The European Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group launched today the European Institutional Investors Pact (EIIP) at the TechEU Equity Summit. The Pact is a new voluntary framework designed to channel more long-term institutional capital into Europe’s technology and scale-up ecosystem. Thirteen institutional investors have already expressed their intention to channel investments into Europe’s innovation and scale-up ecosystem, including through the €15 billion European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) 2.0 and the €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund. President of the...

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Presidents Message: There is no respite from the turmoil currently affecting much of the USA in relation to property taxes. In an article with the title “The Property-Tax Temper Tantrum”, the author refers to a recent paper to which we have published a link on the IPTI website. The article states: “Everyone wants the government to pay for stuff. We need our Social Security, our Medicare, our police and fire protection, our elementary schools; heck, some would add universal...

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On September 18, 2026, President Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. Departments of Labor (DOL), Homeland Security (DHS), and State to coordinate more closely on H-1B program administration and take into consideration employers’ recent or planned layoffs. The executive order calls for layoff-related information to be considered across H-1B filings, potentially increasing scrutiny of employers whose workforce reductions overlap with sponsored positions. Quick Hits The executive order directs the secretaries of state, labor, and homeland security to consider whether...

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The Global Guide Quarterly (GGQ) is a newsletter published by Littler on a quarterly basis to provide high-level and concise coverage of global labor and employment (L&E) law developments in key countries across the Americas, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The GGQ aims to help multinational enterprises stay informed about important changes in the L&E law framework by covering enacted legislation, significant judiciary or regulatory decisions, legislative initiatives, and trends impacting employers. The...

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Bernastic, the advanced materials company transforming textile waste into high-performance manufacturing materials, today announced the successful production of its first 2,500-pound run of Bernastic, marking a significant milestone in the company’s journey from research and development to scalable manufacturing. The production run represents years of materials research, formulation refinement, engineering, and testing aimed at solving one of the world’s largest environmental challenges: finding meaningful, scalable applications for textile waste. “What started as a simple question, What else could this be?, has...

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Uncertainty is a global public cost — the mirror image of a "global public good." It touches every organization, whether we invite it in or not, and an entire industry of metrics and reports exists just to measure it. The good news: uncertainty doesn't have to mean your business or productivity suffer. As Condoleezza Rice once recalled her parents telling her, you may not control your circumstances, but you can control your reaction to them. That distinction — between the...

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