With the help of our members, this thought-leadership series explores the acceleration of "digitalization" due to COVID-19 on both sides of the Atlantic, and across various industries. In an increasingly digital world, the need for instant, automatic information is at an all-time high. Accounting and financial reporting processes are no exception. While the automation of accounting services and financial reporting can streamline and optimize business operations, it can also present legal challenges that businesses need to be aware of. Amesto...

Laura Winston focuses her law practice primarily on trademarks, copyrights, and the internet, representing a broad range of domestic and international clients from individual business owners and small startup ventures to established Fortune 500 and publicly traded companies. Ms. Winston's experience covers various industries, including pharmaceuticals and medical devices, gaming software and hardware, alternative energy, travel and transportation, and others. Laura represents clients in the US and internationally, from New York to New Zealand. Laura advises clients as Emerging technologies and...

The European Commission continues to take rapid steps towards ending its vulnerable overreliance on Russian energy imports, particularly regarding gas. Following on the heels of the Commission’s REPowerEU Communication and the Versailles Declaration, the Commission this week proposed new measures for joint EU purchases of gas and minimum storage quotas. The aim, according to Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson, is to provide “swift action to ensure our energy supply for next winter, and to alleviate the pressure of high energy bills on...

After the various measures taken by countries, international organizations and companies to pressure Russia to stop its aggression against Ukraine, it is now the turn of the antitrust enforcers of the European Competition Network (ECN) to make their contribution. They did so by publishing a joint statement on 22 March, in which they indicated that they would be pragmatic, if not flexible, in assessing the behaviour adopted by companies in response to the severe difficulties encountered in connection with the war....

Are antitrust concerns a built-in feature of the Metaverse? In two popular science-fiction novels, Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, the Metaverse is run by single companies, or "monopolists," as antitrust lawyers might put it.1 In Ready Player One, a company called IOI even tries to get control of the monopoly to impose monthly fees on users and introduce advertising. Real-life antitrust regulators, sensitized by a perceived accumulation of market power in today's online world,...

On March 21, 2022, the SEC released its long-awaited climate disclosure proposal, which is modeled, in part, on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework. Among other things, the proposed rules would require a company to disclose in its annual report on Form 10-K information regarding: • Climate-related risks; • Direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1 emissions), indirect GHG emissions resulting from purchased energy (Scope 2 emissions), and, if material or if the company has set a target...

The ECJ ruling in Bank Melli Iran v Telekom Deutschland GmbH (C-124/20) Background After receiving Advocate General Hogan’s Opinion in May 2021, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) handed down its highly anticipated ruling in the Bank Melli Iran case (C-124/20) on 21 December 2021. The Court of Justice was faced with the difficult question of whether companies are permitted, in response to impending US secondary sanctions, to give regular notice of termination of contracts to companies subject...

Editor's Note: It may be the shortest month of the year, but February 2022 saw a flurry of privacy — especially biometric — legislation move closer to enactment. Kentucky, California, Maryland, and New York state introduced biometric-focused laws, each largely mirroring Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) and each containing a private right of action. Maine, Utah, and Florida introduced comprehensive privacy bills, and Iowa's and Oklahoma's inched closer to enactment by passing committees. On the litigation front, Texas...