm’s dispute resolution and sports law offering, providing strategic insight and specialist expertise to clients operating in the UK and internationally. His appointment reflects Quastels’ continued focus on building depth in specialist practice areas.

Stuart’s arrival marks an exciting addition to the firm, enhancing Quastels’ ability to advise on complex, high-value disputes and regulatory matters in the sports sector and beyond.

If you’d like to discuss how Stuart and his team can assist you in sport or dispute resolution matters, whether UK-based or international, please contact him via his email, smcinnes@quastels.com, or call +44 07974 923455.

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The End of The Zero-Hours Contract?

What the changes in the Employment Rights Act 2025 could mean for your business.

As one of the most common contract types in retail, health & social care and hospitality sectors, the proposed changes to zero-hour contracts in the new Employment Rights Act 2025 will have significant implications for businesses.

What are Zero-Hour Contracts and Where Can They Be Used?

The term zero-hour contract is often used interchangeably with part-time contracts but there are specific and important differences. Currently, under most zero-hour contracts:

• The staff are “workers” not “employees” and have less employment protections;
• There is no statutory obligation to offer or accept shifts on either the business or worker;
• Shifts can generally be scheduled or cancelled at short notice, subject to contract;
• There is no right to compensation or minimum notice required for cancelling or changing shifts;
• There is no presumption that the shifts will be available or offered again.

Proposed Changes

Under the new Employment Rights Act 2025 there are broadly three changes which will have a significant impact on the use of zero-hours contracts:

• There will be a new requirement to offer staff “Guaranteed Hours”;
• There will be a new requirement to provide “reasonable notice” when offer shifts to zero-hour workers and other staff;
• There will be a new requirement to provide “minimum notice” of cancellation or change to shifts.

Each of these are further explained below.

Guaranteed Hours

Staff on either zero-hour contracts or “low-hours” contracts who have worked regular hours over a “reference period” must be offered a contract with guaranteed hours “reflecting” those hours. Within this requirement there are a number of points which the Employment Rights Act does not define:

• What is meant by “low-hours” contracts?
• What is defined as a “reference period”?
• How closely must the contract “reflect” the hours worked during the “reference period”?

These points will be clarified following a formal consultation with key stakeholders. It is anticipated that “reference period” will be between 12 weeks and 6 months but we will have to wait to see the final proposals, likely to be ready by summer this year.

Following the initial “reference period”, businesses must offer the worker the average number of guaranteed hours that they worked during the “reference period”. This must be under new contractual terms guaranteeing those hours, and on the days/times or working pattern that were worked during the reference period.

The worker will have the option to either accept the new offer, or to keep the flexibility of their existing zero-hour contract. Businesses will have to continue to assess the hours worked by staff while they have “low-hours” contracts, after each further “reference period”. The duty to offer guaranteed hours continues at future reference points.

The changes once implemented will require businesses to inform their staff of their rights under the new guaranteed hours regime and keep them informed while they qualify.

Reasonable Notice When Offering Shifts

Businesses will be required to give “reasonable notice” of shifts when offering them to zero-hour workers or shift employees. As with the guaranteed hours changes, the following details have not been defined:

• What is meant by “reasonable notice”; and
• What are the exemptions to the notice requirement.

These terms again will be defined following consultation, expected by the summer of 2026.

The new Act envisages setting a minimum amount of time that has to be provided when offering shifts to zero-hour staff. This however is not defined in the Act and the details will be part of the consultation process.

The requirement to provide “reasonable notice” will also apply to employees who are on rota shift contract, which is where the hours of work are set but the days and pattern of work can vary at the business’s discretion.

Where businesses fail to provide “reasonable notice” for the shifts, the worker can bring a claim to the Employment Tribunal and compensation will be assessed on what the Tribunal “considers just and equitable in all the circumstances to compensate the worker for any financial loss sustained by the worker which is attributable to the matter complained of.” This could lead to claims including bank overdraft charges or credit card late payment fees which the worker faces when a shift they expected is not offered to them.

Minimum Notice of Cancellation or Change

Under the new Act, businesses will have to provide “reasonable notice” of a change or cancellation of a shift which had been accepted by the zero-hour staff. Again, what is meant by “reasonable notice” is still to be defined.

In addition to the requirement to provide “reasonable notice” of changes or cancellation of shifts, the Act introduces the right to compensation for zero-hour staff if their shift is cancelled, moved or curtailed at “short notice”. The zero-hour staff will be entitled to a payment every time there is “short notice” of a cancellation or change of shift. Further, the payment will have to be paid to the staff within a specific time frame.

