Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekly Briefing!
Where we break down the commercial stories law students should actually be paying attention to.
The UK Wants Power to Nationalise Steel Companies
The UK government is preparing legislation that would allow ministers to take steel companies into public ownership if they are considered important to national security, critical infrastructure, or the wider economy.
The proposed Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill follows emergency intervention last year to keep British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant operating after its Chinese owners moved to shut down the blast furnaces. Ashurst is advising the government on the legislation.
What makes this interesting is that governments are increasingly becoming willing to intervene directly in markets again when industries become strategically important. We’ve already seen similar thinking internationally. The Trump administration previously backed intervention to support companies seen as strategically important to the US economy, including Intel.
SpaceX Wants the Biggest IPO Ever
SpaceX has reportedly filed for an IPO that could value the company at $1.75 trillion, with plans to raise around $75 billion potentially making it the largest IPO in history. An IPO is when a private company sells shares to the public for the first time. But behind the headlines is a huge legal operation.
SpaceX is expected to list on Nasdaq. Gibson Dunn is advising the company, while Davis Polk is advising the banks underwriting the deal, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citi and J.P. Morgan.
But the bigger story is SpaceX’s position in the market itself. Over the last decade, the company has built an enormous advantage in launch infrastructure and satellite deployment through Starlink. In practice, that gives SpaceX something close to dominance in parts of the private space industry.
Now the company is reportedly exploring ways to support data centre infrastructure in space. If that becomes commercially viable, SpaceX would not just be a rocket company, it could become critical infrastructure for global computing and communications. That is why investors are paying attention.
Why London Blocked a £50m AI Deal With Palantir
London Mayor Sadiq Khan reportedly blocked a £50 million deal between the Met Police and Palantir, the US data analytics company known for its government and defence contracts. The proposed deal would have expanded Palantir’s role in police intelligence and data analysis. Concerns were reportedly raised around procurement, oversight and reliance on a single technology supplier.
The Mayor also reportedly argued that the process did not give enough opportunity for competing providers to pitch alternative technology to the Met. That matters because public procurement is supposed to encourage competition rather than allow governments to become overly dependent on one provider. Especially when the technology involves sensitive public infrastructure and data.
The Mayor blocking this deal is a sign of where AI procurement is heading governments are starting to ask not just whether a technology works, but who owns it, who audits it, and what it means to hand a single private company the keys to public infrastructure.