A series of new rules were rolled out on 13 February 2023 which will make the taxation of alcohol, tobacco and energy products fully paperless across the EU. They are part of a wider expansion of the common excise duty provisions in the EU. The aim of this new standardized electronic system is to alleviate some of the rigorous procedures faced by energy suppliers and small producers of alcohol.
This article provides an overview of the German regime for crypto securities and of the recent and future expansion of the scope of the German Act on Electronic Securities, which will allow for more use cases. The eWpG provides a reliable regime for crypto securities. It entered into force in the summer of 2021, but its scope has recently been expanded. Under even more ambitious plans, the German government intends to expand its scope further.
On 28 December 2022, significant amendments to the ordinance on notifications pursuant to Section 2c of the German Banking Act and Section 17 of the German Insurance Supervision Act, the Ownership Control Ordinance went into force.
With a significant delay, the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority has issued detailed rules on the new notification requirement regarding proposed outsourcings introduced in the Financial Market Integrity Strengthening Act, a law passed on 3 June 2021 in reaction to market failures.
Join Baker McKenzie’s Consumer Goods & Retail Industry Group for their events entitled Redefining Luxury & Fashion: What Fits in the Future? scheduled to take place in London on Tuesday, 14 March 2023 and in Paris on Thursday, 16 March 2023.
In its efforts to continue to promote fair tax competition and address harmful tax practices, the European Council decided on 14 February 2023 to add the British Virgin Islands, Russia, Costa Rica and the Marshall Islands to the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes or “blacklist”. Now is the time for multinational enterprises and investment funds with subsidiaries or investors in these jurisdictions to consider the potential tax implications of this development on their structures.
On 23 October 2019, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Directive (EU) 2019/1937 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law, informally referred to as the “EU Whistleblower Directive”.
Belgium has implemented the EU Whistleblower Directive separately for the public and the private sectors, with the Act of 8 December 2022 on reporting channels and protection of whistleblowers in federal public sector bodies and the integrated police, and the Act of 28 November 2022 on the protection of whistleblowers of breaches of Union or national law established within a legal entity in the private sector, published on 15 December 2022, which came into effect on 15 February 2023.
The European Whistleblowing Directive (WBD) was supposed to be implemented by the European Union’s 27 member states by no later than 17th December 2021, impacting employers with operations in those jurisdictions.
This article looks at what those key challenges are and the unique support we can offer in helping global employers harmonize their global approach to managing whistleblowing reports within the prescriptive requirements of the WBD.
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions Blog published the alert titled Ukraine introduces sanctions targeting Russian nuclear industry on 16 February 2023. Read the article via the link here. Please also visit our Sanctions Blog for the most recent updates.
On 30 November 2022, a new law amending the Code of Consumption for the purpose of transposing Directive (EU) 2019/2161 was published in the Luxembourg Official Gazette. The New Law entered into force on 4 December 2022.
The Omnibus Directive amends several existing EU consumer protection legislation, including the Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Price Indications Directive, Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and Consumer Rights Directive and widens the customer rights framework to also cover digital goods, content, and services.