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We are very proud to continue to be the Contributing Editor of the recently published International Comparative Legal Guide (ICLG) to Derivatives 2022.

On 31 May 2022, the Government published its Response to the March 2021 consultation on Restoring trust in audit and corporate governance.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has recently published its response to the consultation on data protection reform (which we previously wrote about here). For those disappointed by the lack of detail in the Queen's Speech on the Data Reform Bill, this response provides a clearer picture of UK data protection reforms to come – which measures the UK Government is taking forward, which it is dropping and which it needs to consider further. For the detail, we'll need to wait for the text of the draft Bill itself.

The European Council has issued its general approach (General Approach) on the European Commission's proposals to amend the existing Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD II). 

The two-pillar corporate tax reform plan forms part of the OECD's project tackling base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS). Whilst Pillar One – which aims to align taxing rights more closely with the location of customers – will only apply initially to MNEs with annual global turnover above €20bn, Pillar Two is expected to have a wider impact on businesses.

In this podcast, Senior Associates, Sarah Roman and Michelle Carnegie, from the Travers Smith Tax team provide an introduction to base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) and the measures being taken to reform international taxation rules, with a particular focus on the new Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) rules.

The use by GPs and LPs of the secondaries market is now an accepted tool for active portfolio fund management and for the last few years, has been the fastest growing section of the private equity industry. 

Share plan annual returns for the 2021/22 tax year need to be filed online by 6 July 2022 in respect of all your share incentive arrangements to avoid penalties (an initial penalty of £100 will be due if a return is just one day late).

Last month, the UK Government set out its legislative programme for this Parliament in the Queen's Speech. In this briefing, we look at some of the proposals relevant to business which have had less media attention.

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has recommended legislating to impose a positive obligation on consumer-facing businesses to disclose information about the environmental impact of their products. It has also recommended changes designed to make it easier to enforce consumer law against companies making misleading environmental claims, to allow orders to be made requiring businesses to make redress payments for environmental harm and to increase supply chain transparency.

Welcome to the first episode in our Spotlight on ESG video series. 

On 31 May 2022, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published a supervisory briefing (the Supervisory Briefing) addressed to EU national competent authorities (regulators) to promote "common supervisory practices" on the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and other pieces of EU legislation concerning financial sustainability. This was closely followed on 2 June 2022 by a publication of the European Supervisory Authorities – one of which is ESMA - (ESAs) which sets out clarifications (the ESA Clarifications) on the draft regulatory technical standards (RTS) under SFDR.

On 15 March 2022, the UK's new Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act (the "ECA") received Royal Assent. The legislation contained a number of important provisions, including the introduction of a new 'Register of Overseas Entities' and reforms to unexplained wealth orders.

On 7 June 2022, HM Treasury issued its Response (Response) to its consultation in July 2021 on a Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SMCR) for financial market infrastructures (FMIs).

On 26 May, the FCA published a discussion paper setting out its response to feedback received regarding the structure of the UK listing regime. The feedback was in response to the FCA's Primary Markets Effectiveness Review.

Welcome to the seventh edition of our quarterly disputes newsletter, which covers key developments in the dispute resolution world over the last three months or so.

The ICO's recent fine of over £7.5m issued against Clearview AI Inc (Clearview) for using images of UK citizens scraped from the internet as part of Clearview's global online database is one of the largest that the ICO has issued to date. But it is considerably less than the £17m fine announced by the ICO in its provisional decision in November 2021.

Glencore has indicated that it will plead guilty to seven counts of bribery in connection with its oil operations in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and South Sudan. The Serious Fraud Office opened its investigation into Glencore's activities in 2019 and alleges that the commodities giant approved the payment of over $25m in bribes for preferential access to oil.