Insights

Global Counsel has supported the UK Food and Drink Federation (FDF) in producing a new flagship trade and investment strategy for the UK’s food and drink sector. As the UK sets out a broad new trade policy outside the EU and seeks new and updated free trade agreements, it needs a refreshed trade policy for the sector that addresses imports and exports, sustainability and…

If the UK is genuinely committed to being a leading global financial services centre then it is going to need to expand the public policy bandwidth and regulatory capacity available to manage a rapidly changing and innovative ecosystem.  

UK foreign secretary Liz Truss has declared that nothing is off-limits in terms of sanctioning individuals to put pressure on Putin and his Ukraine policy. In this week’s podcast, we ask how far this no-holds barred approach is true, not just in Russia but also more broadly. Has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fundamentally changed the UK’s willingness to go after “the bad…

Welcome to Top in Tech, your guide for navigating and understanding the European 'tech-lash', the frontline of a new push to regulate the technology sector. Each month, the Global Counsel team will bring you inside the latest debates, proposals, and laws shaping the conversation in Brussels, London, and across the world.

Introducing Global Counsel’s Small Modular Reactor Matrix

In his speech to Davos last week, President Zelensky proposed that frozen Russian assets “should be allocated to a special fund to compensate all the victims of the war”, adding that this would set a useful global precedent in deterring future aggressors. Voices in favour of the proposal are gaining force, particularly in the US, on both moral and practical grounds. 

Regulating the future workplace is Global Counsel’s new report on the future of employment regulation. The report examines the impact of technology on our workplaces and considers the views of businesses on the need for new regulations. Based on a survey of over 200 business leaders, this is the first report of its kind, previewing the issues that will define the modern…

After almost a decade of centre-right leadership, Anthony Albanese emerged as Australia’s new Prime Minister following this week's elections. Yet uncertainty remains; Albanese's Labor Party ran on few policy specifics beyond a repudiation of incumbent Scott Morrison's guarded approach to climate, and surging turnout for the Greens prevented them from securing an outright…

Although the Biden administration has prioritized the US energy transition like no previous administration has, we are seeing a surge in fossil fuel extraction, export, and use. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and pandemic-related supply chain bottlenecks have inflamed US fossil usage. But the geopolitical imperative to export energy to US allies held captive to Russian…

On Wednesday, Finland and Sweden submitted official applications to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). For decades, these countries have favoured military non-alignment. So why have they abandoned this stance, and what does it mean for NATO security and wider geopolitical relations?

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there’s been a lot of talk about the return of history. post-1989 assumptions that liberal democracy and open markets were the single models on which most countries would converge now look naïve at best.

This week, the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), which has become the main forum for EU-US cooperation on digital policy, met for the second time in Saclay, on the outskirts of Paris. The TTC has played an important role in resetting the EU-US relationship. A tangible example of this improved collaboration was last month’s agreement in principle on a new EU-US data…

A core lesson across infrastructure projects is all too often the attention has been on ambitious targets, rather than the nitty-gritty of delivery. This is timely as we look ahead to the European Commission’s “REPowerEU” plan published on Wednesday. Updating a previously hastily-assembled package in March, this will accelerate plans to reduce and stop fossil fuel imports…

Last week’s price collapse of algorithmic stablecoin Terra has highlighted regulatory concerns surrounding stablecoins as U.S. policymakers have continued to examine potential policy frameworks for the growing asset class. As of this writing, Terra continues to trade well below its $1 target peg while sister token Luna has also plummeted in value, catalysed by a downdraft…

The modern internet runs on the free flow of data across the Atlantic ocean. But as policymakers push toward different systems for the regulation of data collection, what are the implications of a decoupling of data between the US and EU?

As technology advances and the world pushes to reduce emissions, are we entering a new age of nuclear power?

While the “greenness” of nuclear energy continues to be debated across Southeast Asian nations, energy security concerns are driving countries in the region to revisit their nuclear energy programmes.

The lustre of carbon-free nuclear energy was tarnished after the highly publicised and impactful human-error-related accident at Ukraine’s Chornobyl No. 4 reactor in 1986 and more recently in Japan after a tsunami cut power from critical backup generators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in 2011. In Europe, the current dependence on Russian oil and natural gas exports is…