Today's judgment from the European Court of Justice ("ECJ") in the case Commission v CK Telecoms (C-376/20 P) provides insight into how the EU merger control provisions should be assessed in consolidated markets, such as telecommunications. Understanding the judgment may be relevant for consolidation plans in many industries with tendencies towards oligopoly ...
UK REACH (Registration, Authorisation, Evaluation and Restriction of Chemicals) is the UK’s post-Brexit chemicals regulatory framework for the Great Britain (GB) market. It is regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and has the overall aim of ensuring the protection of human health and the environment from the use of chemicals. UK REACH places responsibility for understanding and managing the risks associated with the use of chemicals on those who place them on the market (i.e ...
Michelle Craven-Faulkner, Partner and Rail Sector Lead participated in a roundtable in Birmingham last month hosted by Insider Media Limited, which was focused on the challenges, obstacles and opportunities supply chains face when looking at how manufacturing is adapting and innovating to bring forward the green revolution in transport. Michelle joined a team of experts and leading players from the mobility sector covering rail, automotive and aerospace ...
Shoosmiths’ energy & infrastructure partner Chris Pritchett hosted a panel discussion at the UK Solar Summit, focused on how public and private sector organisations are capitalising on solar carports. Chris joined 350 solar energy professionals at the inaugural event to take stock of the rapid progress the industry is making towards a decarbonised energy system, as well as evaluating the obstacles that are threatening to impede that progress ...
"Leave this to me, I'm British… I know how to queue."{1} The Energy Services Operator (ESO) recently published a consultation which sets out a vision of medium-term reform for connections to (or affecting) the Transmission Network, whether they are directly connected or embedded ...
Figures published in May by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) record a further decline in Trade Union membership in the UK. Comparable data is only available as far back as 1995, but shows a clear decline over that nearly 30-year period to a level where, as at 2022, the proportion of UK workers in a union has declined to 23.1% - the lowest figure recorded in that time period ...
On June 14, 2023, the National Congress approved the bill that creates the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service and the National System of Protected Areas (the "Bill"). The purpose of the Bill is the conservation of biological diversity and the protection of the national natural heritage through the preservation, restoration and sustainable use of genes, species, and ecosystems ...
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its much-anticipated decision in Abitron Austria GmbH, et al. (“Abitron et al.”) v. Hetronic International, Inc. (“Hetronic”) regarding the extraterritorial reach of the Lanham Act, the comprehensive trademark statute in the United States ...
After a rollercoaster of a ride, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill has received Royal Assent and is now an Act of Parliament. From the initial proposal of an all-singing, all-dancing automatic revocation of thousands of retained EU laws by the end of this year, to a more restrained revocation of just under 600 irrelevant or redundant laws, the Bill will not deliver the big bang that it initially promised ...
The FSR addresses such distortions and closes a regulatory gap. Subsidies granted by non-EU governments (so called third states) currently go largely unchecked, while subsidies granted by Member States are subject to scrutiny under EU State aid rules. The FSR includes new tools to effectively tackle foreign subsidies that cause distortions and undermine the level playing field in the internal market ...
As sustainable development and social responsibility are increasingly stressed in the business community, major institutional investors have come to focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, an approach that directs socially responsible investment decisions ...
Over the past few years, the United Arab Emirates has witnessed an increase in awareness and significance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. While businesses in the UAE have begun to acknowledge that conscious efforts towards ESG compliance is imperative for growth and longevity of their business, the question remains whether ESG compliance can truly be said to now form a part of the UAE compliance ecosystem ...
From recovering after a global pandemic to the war in Ukraine, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank to soaring inflation, and supply-chain delays to employee shortages, businesses across all sectors are coming up against a number of operational and liquidity challenges in current market conditions. Despite these challenges, we have seen confidence and resilience across all sectors with investment from seed to IPO ...
“Why don’t I own this?” The words of oil prospector Daniel Plainview to his property advisor, querying the land rights for his oil pipeline to the California coast in the Oscar winning film ‘There Will Be Blood, and a blunt, single sentence reminder of the need for early due diligence on large scale developments ...
The SEC has published its final rule for the modernization of share repurchase disclosures. The final rule will require additional details of an issuer’s share repurchase activity. Unlike the previous requirements for share repurchase reporting, the final rule will require daily repurchase data, reported either quarterly or semi-annually, and eliminates the previous requirement for the publication of an issuer’s repurchase data by month in its 10-Qs and 10-Ks ...
A gym franchisor recently secured a preliminary injunction against its former franchisee prohibiting the franchisee from operating an independent gym on the same location and using the franchisor’s trade secrets. Chris O’Hare, along with his company, (O’Hare), was a former Core Progression gym franchisee ...
What do a squeak toy, whiskey, and dog poop have in common? If you are silently thinking to yourself “absolutely nothing,” it may surprise you to hear that the U.S. Supreme Court has spent months considering this question. On June 8, 2023, in a long-awaited win for trademark owners, SCOTUS ruled that a lower court erred when it issued a decision finding that a dog toy that parodies a famous liquor bottle, was covered by First Amendment free speech protections ...
Throughout the United States and globally there is an undisputed trend towards renewable energy as much of the world seeks to decarbonize in response to the risks of climate change. As the article, “Clean energy investment is now nearly 2x that of fossil fuels – here’s why,” from Electrek notes, as of 2023, for every $1 spent on fossil fuels globally, now more than $1.70 is spent investing in clean energy, a ratio that was 1:1 just five years ago ...
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is at the forefront of everybody’s considerations when looking at property investment, development and management decisions. The Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) sector has always been naturally pre-disposed to considering such ESG issues from the sector’s early days ...
It is broadly accepted that hydrogen has an important part to play in our net zero future -the shape and the extent of that role, however, is widely debated. Low carbon mobility is one of those areas. Most analysis has focussed on the commanding position held by battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in personal mobility, and some of the advantages which hydrogen fuel cells have in heavy duty or return-to-base applications like buses[1], waste vehicles[2] and heavy haulage ...
Monday, May 29, 2023, marked the official end of the 88th regular session of the Texas Legislature. It was an especially active session for the energy industry, which saw the passage of several bills that, if signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott, will have significant and long-term impacts on the oil and gas, renewable energy and power sectors in Texas ...
