<p>Filter Knowledge</p>

Hot on the heels of HM Treasury's consultation on the prospectus regime, on 5 July the FCA published a consultation on the effectiveness of the primary markets. The consultation firstly looks at ways of improving the efficiency of the listing regime and secondly proposes targeted changes to remove barriers to listing.  The FCA seeks to address, and build upon, the proposals of the Kalifa Review of UK FinTech  and Lord Hill's UK Listing Review.

Welcome to the first in our series of podcasts focusing on international employment law. 

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has hinted that new sustainability reporting requirements are on the horizon for pension schemes, financial services firms and their investment products.

On 16 June, the UK Government announced that the existing moratorium on landlords exercising forfeiture for non-payment of rents would be extended to March 2022. At the same time, they announced an extension to the end of September 2021 of the current restriction against the use of statutory demands and/or winding up petitions in respect of arrears of rent, unless those arrears were not as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On 24 June 2021, the UK's Climate Change Committee ('CCC') delivered a report on the UK's progress in reducing emissions and adapting to climate change. This report followed the CCC's damning climate risk report (read our briefing here) just a week earlier.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

Among a number of tech sector related proposals announced in the recent Queen's Speech, were the Government's plans, 'as soon as parliamentary time would allow' to legislate to create a legal obligation of 'security by design' in respect of consumer Internet of Things connected devices ("Consumer Connected Devices"). In this briefing we take a look at what sort of devices and who the proposed legislation will apply to, and what will be required to comply.

In February, the Government announced a package of measures intended to resolve the problem of unsafe cladding on high-rise residential buildings.  

The TCFD Roadmap unfolds

On 16 June 2021, the UK Committee on Climate Change ('CCC') issued its third report on the state of the UK's preparedness for the risks and opportunities of climate change impacts. "Climate change adaptation", changes that allow us to prepare for and live with the inevitable impacts of climate change, is recognised as, in some respects, as important as climate change mitigation, or actions to reduce the scale and speed of climate change itself.

It is no longer news by now that after 35 years as a mainstay of the financial markets, LIBOR is to be discontinued, with the majority of tenors and currencies scheduled to be published for the last time on 31 December 2021.

In addition to COVID-19, climate change was one of the headline issues at the G7 summit in Cornwall over the weekend of 11-13 June 2021. The leaders of some of the world's richest nations, whose average carbon footprint per person is thought to be double the global average (triple for the US and Canada), made several climate-focused pledges, but critics claim that the detail of how to achieve them, and the finance needed to do so, were both missing.

The government is consulting on the design of a new tax, on residential property developers to help fund the removal of unsafe cladding following the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. The idea is to raise at least £2bn over a decade.

UK counterparties to derivatives transactions should note that there is an upcoming filing deadline under UK EMIR.

The European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) sets out the requirements for the central clearing of standardised OTC derivatives, the exchange of collateral, post-trade reporting to trade repositories and risk mitigation procedures for non-cleared derivatives. The requirements apply to many stakeholders in the OTC derivatives market in the EU and, prior to Brexit and the expiry of the Brexit transition period, applied to stakeholders in the UK.

Here you will find our series of bite-size guides to derivatives, directed at trustees alone.

Trustees are generally given wide powers of investment in the scheme rules, often expressed to afford trustees the same powers to invest scheme assets as though such assets were owned by the trustees themselves (with certain restrictions, either in the scheme rules or in legislation).