The 17 December 2021 deadline for EU Member States to implement the EU Whistleblowing Directive into national laws is fast approaching. Private sector organisations in the European Union with 250 or more workers (and certain public authorities) will be required to comply with the new laws from that date, though those with 50-249 workers have until 17 December 2023 to do so. Importantly, the 50-worker minimum limit is removed for financial services firms and the UK is not required to introduce...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...