Under Irish law, the responsibility to manage the business and affairs of a company is entrusted to its directors. This legal relationship can, in certain circumstances, expose directors to personal legal risk. In this briefing, we review a number of key UK and Irish decisions from the past year, each relevant to the potential personal liability, restriction, or disqualification of directors in Ireland.

The High Court’s decision in Globoforce Group Plc, trading as Workhuman v Luxembourg Investment Company 276 SARL & Others [2026] IEHC 397 clarifies the Irish law position with regard to the so-called ‘shareholder rule’, confirming that a company may assert legal advice privilege against its own shareholders.

Ireland’s third National Risk Assessment (“NRA”) was recently published by the Department of Finance (“DoF”).

On 5 June 2026, the Central Bank of Ireland (“CBI”) published its Annual Report 2025 and Annual Performance Statement 2025-2026 (“the Report”), following the publication of its 2024 Report in May 2025.

The EU AI Act continued to move rapidly from law on paper to law in practice in recent weeks, with significant developments at both European and national level. This briefing summarises the key milestones.

On 11 May 2026, the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) issued a letter to chief executive officers and branch managers of depositaries setting out the findings of its thematic review of depositaries’ obligations to assess, both at appointment and on an ongoing basis, the risks associated with a fund and its fund management company (FMC).

On 5 May 2026, the Central Bank of Ireland published its revised AIF Rulebook alongside the CP162 Feedback Statement. The headline change from a fund financing perspective is that the long-standing restriction preventing QIAIFs from providing third-party guarantees has been removed.

Of general interest to all members.