On 21 October 2021, HM Treasury published its much-anticipated consultation on the regulation of buy-now-pay-later products. The consultation arrives nearly seven months after the Treasury confirmed that it would formally consult on bringing BNPL products into the regulatory perimeter “as a matter of priority”.
In this edition of In the Know, we look at Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards in Sustainability Linked Lending (in both loans and bonds). We address the ESG margin ratchet, how it interacts with ESG targets and testing strategies, and potential reinvestment obligations arising out of those interest savings, in each case, within the European leveraged finance market.
On 1 November 2021, the UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation published an updated Charity Sector Guidance and a blog post in response to Afghanistan’s Taliban takeover in August. A copy of the Guidance is available here.
On 30 October 2021, the president of Ukraine enacted four decisions of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine imposing personal special economic and other restrictive measures. The Decisions impose extensive sanctions restrictions, including, among others, asset freezes, restriction on the exit of capital from Ukraine, a ban on trade operations and the transit of resources, flights and transportation within the territory of Ukraine, and the suspension of the performance of economic and financial obligations, etc., upon legal entities and individuals involved in various activities.
Join us for an international conference at which Baker McKenzie experts will share the most recent developments in the areas of sanctions, export controls, anti-corruption legislation, customs and Russian trade protectionism. The Russia Trade Days event will take place from 7 – 10 December 2021.
On 31 October 2021, the EU and US issued a joint statement announcing that they had reached an agreement to end their dispute over steel and aluminum tariffs. This agreement removes the US “Section 232” tariffs on imports of EU steel and aluminium, imposed during the Trump administration, whilst the EU has agreed to suspend additional duties imposed on US goods in retaliation. Both sides have also agreed to suspend disputes initiated against each other at the WTO in relation to the tariffs.
In November, the United States announced that Ethiopia, Guinea and Mali would be terminated from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (“AGOA”) trade preference program, unless they took urgent action to meet eligibility criteria by 1 January 2022. AGOA eligibility requirements include, among other things, that countries must follow the rule of law and implement economic policies that reduce poverty and combat corruption and bribery. Countries must also protect internationally recognized human and worker rights, and must not engage in activities that undermine national security interests.
Following on from part one of our two-part virtual mini-series “Back in the office: The evolving debate on vaccine mandates, and other Covid-safe measures”, in part two, Stephen Ratcliffe and Richard Cook dissect two particularly thorny issues that employers are currently dealing with in relation to the return to the office: reluctant returners and tensions surrounding vaccinations and the wearing of masks.
In April, Royal Decree-Law 7 of 27 April 2021 was passed. It introduced major amendments to Royal Legislative Decree 1 of 16 November 2007, approving the revised text of the General Consumer and User Protection Act and other supplementary acts, which we analysed in our May newsletter.
Financial crime remains at the top of the regulatory agenda across the globe. As responses to the pandemic stabilise, and following some high-profile global incidents, regulators face renewed pressure to manage financial crime more effectively through robust supervision and enforcement. In the October 2021 edition of the City Library’s Compliance Officer Bulletin, our business crime, regulatory and cybersecurity lawyers explore the latest developments in anti-money laundering and financial crime in a series of articles