The Annual Compliance Conference begins next week and attracts over 6,000 in-house senior legal and compliance professionals from across the world. This leading compliance conference will be held across five weeks from 6 September – 6 October 2022 We will be virtually delivering our cutting-edge insights and guidance on key global compliance, investigations and ethics issues. Our global experts will provide practical insights and analysis on significant developments:• anti-bribery• corruption and economic crime• customs and…
Our popular Annual Compliance Conference, which attracts over 6,000 in-house senior legal and compliance professionals from across the world, will be held across five weeks from 6 September – 6 October 2022. We will be virtually delivering our cutting-edge insights and guidance on key global compliance, investigations and ethics issues. Our global experts will provide practical insights and analysis on significant developments across: anti-briberycorruption and economic crimecustoms and FTAsESG, supply chain and product complianceantitrust and…
On 5 April 2022, the European Commission published new guidance for EU Member States relating to foreign direct investment from Russia and Belarus. The full blog post, “EU Commission publishes Guidance on Foreign Direct Investment from Russia and Belarus” can be found here.
On 4 January 2022, the new UK foreign investment review regime under the National Security and Investment Act (“NSI Act”) came into force, completing the overhaul of the UK’s foreign investment rules and commencing operation of a standalone foreign investment screening regime for the first time in the UK. The new rules require businesses and investors to submit mandatory notifications for certain acquisitions of and investments in companies active in 17 key sectors of the…
Only 8 out of 265 foreign investments notified under the EU Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) Screening Regulation (“Regulation”) have resulted in mitigation measures, according to the first annual report on the Regulation. The Regulation was launched in October 2020 with the aim of improving cooperation between Member States and enabling governments to better monitor FDI in strategic industries, for example critical technology, infrastructure, healthcare and infrastructure (see our previous post on the Regulation here). The…
On 19 October 2021, the EU Commission published its 2022 Work Programme (the “Programme”), which sets out the key goals that the EU Commission hopes to achieve in 2022. Chief amongst these is a desire to make “A Europe Fit for the Digital Age”, with a key proposal to achieve this being a possible “European Chips Act”. In the Programme, the EU Commission has stated that it will publish a proposal for a European Chips…
The EU-US Trade and Technology Council (“TCC”), set up at the June 2021 EU-US Summit, held its first meeting on 29 September 2021 in Pittsburgh, USA. The objectives of the TCC are to “coordinate approaches to key global technology, economic, and trade issues; and to deepen transatlantic trade and economic relations, basing policies on shared democratic values”. The TCC Inaugural Joint Statement (the “Joint Statement”) discusses outcomes in respect of five key areas including export…
On 23 March 2021, the EU opened a public consultation (the “Consultation”) on its plan to introduce a new mechanism to deter and counter potentially coercive actions by non-EU countries which seek to pressure the EU or its member countries into taking or withdrawing particular policy measures, and which impact the economic and geopolitical interests of the EU and its Member States. According to the EU, the new legal instrument will be designed to “empower…
The UK Government has invited comments on a draft Statement which explains how the Secretary of State’s power to call in acquisitions for review will be used. This Consultation closes on 30 August. Baker McKenzie has identified a number of key issues with the draft Statement that merit consideration: The draft Statement provides that acquisitions in areas of the economy which are “closely linked” to the 17 sectors that are subject to mandatory notification could…
In brief On 20 July 2021, the UK Government announced that the National Security and Investment Act will enter into full force on 4 January 2022. To help businesses prepare for commencement of the regime, the Government also published alongside this announcement a series of further guidance notes and materials. The NSI Act creates a new, self-standing UK investment screening regime on national security grounds, comparable to CFIUS in the US. The Act is extremely…