On November 1, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG), along with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, issued a “Report on Stablecoins” (Report) that provided background on stablecoins, identified regulatory gaps related to such digital assets, and offered recommendations for addressing those gaps. After outlining the risks and deficiencies in the current regulatory landscape as it relates to stablecoins, the Report recommended that Congress enact legislation requiring that stablecoins...

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Lugano/Washington – The American company DG Fuels and Energy Vault from Lugano in the canton of Ticino are working together. DG Fuels will use Energy Vault’s gravity energy storage solution to produce sustainable aviation fuel. DG Fuels is building a system to manufacture synthetic aviation fuels with no CO2 emissions. The American company uses water electrolysis and biomass-derived carbon replacement fuel for this. Now, according to a press release, it has also decided to use an innovative energy storage technology...

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On October 27, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a final rule that updates the Safeguards Rule of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Final Rule). This Final Rule comes after the FTC sought comment on proposed changes to the Safeguards Rule in 2019 and held a public workshop in 2020. The Safeguards Rule applies to non-banking financial institutions, including certain financial technology companies, that are engaged in financial activities. The Final Rule makes significant updates to the original Safeguards Rule promulgated in 2003,...

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There were 348 plastics industry M&A transactions through the first nine months of 2021, a 31% year-over-year (YOY) increase. Plastics M&A has rebounded significantly since the Q2 2020 trough, with Q3 2021 achieving the highest level of quarterly deal activity since early 2019. M&A activity by private equity firms (both selling and buying) has increased significantly in 2021, accounting for most of the incremental volume for the year. Positive momentum is expected to continue for the rest of the...

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Starting January 1, 2022, the United States Patent & Trademark Office (“USPTO”) will begin requiring that certain patent applications be filed electronically in “DOCX” format to increase efficiency and accuracy during the examination process. At the same time, the USPTO will begin assessing a surcharge of up to $400 for electronically filing these patent applications in PDF format.  This surcharge is designed to encourage applicants to file using the DOCX format supported by Microsoft Word 2007 and higher, Google...

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It isn’t overly difficult to calculate the costs of sourcing, hiring, and training a new employee. These are all tangible, recordable costs that can be easily tracked. But what happens if you fail to fill that position in a timely manner? The losses to the company may appear in a variety of ways, but it can be far more difficult to ascribe a dollar value to them. These “empty desk” costs can add up to cost your organization significant...

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President Biden has announced that the current COVID-19 travel bans impacting visitors to the United States will end on Monday, November 8, 2021. This current presidential proclamation will eliminate the travel restrictions set forth in the previous presidential proclamations from 2020 and 2021 as they relate to the suspension of entry into the United States of persons physically present in Brazil, China, India, Iran, Ireland, the Schengen Area, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. In place of these restrictions,...

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Despite the delay to level II announced by the European Commission ("EC") at the beginning of the summer 2021, the last few months have been busy for sustainable finance! The market was given plenty of valuable information on the direction of travel of the EU sustainable finance agenda – from the EC’s announcement of the Renewed Sustainable Finance Strategy on 6 July 2021, to its answers later that same month to the Q&A raised earlier this year by the ESAs...

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The long-running tension between the European Union and Poland over judicial reforms and the independence of the judiciary in the central European country took a fresh turn this week. As requested by the European Commission on 7 September, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) this week moved to take the unprecedented step and ordered Poland to pay €1million per day in fines until it responded and implemented the CJEU’s July ruling on the subject. The fine is the highest...

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