In brief What happened? The European Commission has published a Tax Omnibus proposal that would amend six EU direct tax Directives: the Interest and Royalties Directive (2003/49/EC), the Merger Directive (2009/133/EC), the Parent-Subsidiary Directive (2011/96/EU), the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD) (2016/1164), the Dispute Resolution Mechanisms Directive (2017/1852), and the FASTER Directive (2025/50). The package is intended to simplify the EU direct tax framework, reduce compliance burdens, improve legal certainty, and support EU competitiveness. According to the Commission’s impact assessment, it could...

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On 3 June 2026, the EU Commission published a proposal for a regulation establishing a framework of measures for strengthening Europe's cloud and AI ecosystem: the Cloud and AI Development Act, or "CADA". The proposal aims at providing legal instruments for the EU and the Member States to commit to actions to improve the competitiveness of the EU ecosystem in relation to AI, cloud systems, and data centres, whilst also furthering the digital sovereignty of the EU. How does this...

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In a recent TreppTalk blog, we looked at how five-year conduit loans moved from a niche execution to the dominant format for much of the CMBS conduit market. That shift is easier to see when viewed from the other side of the market: the retreat of the traditional 10-year conduit loan. For much of the last CMBS cycle, 10-year conduit lending was the standard template. It offered borrowers longer-term fixed-rate financing and gave bond investors a familiar structure around which...

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Operators, investors and advisers are contending with legal and regulatory uncertainty as data centre demand rises At a glance Large-scale data centres can now seek consent as nationally significant infrastructure, opening a new planning route in England. Grid access remains a significant constraint for AI Growth Zones in the UK, with a circular eligibility problem yet to be resolved. AI copyright disputes and tightening cyber resilience rules are creating new contractual and regulatory risk for operators across Europe. Data centre capacity...

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The composite PMI increased from 48.5 to 49.5 in June. This still marks sluggish economic activity for the bloc, but the easing of price pressures indicated by the survey is encouraging. The combination of sluggish growth and fading inflation concerns marks a dovish reading for the ECB Despite most survey responses coming in before the Middle East deal was signed, the PMI had already ticked up a bit. But the increase to 49.5 would still indicate slightly declining activity according...

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