Key insights Keeping your sensitive data and systems secure is critical to your organization’s success. SOC 2 and HITRUST are two ways to have your organization’s security practices evaluated, and while they have many similarities, there are essential differences to consider. Better understand your risk and bring confidence to those you serve, whether your goal is to obtain a SOC 2 report or HITRUST certification. Data has become the most important asset for many organizations, so sharing that data in...

Times are getting harder for foreign investors in the EU! Member States are tightening their foreign direct investment control regimes (see our alert here), and national competition authorities are calling for more rigorous merger control enforcement (see our alert here). The European Commission (“Commission”) encourages Member States to refer to it non-notifiable transactions, and the proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA) shows the direction of the Commission’s intention to regulate (primarily US-based) gatekeepers in the digital markets (see our alert...

Five years after the European Commission first proposed its framework on public country-by-country reporting (pCBCR) to oblige large multinational companies to publicly disclose where they make their profits and where they pay their taxes, the EU’s co-legislators reached a final agreement on Tuesday evening (1 June). The transparency requirement is set to enter into force in early 2023.  After having been blocked by several countries in the Council since 2016, the current Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU,...

Companies should check their merger information for accuracy, truthfulness and completeness before handing it over to the European Commission: providing incorrect or misleading information can lead to significant fines and even to the merger clearance decision being revoked. Chemicals company Sigma-Aldrich was fined EUR 7.5 million for having provided incorrect or misleading information on three separate occasions during the Commission’s review of its acquisition by Merck. This is the third fine imposed for providing incorrect or misleading merger information since...

Political agreement with the European Parliament on the proposed directive on the disclosure of income tax information by certain undertakings and branches. On 1 June 2021, the Council of the European Union (the “Council”) reached a political agreement with the European Parliament on the proposed directive on the disclosure of income tax information by certain undertakings and branches, commonly referred to as the public country-by-country reporting (“CbCR”) directive. According to the press releases of the Council and of the EU Parliament, the agreed...

Do you want a simple way to keep current on important privacy changes? Avoid sleepless nights wondering whether you missed a privacy speed bump or pothole between annual updates? Worry no longer. Troutman Pepper is pleased to offer More Privacy, Please — a monthly newsletter recapping significant industry and legal developments, as well as trends in the areas of cybersecurity, information governance, and privacy. U.S. LAWS AND REGULATION U.S. Treasury Proposes Cryptocurrency Reporting Requirements. On May 20, the U.S. Department of the...

Poverty reduction and climate action now go hand-in-hand, because low-income countries are among the most vulnerable to global warming and the least able to adapt. An EIB tool for assessing the climate change risks developing countries face helps show where assistance is most needed As the EU climate bank and a major provider of development finance around the world, understanding climate risk is a core part of the EIB’s business. We track the carbon footprint of our projects and target...

This article is part of Portolano Cavallo’s “INFORM@Digital&IP” Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. | The European Union (“EU”) has taken on the ambitious and innovative—as well as delicate—challenge of regulating the use of artificial intelligence (“AI”). The European Commission published recently—on April 21, to be exact—its proposed regulation on a European approach to artificial intelligence (the “AI Regulation” or “Draft”). This is actually the first worldwide attempt to regulate AI at a systematic level and this point has been reached only after...