In this week’s Roar: Stagnant ocean rates, air demand staying strong, the Port of Baltimore closure, a new reality for the Port of Hong Kong, and the importance of data quality. Despite the worsening conditions on the Red Sea, spot rates aren’t rising. Geopolitical tensions have increased, with Russian warships entering the area and the continuing attacks on commercial vessels in the region by the Houthis. Shipping lines still have enough capacity to reroute around Africa, which is holding spot...

Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its selection for $20 billion in grant awards under two competitions within the historic $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), which was created under the Inflation Reduction Act. The EPA chose three nonprofits under the National Clean Investment Fund and five nonprofits under the Clean Communities Investment Accelerator to create a national clean financing network. Agreement to prioritize climate goals Collectively, the nonprofits have committed to help make significant impact toward the Biden-Harris administration’s climate goals. The eight...

Read more

On April 4, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued an order (the Order) implementing a stay of its final climate-related disclosure rules1 adopted on March 6, 2024 (the Final Rules). For more information on the Final Rules, please see our previous client alert. Following adoption of the Final Rules, several legal challenges emerged asserting, in most cases, that the Final Rules were too far reaching and, in other cases, did not reach far enough. The legal challenges to the Final Rules...

Read more

In this month's episode of the TAG Infrastructure Talks, host Alan Poole sits down with Kerri Stewart, chief strategy officer of Miller Electric, to discuss the challenges and opportunities in the electronic vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure sector. They cover charger compatibility and availability, the impact of aging infrastructure, and initiatives aimed at addressing these problems. This episode also highlights available funding to enhance EV charging infrastructure, and the competition between private companies and utilities in this market.   You can listen to...

Read more

As we highlighted in our last quarterly Fintech update in 2023, a new regulatory framework under the Retail Payments Activities Act (RPAA) will soon affect all retail payment service providers (PSPs) doing business in Canada. PSPs will be able to register with the Bank of Canada from November 1 to 15, 2024, with compliance obligations to take effect in 2025. The Bank of Canada recently released draft supervisory guidelines to help PSPs understand those compliance obligations (copies of which can be found on the Bank of...

Read more

The focus is squarely on the US employment report. At the risk of oversimplifying, given the position adjustment in the past 48 hours, a solid report can see the greenback recover, while a disappointing report will likely see it deepen the correction of the rally that began with the February jobs report. The dollar recovered in the North American afternoon yesterday and many observers attributed it to the bevy of Fed comments. Yet, the interest rate market saw little...

Read more

In our current constrained market with high interest rates, financial institutions are looking for new revenue streams and for ways to speed up operations and cut costs. A blockchain-based technology, tokenization, can help deliver value in these areas, right now. Tokenization lets you digitally represent asset ownership for any tangible or intangible asset — stocks or bonds, cash or cryptocurrency, data sets or loyalty points — on a blockchain. Once your asset is represented by a token, you can quickly...

Read more

The first comprehensive AI regulation in the world aims for strong protection against harmful impacts. What does that mean? 1. Context After much anticipation, the EU Parliament formally adopted the final version of the proposal for an EU regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (AI Act) on 13 March 2024. The text is still subject to a final lawyer-linguist check and needs to be formally endorsed by the Council of the EU. Initially proposed by the EU Commission in...

Read more

Sika has acquired Kwik Bond Polymers, LLC (KBP), a manufacturer of polymer systems for the refurbishment of concrete infrastructure. For over 30 years, KBP has focused on the refurbishment of bridge decks and has established an impressive track record in signature projects across the USA. The business perfectly complements Sika’s high value-added systems for refurbishment of concrete structures. KBP has a proven product offering that includes polymer technologies providing long-lasting protection of bridge decks and other concrete infrastructure applications. By increasing the...

Read more