Earlier this month, the UK's first so-called "direct listing" of a technology company was announced: London-based money transfer Fintech company Wise intends to go public on the LSE's main market without the traditional route of an IPO process. Although the US has seen direct listings of some high profile companies such as Spotify and Slack, this is a significant move for the UK, whose government has been trying to make its markets more attractive for fast-growing tech businesses.

Many contracts contain requirements for goods or services to meet certain levels of quality – but it's not always easy to define in precise, easily measurable terms. In this briefing, we look at the lessons that can be drawn from a recent dispute over whether the quality of furniture provided for a hotel was suitable for its upmarket status.

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

Summary

• The New EU SCCs will come into force on 27 June 2021 and data exporters subject to GDPR will have until 27 December 2022 to transition their existing arrangements to the new clauses.
  
  
• They are modular in approach and cover the following scenarios: C to C; C to P; P to P; P to C, with some general clauses applying to all the scenarios, and some tailored to each scenario.
  
  
• They will require the parties to carry out a Schrems II-style transfer impact assessment in respect of the local laws and practices of the destination country, but there is some flexibility for the parties to use their judgement based on the nature of the data transfer and their practical experience.
  
  
• They will increase the compliance and accountability burden, GDPR-style, on data importers which previously might not have been used to such measures.
  
  
• The new clauses are an improvement in some ways (particularly in terms of providing specifically for P-P transfers (a major gap in the old clauses)) and by incorporating Article 28 wording such that, when using the C-P module, the parties do not also have to enter into an Article 28-style DPA. However, the new SCCs do not improve the current duty on data exporters to consider where local laws may impact on the importer's ability to comply with the contract and the rather impossible obligation to then take some sort of corresponding action to address that.

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.

In the second of a series of articles looking at how Brexit is working out for the UK, we discuss tariff reductions that took effect on 1 January 2021. Which sectors benefit, what will be the wider impact and what more could be done?

The UK Government has announced a further extension to certain protective measures for businesses which are currently in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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 synergies between competition law compliance and data protection compliance are becoming more pronounced, even more so since the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently set out their blueprint for co-operation in digital markets.

Share plan annual returns for the 2020/21 tax year need to be filed by 6 July.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

Earlier this week, the government published a consultation on a new power to enable the National Security Council to block UK public listings on national security grounds. This follows concerns first highlighted in its 2019 Economic Crime Plan that there are remote but possible scenarios in which a company listing in the UK could present a risk to the nation’s security; the subsequent Hill review and the further announcement that the government intended to bring forward this precautionary power (please see the timeline below for further details). It is intended that the new power will sit alongside existing protections and safeguards in place in the UK under the anti-money laundering and sanction framework.

This weekend the G7 finance ministers announced an agreed position on significant reforms to global taxation.

Following the launch in November 2020 of its investigation into potentially misleading environmental claims targeting consumers, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published draft consumer protection law guidance aimed at all businesses making such claims.

In the years leading up to Brexit, both the UK and the European Union had been busy developing sustainability policy and legislation. Now the UK has left the EU, it remains committed to being at the forefront of the sustainable finance agenda.