10 Sep
Brexit News

Statement by Michel Barnier following Round 8 of negotiations for a new partnership between the European Union and the United Kingdom

London, September 10 | By Michel Barnier The eighth round of negotiations on the future EU-UK partnership took place in London this week. The EU remains committed to an ambitious future partnership with the UK. This would clearly be to the benefit of both sides. Nobody should underestimate the practical, economic and social consequences of a “no deal” scenario. In order to maximise the chances of a deal, the EU has shown flexibility to work around the UK's red lines and find solutions...

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10 Sep
Member News

Portolano Cavallo | Life Sciences M&A Trends: Earnout Clauses, General Outlook, and a Few Drafting Tips

Earnout payments are a common and widely used tool for pricing targets operating in the life sciences, although there are various nuances depending on the specific sub-sector (biotech, pharma, med-tech, and so on). Indeed, earnouts can be a powerful mechanism in an industry where the evaluation of a target can be quite complex due to things like long R&D phases, clinical trials, and market access to products, especially in the biotech and pharma sectors, with all the connected risks....

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10 Sep
Member News

Thompson Hine | Treasury Issues Guidance on Potential Payroll Tax Deferral

During negotiations earlier this year between the White House and Congress over a potential third round of COVID-19 relief legislation, the idea of a Social Security payroll tax holiday was raised as a possible means to provide relief to American workers. A payroll tax holiday would consist of a temporary reduction or elimination of the employee’s share of the Social Security tax (which currently equals 6.2% of an employee’s 2020 wages up to the Social Security wage base of...

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10 Sep
Member News

Vulcan Insight | European Parliament draws red lines on EU budget negotiations

Returning from the COVID-19 summer recess, EU legislators face a number of pressing matters in the coming weeks and months – how to finance the EU’s economic recovery, the green and digital transformations, the many legislative files that have fallen by the wayside due to COVID-19 and now a new Commissioner hearing, the European Parliament decided to focus efforts on trying to find inter-institutional agreement on the Next Generation EU 7-year budget and Recovery Fund. On 16 September, European Commission...

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10 Sep
Chapter News

VAT Gap: EU countries lost €140 billion in VAT revenues in 2018, with a potential increase in 2020 due to coronavirus

EU countries lost an estimated €140 billion in Value-Added Tax (VAT) revenues in 2018, according to a new report released by the European Commission today. Though still extremely high, the overall ‘VAT Gap' – or the difference between expected revenues in EU Member States and the revenues actually collected – has improved marginally in recent years. However, figures for 2020 forecast a reversal of this trend, with a potential loss of €164 billion in 2020 due to the effects of...

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10 Sep
Chapter News, COVID-19 News

Disinformation: EU assesses the Code of Practice and publishes platform reports on coronavirus related disinformation

Today, the Commission presents the assessment of the implementation and effectiveness of the Code of Practice on Disinformation. The assessment shows that the Code has proven a very valuable instrument, the first one of its kind worldwide, and has provided a framework for a structured dialogue between relevant stakeholders to ensure greater transparency of platforms' policies against disinformation within the EU. At the same time, the assessment highlights certain shortcomings mainly due to the Code's self-regulatory nature. Věra Jourová, Vice President for Values and...

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10 Sep
Member News

BBGFX | ECB and Beyond

Overview: A strong recovery in US stocks, a softer dollar, and higher gold and oil prices may signal the end of the brief though dramatic correction, but the market is in a bit of a holding pattern ahead of the ECB meeting.  Most of the major equity markets in the Asia Pacific region stabilized, except for Hong Kong and China.  Indonesia's plan to reimpose social distancing protocols saw the Jakarta Composite slump 5% before circuit breakers kicked in.  European...

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10 Sep
Chapter News

ECB | Monetary policy decisions

At today’s meeting the Governing Council of the ECB took the following monetary policy decisions: (1) The interest rate on the main refinancing operations and the interest rates on the marginal lending facility and the deposit facility will remain unchanged at 0.00%, 0.25% and -0.50% respectively. The Governing Council expects the key ECB interest rates to remain at their present or lower levels until it has seen the inflation outlook robustly converge to a level sufficiently close to, but below,...

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09 Sep
Chapter News

Investors see lower net returns form potential closet index funds

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator, today publishes a Working Paper on Closet Indexing Indicators and Investor Outcomes.  The study finds that investors can expect lower net returns from closet indexers than from a genuinely actively managed fund portfolio. A summary of this study was also included in the Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities report published on 2 September. Closet indexing refers to the situation in which asset managers claim to manage their funds in an active manner while...

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09 Sep
Chapter News

EU Commission unveils its first Strategic Foresight Report: charting the course towards a more resilient Europe

Today, the European Commission adopted its first-ever Strategic Foresight Report, aiming to identify emerging challenges and opportunities to better steer the European Union's strategic choices. Strategic foresight will inform major policy initiatives. It will support the Commission in designing future-proof policies and legislation that serves both the current needs and longer-term aspirations of European citizens. The 2020 Report presents the rationale for using foresight in EU policy-making, and introduces a comprehensive concept of EU resilience. European Commission President Ursula von der...

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