During his presidential campaign, President Biden committed “to build back better in rural America” by “expand broadband, or wireless broadband via 5G, to every American.” Last month, President Biden renewed his focus on “universal broadband” through the announcement of a bipartisan agreement for a large infrastructure bill that highlights broadband connectivity. Between setting the goal and realizing congressional appropriations to implement his “Build Back Better” initiative, federal (and in some situations, state) regulators have also confronted several important broadband infrastructure issues this...

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The European Commission has published a Policy Brief setting out its preliminary views on how to fit the European Green Deal’s sustainability goals into the EU competition rules. Companies keen to be green may be left in limbo by a looming clash with more far-reaching proposals from national competition authorities. More pieces of the antitrust sustainability puzzle will fall into place as soon as the ongoing review of the guidelines on horizontal cooperation is finalised. Never fear – more clarity is (almost) here? The Policy...

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As energy prices soured across the European Union to new record levels in recent months, the European Commission and EU Member States move to tackle the rising costs at the highest political level. Among some critical voices over a correlation between the Commission’s climate ambitions and the rising prices, EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson will present a “toolbox” of measures to respond next week. After both electricity and gas prices reached multi-year records in the past weeks, the debate over...

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Introduction By means of a jurisdiction agreement, the location, subject matter and/or international jurisdiction of a court can be contractually determined in the event of a dispute between the parties. Franchise agreements regularly provide for jurisdiction agreements in favour of the franchisor's registered office. An example of common wording in franchise agreements (in Germany) is: “The parties agree that the Regional Court of the location of the Franchisor’s registered office shall have exclusive jurisdiction for any lawsuit related to or arising...

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Remarks by Gerald Walker, CEO of ING, Americas | Somewhat surprisingly, Climate Week NYC received relatively limited attention in the mainstream media last week.  The event saw the same familiar themes – reiterating the actions that need to be taken to stem the continued negative impact of climate change. But was there more than just the same old? Yes, a little: there were some encouraging movements at the government level – and one very important call to action in the...

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Geneva – Switzerland has once again topped the Global Innovation Index for this year. In so doing, the World Intellectual Property Organization has determined that no coronavirus-related slump has been observed in relation to financing innovation. Switzerland has successfully defended top spot in the Global Innovation Index, further details of which can be found in a press release issued by Wipo, the World Intellectual Property Organization. As was the case in the previous year, the places immediately behind Switzerland are again occupied by Sweden,...

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In this News Update special on FinTech, we discuss the most recent developments in this area, including publications of the European Supervisory Authorities ("ESAs") and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision ("BCBS") on digitalisation and financial technology. We also highlight some other Financial Regulatory publications issued last month. Legislators and supervisors have regulated several new FinTech sectors after an initial relatively laid-back approach of referring to the overall existing framework and its application (e.g. to cloud services). These sectors include...

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Key insights Many organizations are shifting toward a permanent hybrid model for their workforce. Some jobs are better suited to the hybrid model than others. A variety of tools and efforts can help keep remote and in-office workers connected and cohesive. When COVID-19 descended upon the world, organizations were forced to adapt on the fly and find ways for employees to remain productive while working from home. The assumption was once the pandemic ended, things would go back to the...

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Supply chains are becoming increasingly more digital and geographically dispersed. Everything from raw material procurement to finished product delivery is potentially exposed to physical and virtual risk, including single points of failure or vulnerability through manipulation. Any such disruption to supply chains can quickly lead to significant impact on revenues while also risking the loss of sensitive data or intellectual property. The nature of the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry is such that there is a wide spectrum of threat...

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This article is part of Portolano Cavallo’s “INFORM@Digital & IP” Newsletter. Click here to subscribe On July 12, 2021, the European Commission published a Staff Working Document (“SWD”) summarizing the result of the public consultation launched by the Commission on the revision of the 1997 Market Definition Notice (“Notice”). The public consultation was designed to assess whether the Market Definition Notice still serves its purpose in the modern European Union market and how the Notice has performed since its adoption. The consultation...

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