As with all of the above upcoming changes, the devil will be in the detail, and the Act is yet to define:

• What is meant by “short notice” when cancelling, changing or reducing a shift;
• What exemptions will apply to the “notice” requirement;
• What compensation payment amount will businesses have to make to staff for short notice cancellation and shift changes;
• How quickly businesses have to make the payment.

The Act does specify that “short notice” for cancelling a shift will be less than 48-hours before the proposed shift start time. The meaning of “short notice” when moving a shift or reducing a shift will be set by Government after consultation.

Who Is Covered By The Changes?

Businesses can still be caught by the new regime even if they do not use zero-hour or “low-hour” workers. The new requirements will apply equally to agency workers.

With agency workers, both the end user hirer and agency will have equal responsibility for providing the worker with the necessary notice of changes to shifts. However, the changes specify that is is the agencies which will be responsible for paying the agency worker and have the ability to recoup the cancellation and short notice fee from the end user, subject to the commercial terms of the agreement between the end user and agency.

Implementation Timeline

While the Employment Rights Act 2025 became law on 18 December 2025, the Government has confirmed they will not be implementing these changes immediately. There remains a significant number of specific details to be clarified. Under the Governments current timeline, which updated in February 2026, there is to be a period of consultation on these details, with the changes likely due to come into effect in 2027.

For further information on the Employment Rights Act 2025 and how it could impact your business, get in touch with our Employment Team.

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How to Challenge a Will?

If you believe you have unfairly been left out of a Will or what you have received is below expectations, then the good news is there are multiple ways that a Will can be challenged.

The main ways are:

1. challenging the validity of a Will; and
2. claims for ‘reasonable financial’ provision under The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 (often called “the 1975 Act“).

This article will examine Will validity claims, whilst a separate article examines claims under the 1975 Act: Claims Under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.

How to Challenge the Validity of a Will

If you are considering contesting a Will, it’s important to understand the legal grounds on which a challenge can be made. This article summarises the five main claims by which a Will can be invalidated:

1. Lack of due execution
2. Lack of testamentary capacity
3. Lack of knowledge and approval
4. Undue influence
5. Fraudulent calumny

We also outline what happens if a Will is invalidated and how our team at Quastels LLP can help you navigate this process.

Protecting Your Position

If you are seriously considering a Will validity challenge, then as a first step you should consider entering a caveat at the Probate Registry. For more information on caveats, please see our related article: Probates and Caveats.

1. Lack of Due Execution

One of the first things we advise clients to check is whether the Will was executed correctly. Under the Wills Act 1837, there are strict formal requirements for a Will to be valid. These include rules about how the Will must be signed and witnessed.

If any of these formalities were not followed, the Will is invalid–regardless of whether it reflects the testator’s true intentions. In some cases, this can be a relatively straightforward way to challenge a Will, even if it is legally sound in every other respect.

2. Testamentary Capacity

Lack of testamentary capacity us one of the most common ways to challenge a Will. With people living longer and the concomitant rise of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Dementia, there are an increasing number of old and vulnerable people making wills without the requisite capacity.

The legal test for testamentary capacity remains as set out in the 19th century case, Banks v Goodfellow (1869–70) LR 5 QB 549. There are four limbs to the test, which require that the person making the Will must:

1. understand that s/he is making a Will and what that means;
2. have a good (although not necessarily perfect) understanding of the property and assets that s/he is disposing of;
3. s/he should also be aware of the people who s/he ought to consider in his or her Will, even if to explain why s/he is not benefitting them; and
4. be of sound mind and in possession of his or her faculties of reason.

Additional points to note regarding the Banks v Goodfellow test and incapacity claims include:

• Presumption of capacity: the law assumes a person’s capacity unless there is evidence to the contrary. If sufficient doubt it raised, the burden shifts to those defending the validity of the Will.
• Capacity is relative: the degree of capacity required by the Will maker varies depending on the nature and complexity of the estate or the gift being made. This is to say, the level of capacity required to make a gift of £1,000 will be lower than that of a gift of £1,000,000.
• Testamentary Freedom: it is important to stress that English law allows people the freedom to dispose of their assets as they wish. Therefore, it is important to bear in mind that a Will maker may have motives which are capricious, frivolous, mean or even bad. A Will which is unfair or unkind is not a reason for its invalidity.

