24 Mar
Member News

Wilson Sonsini | Antitrust: Into the Metaverse

Are antitrust concerns a built-in feature of the Metaverse? In two popular science-fiction novels, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, the Metaverse is run by single companies, or "monopolists," as antitrust lawyers might put it.1 In Ready Player One, a company called IOI even tries to get control of the monopoly to impose monthly fees on users and introduce advertising. Real-life antitrust regulators, sensitized by a perceived accumulation of market power in today's online world,...

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23 Mar
Member News

Thompson Hine | SEC Releases Long-Awaited Proposed Climate Disclosure Rules

On March 21, 2022, the SEC released its long-awaited climate disclosure proposal, which is modeled, in part, on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework. Among other things, the proposed rules would require a company to disclose in its annual report on Form 10-K information regarding: • Climate-related risks; • Direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 emissions), indirect GHG emissions resulting from purchased energy (Scope 2 emissions), and, if material or if the company has set a target...

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23 Mar
Member News

Noerr | EU Blocking Regulation vs. US secondary sanctions: companies increasingly between a rock and a hard place

The ECJ ruling in Bank Melli Iran v Telekom Deutschland GmbH (C-124/20) Background After receiving Advocate General Hogan’s Opinion in May 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) handed down its highly anticipated ruling in the Bank Melli Iran case (C-124/20) on 21 December 2021. The Court of Justice was faced with the difficult question of whether companies are permitted, in response to impending US secondary sanctions, to give regular notice of termination of contracts to companies subject...

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22 Mar
Chapter News

Speech by Commissioner Gentiloni at the University of Oxford – Turning point: the implications of Putin’s war for Europe’s economic and political choices

"Check against delivery" Good morning, it is a pleasure and an honour to be with you today, albeit virtually. Let me thank Professor Schleiter for the welcome and Professor Ruggeri for this interesting background, and of course Dr Garavoglia for organising this event. When I first received this invitation, back in December, circumstances were very different. The European economy was on a path of strong growth, supported by the rollout of our unprecedented recovery plan, Next Generation EU - which remains...

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22 Mar
Member News

Troutman Pepper | March: More Privacy, Please

Editor's Note: It may be the shortest month of the year, but February 2022 saw a flurry of privacy — especially biometric — legislation move closer to enactment. Kentucky, California, Maryland, and New York state introduced biometric-focused laws, each largely mirroring Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and each containing a private right of action. Maine, Utah, and Florida introduced comprehensive privacy bills, and Iowa's and Oklahoma's inched closer to enactment by passing committees. On the litigation front, Texas...

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21 Mar
Chapter News

EU restrictive measures in response to the crisis in Ukraine

EU adopts fourth package of sanctions against Russia On 15 March 2022, the EU decided to impose a fourth package of economic and individual sanctions in response to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. The new measures include a prohibition on: ● all transactions with certain state-owned enterprises ● the provision of credit rating services to any Russian person or entity ● new investments in the Russian energy sectorThe Council expanded the list of persons connected to Russia’s defense and industrial base, on whom...

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21 Mar
Member News

Bannockburn | Where We Stand: The Present and the Future of the Dollar

Economists and policymakers generally recognize that growth will be weaker than was anticipated at the end of last year. Price pressures are going to be stronger and last longer than previously projected. The supply shock has been exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the social restrictions in China stemming from Covid. With the major central bank meetings past, the highlight in the week ahead will be the flash PMI readings. The risks are on the downside.   And if those risks...

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21 Mar
Member News

Arendt | Additional EU economic sanctions against Russia and Belarus

On 9 and 15 March 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted new restrictive measures against Russia and Belarus due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. On 9 and 15 March 2022, the Council of the European Union (the “Council”) adopted new restrictive measures against Russia and Belarus due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. These new restrictive measures complement those adopted up until 2 March 2022, which we discussed in a previous newsflash. Restrictive measures against individuals in Russia The...

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18 Mar
Member News

FICPI | Interface Between NFTs and Intellectual Property Law

“Non-Fungible Tokens” (“NFTs”) came on to the scene in 2014 and are a public digital record maintained on a blockchain (digital ledger that stores data) typically associated with a digital file.  Previously, blockchains were typically used in connection with cryptocurrency transactions, but they are now being used for NFTs; the new kid on the block in the cryptocurrency world.  However, NFTs are more like original paintings because they are unique and irreplaceable making NFTs non-fungible, such that an NFT...

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18 Mar
Chapter News

IMF | Pandemic’s E-commerce Surge Proves Less Persistent, More Varied

Spikes in the share of online spending are dissipating overall, but there’s significant variation by industry There’s no doubt that e-commerce helped many navigate the pandemic, from online shopping to curbside pickup to food delivery. But as we slowly emerge from lockdowns and other restrictions, it’s less clear how this shift to digital commerce may evolve across economies and industries. This raises questions about how much digital consumption increased, whether the crisis widened the digital divide or spurred economies with little...

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