The Tokyo Stock Exchange launched Japan’s first exchange-based carbon credit market on 11 October 2023. Registered participants in the market now have a more efficient platform for carbon credit trading in Japan and improved carbon pricing transparency.
Germany is taking further steps with regard to developing a national hydrogen infrastructure. On 19 June 2023, the Federal Government published respective draft legislation that provides for the development of a hydrogen core grid. The Bundesrat (one of the two legislative chambers in Germany representing the German states) issued an essentially positive statement on this draft. The legislation is expected to be adopted soon.
Employee handbooks have recently come to the forefront of employers’ key priorities. Why? The NLRB’s recent decision in Stericycle adopted a retroactive “employee friendly” standard for workplace rules, including those often included in handbooks. In addition, the new year often rings in new laws requiring changes to workplace policies likely to be included in handbooks. And the US Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in higher education has led employers to take a closer look at their inclusion, diversity and equity related policies and statements in employee handbooks.
In first-of-its-kind legislation, under SB 54, California will require venture capital companies to collect and report diversity data from portfolio company founders as soon as 1 March 2025. The new Fair Investment Practices by Investment Advisers law intends to increase transparency regarding the diversity of founding teams receiving venture funds from covered entities in California.
Excerpt: In this article, our lawyers provide an overview of the main trends in the leveraged finance market during a turbulent period, with an M&A backlog and imminent maturities indicating a recovery. They look at changes in borrowing activity, new challenges with new solutions, ESG and digital bonds and consider if a bounce-back is on the horizon.
Demanding macroeconomic and geopolitical factors have led borrowers in the leveraged finance market to pursue alternative arrangements, but our lawyers suggest there are signs of a brighter outlook in the UK. In this article, our lawyers provide a market overview and outlook, explore alternative sources of capital and examine product-specific developments and regulatory reform, and benchmark change in ESG, digital bonds, CMBS maturity wall, Secured Overnight Financing Rate and uptiering transactions.
Baker McKenzie has a long-standing history of participation and involvement in the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP), advising governments, companies and other entities on implementing the Paris Agreement and leading on the development of both international and domestic carbon markets.
The team will be on the ground in Dubai for COP28 and look forward to engaging in ground-breaking discussions with all key stakeholders to share insights and continue to offer cutting-edge advice to our clients. In the meantime, we have prepared a series of primers on what we expect to be some of the key themes for COP28.
Biodiversity is included as Goals 14 and 15 of the Sustainable Development Goals, and its growing significance was emphasized during the special COP on biodiversity, COP15. Many jurisdictions, such as Australia, Japan and the EU, have adopted biodiversity laws to respond to the growing threat of species extinction, habitat loss and ecosystem loss. Thailand has also been working on the same subject, as was included in the most recent Prime Minister’s Statement on National Strategy, and the Ministry of Natural Resource and the Environment has been working on the draft Biodiversity Bill.
The General Environmental Duty requires a person engaging in an activity that may give rise to risks of harm to human health or the environment from pollution or waste to minimize those risks, so far as reasonably practicable (s 25(1) Environment Protection Act 2017 (Vic)).
The proliferation of sustainability-related disclosures is a key trend in the prevailing socio-economic and legislative landscape. Tax – an increasingly important metric in the sustainability agenda – is starting to follow suit. In recent years, global, regional, and domestic measures have emerged with a view to increasing tax transparency, and this trend shows no sign of abating.
In this article, which is part of our ESG & Tax series, we outline the evolving tax transparency landscape and identify some of the key trends for businesses to get to grips with.