To assess a claim, the following evidence is usually required:

1. The deceased’s medical records.
2. The deceased’s Will file, where the will was drafted by a professional.
3. Witness evidence from doctors and those in close contact with the deceased around the time the will was prepared.
4. An expert report by a suitably qualified doctor to review all the evidence and give a retrospective medical opinion on the deceased person’s likely capacity.

The Will disputes team at Quastels LLP can help you gather and assess this evidence and give you a clear view on whether a claim is worth pursuing–and what it might cost.

3. Knowledge and Approval

Another major claim–often the hardest for the general public to grasp–is that a will can be invalid for “want of knowledge and approval.” In short, a testator must know and approve the contents of their Will. While this may sound similar to limbs 1–3 of the Banks v Goodfellow test on capacity, it is a separate, standalone claim. It should not be underestimated: this ground has succeeded where all others have failed.

Whereas capacity is a general question, knowledge and approval is specific. A good example is someone who cannot read – they may have the requisite capacity to make a Will but if they sign a document without understanding its contents because they were unable to read it or it was not explained to them, they would not be considered to have had the requisite knowledge and approval of its contents.

The burden of proof lies with the person seeking to uphold the Will. This claim often runs alongside incapacity arguments and can rescue a case that might otherwise fail. It is a technical area where good legal advice is essential.

At Quastels LLP, our lawyers are adept at identifying and pursuing knowledge and approval claims, often in combination with other grounds. If you suspect a will was signed without proper understanding, we can review the circumstances and advise on the best strategy to protect your interests.

Undue Influence

A Will may be challenged under English law on the grounds of undue influence–a claim that is difficult to prove, with few cases succeeding.

To establish undue influence, it must be shown that the testator was subject to such influence at the time the will was executed and, as a result, was coerced (or fraudulently misdirected) into making it. Mere suspicion is not enough: the facts must be “inconsistent with any other hypothesis”. In other words, there must be no plausible explanation for the will other than undue influence–a very high threshold.

The Court of Appeal in Rea v Rea reinforced this difficulty, confirming that influence alone is not unlawful. To succeed, there must be evidence–or strong influence–of actual coercion, such that the testator’s free will was overborne and dominated by another person.

It is also important to note that unsuccessful undue influence claims can result in adverse costs orders, meaning the claimant may be required to pay the opponent’s legal costs. For this reason, it is always prudent to seek specialist advice early, so the merits of any potential claim can be properly assessed.

Unlike challenges based on lack of capacity or want of knowledge and approval, the burden of proof in undue influence cases rests entirely on the party alleging it.

Fraudulent Calumny

Fraudulent calumny is a distinct claim, though often compared to undue influence. It arises where:

“[Party] A poisons the testator’s mind against [Party] B–who would otherwise be a natural beneficiary–by casting dishonest aspersions on B’s character.”

To succeed, a claimant must approve all three elements:

1. False statements: Party Q made false statements about you to the testator regarding your character;
2. Knowledge or recklessness: Those statements were made knowing they were false, or with reckless disregard for the truth; and
3. Causation: You would have been a natural beneficiary but for Party A’s conduct.

Although clients often wish to explore this route, fraudulent calumny is the most challenging of all Will-dispute claims. Like undue influence, it carries significant cost risks if unsuccessful. For this reason, prospective claimants should always seek specialist advice before proceeding.

What Happens Next?

If a Will is successfully invalidated, the testator’s previous Will usually takes effect. If there is no earlier Will, the estate will be distributed under the intestacy rules.

It is therefore crucial to consider the practical consequences of a Will challenge. For example, if an earlier will contains similar provisions, the effort and cost of litigation may achieve little. In some cases, multiple Wills may need to be contested to achieve the desired outcome.

For these reasons, clients should always seek specialist advice before proceeding, to ensure that any potential claim is both viable and worth pursuing.

Costs

The general rule in litigation is that the unsuccessful party pays the successful party’s costs. Probate disputes, however, allow for an important exception: where investigations were justified, the Court may order the deceased’s estate to cover the costs of any reasonable inquiries.

In rare cases, claimants may also recover costs from professional Will-drafters if their failure to keep proper records or follow established drafting conventions contributed to the dispute.

If you are concerned about potential costs, seek specialist advice early. A professional can help assess the merits of your claim and advise on strategies to minimise financial risk.

Conclusion

Whilst there may be ways to challenge a Will, potential claimants should obtain specialist advice as soon as possible in order to secure crucial evidence and to assess the merits of any claim before embarking on potentially risky litigation. The Will disputes team at Quastels LLP is adept in helping claimants at all stages of their claim.

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