On 6 December, the Council of the EU and European Parliament came to a provisional agreement on a proposal to minimise the risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with goods that are either imported or exported to the EU. As such a large consumer and trader of commodities that play a very substantial role in global deforestation, this move by the EU has been warmly welcomed by many. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an area...

Read more

Getting an advanced handle on cybersecurity and the attendant fallout from breaches is important, and failure to do so can be very costly on many levels. Not only do breaches regularly result in an onslaught of litigation, bad press and loss of customers and revenue, but companies often are exposed to fines and penalties by state, federal, and international regulators. Even though cybersecurity is frequently cited as one of the top-of-mind issues in C-suites, it’s easy enough to push...

Read more

There were numerous and wide ranging developments in intellectual property law in 2022, This includes the evolution and commercialisation of the Metaverse and NFT’s attracting significant media attention as a breakthrough development. In this article, we focus on three key case law developments: The decision by the EUIPO Fifth Board of Appeal to permit the well-known vodka brand, Absolut, to successfully register its 3D vodka bottle shape as a trade mark The decision by the EUIPO to refuse to...

Read more

On December 2, 2022, the Department of Commerce (“DOC”) issued affirmative preliminary determinations in antidumping duty (“ADD”) and countervailing duty (“CVD”) circumvention inquiries on solar cells and modules imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (“C/M/T/V”). These decisions cover cells and modules made in C/M/T/V incorporating Chinese-made wafers and other Chinese-made “major components” (“Circumventing Products”).  In the past several years, well over 50% of solar cell/module imports into the United States have consisted of Circumventing Products. This decision, however, does...

Read more

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently published a discussion paper (here) summarizing its preliminary findings on the potential competition impact of Big Tech entry into retail financial services. The FCA is now inviting stakeholder comments on a range of questions focusing on the areas of payments, deposit taking, consumer credit, and insurance. The discussion paper is open to feedback—particularly from industry players such as banks, payments firms, and fintechs—until January 15, 2023. This development signals the increasing regulatory scrutiny that...

Read more

The UK Government is supporting the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill to significantly expand employers’ liability for harassment in the workplace. If it becomes law, the bill would mean employers could be liable for harassment of employees by third parties, such as customers and clients. Secondly, it would place a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment of employees. Liability for harassment of employee by third parties If enacted as it is currently drafted, an employee who is...

Read more

Key takeaways APAC countries continue to rank highly as locations of production, particularly due to the abundant supply of low cost of labour: of the top 12 locations, half are in APAC. Many of the countries that have slipped in the rankings compared with 2021 have done so due to increased costs (particularly for labour and electricity) and increased risk (economic, political and natural disaster); a number of these countries are in Europe where the war in Ukraine has...

Read more

In this week’s Roar: the latest on COVID and China, Maersk’s view on the ocean markets, a stumble by blockchain in the supply chain, resolution preventing a US rail strike (and one side is NOT happy), and the lasting impact of the UK port strikes. It’s been a tough week for China, and while there may be some very good news on the horizon, it seems it may be too late to avert the damage done by their zero-COVID policies....

Read more

This week, the European Commission adopted a proposal for the first EU-wide carbon removal certification scheme. With this proposal, the Commission hopes to “boost innovative carbon removal technologies and sustainable carbon farming solutions, and contribute to the EU’s climate, environmental and zero pollution goals”. As already acknowledged by the Commission and as we all know, reaching climate neutrality by mid-century will require us to use both natural ecosystems and industrial methods. Natural carbon removal takes place constantly all around us. Natural...

Read more

In this News Update, we discuss the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU on the AMLD provision on UBOS; DNB's study on the evolution of crypto-assets and the regulatory response; DNB's study on insurers in a changing world; and EIOPA's staff paper comparing recovery and resolution frameworks for banks and insurers. We further highlight some other financial regulatory publications issued since our last News Update. Court of Justice of the EU | Judgment on AMLD provision on accessibility...

Read more