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Welcome to the second in our series of short webinars looking at the key employment law developments in the pipeline for 2021.

In the face of mounting pressure, the government, on 10 February, announced a 5 point plan for investment in building safety, with a further £3.5 billion earmarked for the removal of unsafe cladding.

^{As we reported in December, the UK Government has recently published the National Security and Investment Bill ("the NSI Bill") – draft legislation designed to strengthen its powers to scrutinise transactions on grounds of national security.}

The NSI Bill will broaden the range of investments which can be reviewed by the UK government, and introduce a statutory requirement for parties to notify transactions in the most sensitive areas of the economy. Alongside a mandatory notification requirement, the government will also have a more extensive "call-in" power to enable it to assess deals which may give rise to national security risks.  

Deal-makers on cross-border transactions now need to think about UK merger control more often. Save for in a small number of cases formally initiated by the European Commission before the end of 2020, the UK Competition and Markets Authority ("CMA") is now unshackled from the "one-stop shop" of the EU merger control regime, able to pursue its own merger control investigations into international transactions in parallel with those of other authorities. 

Welcome to our series of short webinars looking at the key employment law developments in the pipeline for 2021.

Welcome to our series of short webinars looking at the key employment law developments in the pipeline for 2021.

In the years leading up to Brexit, both the UK and the EU 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.

The story behind the headline...

Since the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020, there have been numerous reports of businesses struggling to deliver goods and even halting deliveries to customers in Northern Ireland. Why is Northern Ireland in this difficult position despite remaining a part of the UK following Brexit? Laura Hodgson, Knowledge Counsel, discusses the newly in force Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed as part of the Withdrawal Agreement in 2019, and the VAT and custom duty charges on goods entering Northern Ireland from other parts of the UK.

^{Clarification has recently been given by the High Court in Pallett v MGN Ltd [2021] EWHC 76, on the operation of the Part 36 regime in the context of an attempt by a defendant to avoid the usual costs consequences of accepting a claimant’s offer.} 

Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR) aims to encourage parties to try to settle their disputes and sets out the costs consequences of offers to settle made in accordance with Part 36. If a party fails to accept a realistic offer made by the other side, there is a risk of penalised costs and interest at the end of the case.

The story behind the headline...

Throughout January, papers and media websites were full of stories about people being asked to pay large and unexpected tax and custom duties charges on the arrival of goods from the EU. So, what is this so-called Brexit tax and why is it being charged when the UK and EU have agreed a zero tariff Brexit deal?

The Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed by the UK and EU in December 2020 contains a number of provisions which may constrain the UK's scope to make changes to employment law. In practice, how significant could these constraints prove to be?

BNP Paribas, the largest bank in France, has announced today that it will no longer finance firms who produce, or buy, beef or soybeans from land in the Amazon that was cleared or converted after 2008 (and will encourage its clients not to produce or buy beef or soybeans from cleared or converted land in the Cerrado after 1 January 2020).

The sustainability agenda is inevitably resulting in a wave of new regulation for alternative asset managers as well as the wider business community, a trend which looks set to continue in the coming years.

Raising tax and the Triple Lock

With recent press reports that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is going to stick with the Conservative manifesto 'triple lock' pledge you may be wondering how he might raise tax at next month's Budget without actually raising tax rates.

Travel restrictions and other measures imposed or recommended by governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (COVID-related restrictions) have now been in place in the UK and elsewhere for much longer than was perhaps envisaged in early 2020.

In November 2020 the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) has published a report reviewing capital gains tax which included the following recommendations:

A regular briefing for the alternative asset management industry. 

The draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) to supplement the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) have been issued by the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) and are available here .

The scope and application of the AIFMD portfolio company provisions - including the "anti-asset stripping rules" – have changed significantly as a result of Brexit. This briefing highlights how these changes may affect your firm.

Updated 2 September 2021