Insights

Amidst the noise of the Scottish Parliament’s ongoing inquiry into Alex Salmond and the SNP’s acrimonious Westminster reshuffle, one would be forgiven for having missed the publication of the party’s “Roadmap to a Referendum”. The plan, while not immediately dictating the prospects of success, charts in detail how an SNP Government would force the issue following the…

Senior Associate, Jens Presthus, and Associate, Frederick Michell, join Senior Director, Stephen Adams, to look at internet regulation in China and Russia. They explore how digital companies, both foreign and domestic, could be affected by future regulation and how each country plans to tackle misinformation. Their discussion highlights that the two countries, whilst…

Senior Associates Miranda Lutz and Max von Thun join Senior Director Stephen Adams to analyse what anti-trust law proposals in the US, UK and the EU mean for tech companies operating in each of these respective jurisdictions and question whether reform can truly be meaningful without international collaboration.

Policymakers’ concerns about Big Tech’s market power are nothing new. The European Commission has been launching antitrust investigations against the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple for over a decade. However, efforts to rein in big tech reached a new plateau in 2020, with the EU and the UK publishing detailed proposals for “ex-ante” regulation of large technology…

The great Irish-American politician Tip O’Neill was famous for pointing out that all politics is local. But local politics doesn’t always stay local. The history of Northern Ireland is decades-long proof of that, and that proof is again being applied to the whole UK/EU relationship.

The UK government’s willingness to accept the Financial Conduct Authority’s recommendation to pass new laws to regulate the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) market indicates growing political concern about household finances amid the pandemic, and a willingness to regulate if necessary. Irrespective of how the government decides to regulate, the measures signal a move towards a…

Policy addressing health, climate, and poverty has often occurred in silos. Covid-19 has emphasised the interconnected nature of each of these areas, and particularly in how they relate to food systems. Global Counsel Chairman, Peter Mandelson recently discussed these issues with Special Envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, David Nabarro, where they looked…

Debit Balances in US Securities Margin Accounts ($ in millions)

There is no country in Southeast Asia that has escaped the impact of covid-19 unscathed, although the intensity of the pandemic’s disruption and individual countries’ abilities to adapt have varied significantly. Early government intervention to restrict international travel and the implementation of strict lockdown measures meant that in terms of covid-19 cases,…

Since the UK’s vote to exit the European Union in 2016, the question of UK ‘divergence’ from EU regulation has been central to the debate about the future of the EU-UK relationship.  From different perspectives this has been presented both as a rationale for EU exit and an unfortunate and inevitable consequence of it. It has been a concern bordering on a neurosis for…

Stephen Adams, Lilah Howson-Smith and Alex Dawson discuss GC’s report on how post-Brexit divergence will shape the UK and EU’s policy landscape, and how businesses and investors should engage with the British desire to do things differently outside the EU.

2020 marked a step change in how both corporates and investors consider ESG, driven in large part by policy and regulatory changes. 2021 is set to be a year where ESG will start to have real bite. With greater regulatory and market scrutiny, increased reporting and thus greater data, the bar on what is considered as ‘good’ ESG performance will continue to rise. 

Climate and energy policy will be a dominating feature of Biden’s cabinet. Decision-making will be more systematic but could also be complex given the high seniority of the (at least) seven cabinet members who will be involved in energy policy (all awaiting Senate confirmation except for John Kerry and Gina McCarthy). Former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, as Energy…

This week US President Joe Biden nominated Rohit Chopra, currently a Democratic commissioner with the Federal Trade Commission, as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the lead US consumer-finance regulator, heralding a more activist period for the CFPB following the more business-friendly approach of the Trump era. Kathleen Kraninger, the Trump…

The emergence of fragmented political landscapes has been an increasingly shared phenomena in European capitals in the past decade. The financial crisis was a profound shock for many European traditional centre-left and centre-right parties, which were dropped by the electorates both for their handling of the crisis and its aftermath. In their wake, smaller, often less…

Saudi Arabia and Qatar agreed to settle their dispute at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in al-Ula earlier this month. Despite uncertainty until the last minute, Bahrain, Egypt and the UAE followed the Saudi lead and grudgingly restored land, sea and air transport links with Qatar. Riyadh’s willingness – and in the end eagerness – to end the crisis was prompted…

Earlier this month, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) launched a consultation on the regulation of genetic technologies, prompting speculation that gene editing (GE) in agriculture may, in the coming years, be permitted in the UK. As the UK settles into its newly acquired independence from EU regulation, there is an opportunity for it to…

The Democrats’ historic win in the Georgia Senate races on January 5th was largely overshadowed by the violent storming of the US Capitol the next day. While the implications of that attack will continue to reverberate throughout American politics, it is worth zeroing in on how Georgia Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock’s and Jon Ossoff’s wins impact President-elect…