Europe had its sights firmly fixed on accelerating away from the pandemic in 2021. Borrowers looked to deliver robust recovery plans to build lender confidence and debt market activity was buoyant, with deal volume in 2021 up 99% on 2020, driven by strong M&A activity. In 2022, the conflict in Ukraine is likely to impact European debt market activity, but the severity of this is not yet clear. ESG continued to become a dominant theme in 2021, with environmental, social...

A Miami-based importer and distributor of frozen seafood received a USD 1.5 million credit facility from Tradewind Finance. With the facility, the company will support its domestic sales growth with large American customers. The seafood importer, which primarily sells octopus, had started diversifying its product offerings by adding frozen tuna and salmon, and it needed a financial partner that could support its increased business other than the self-financing methods it already had in place. The company planned on continuing to...

This article was first published in the Financial Times here and was re-published with the permission of William Rhodes | By William Rhodes and John Lipsky | The writers are co-chairs of the Sovereign Debt Working Group of the Bretton Woods Committee | The economic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be felt most in low-income countries Since late February, the world’s attention has been focused on Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. However, some of the most damaging economic and...

On March 25, 2022, the U.S. and EU announced that they reached a political agreement in principle on a new "Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework" (the Framework). This would be the third framework for EU-U.S. personal data transfers, after the invalidation of the Privacy Shield in 2020 and of its predecessor, the Safe Harbor, in 2015. The new Framework is yet to be set out in legal documents, which will need to be negotiated and adopted. Timing for the adoption...

In the margins of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Brussels last week, he and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a somewhat surprising agreement on a revamped transatlantic data sharing agreement “in principle”. The agreement comes after the European Court of Justice struck down the original 2013 Safe Harbor and 2020 Privacy Shield agreements. The EU’s highest Court repeatedly struck down the transatlantic agreements over concerns that European citizen’s private data would not be safe from the...

The EIB Group joins other EU institutions in denouncing Russia's military invasion of Ukraine. Within days from the invasion the EIB, in cooperation with the European Commission, prepared an emergency solidarity package for Ukraine. The package included €668 million in immediate assistance for the Ukrainian authorities. It was fast-tracked and fully disbursed within a month. The Bank is working on other support measures, including committing an additional €1.3 billion for infrastructure projects. In addition to the €668 million package, the...

On Tuesday, March 29, 2022, USCIS announced an action plan aimed to increase efficiency and reduce burdens to the legal immigration system. USCIS indicated three main goals within this new plan, including: Set new agency-wide backlog reduction goals; Expand premium processing to additional form types; and Work to improve timely access to employment authorization documents (EADs). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resource constraints resulting from the prior administration, USCIS inherited a significant number of pending cases and increased processing...

Citing the “unprecedented surge” in the number of initial public offerings by special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) over the past two years, the SEC has proposed new rules that would require enhanced disclosures and provide additional investor protections in initial public offerings by SPACs and in “de-SPAC” transactions. To date, the SEC has relied on the comment process and staff guidance to shape SPAC-related disclosures in registration statements and proxy statements. The proposed rules would represent the most significant...