In this blog post, we round-up key forthcoming developments in the UK and at EU and International levels in financial services regulation which are expected to happen in March and April 2023. Read more

Regulators around the world are focused on the operational resilience of financial institutions, financial market infrastructures and the financial system as a whole. One area of significant risk to the financial system are the significant dependencies of financial institutions on Critical Third Parties (CTPs), particularly in relation to the cloud and other Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services. Both the UK and the EU have advanced proposals for new regulatory frameworks in this area. Read more

The EU has previously announced that it intends to put in place a further package of Russian sanctions by 24 February 2023, to coincide with the one year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. In this briefing, we summarise the intended measures within that package and also provide a round-up of some other recent EU and UK developments. Read more

The IP Division of the Court of Rome has issued a preliminary injunction to prohibit the minting and marketing of Non-Fungible-Tokens (“NFT”) that, unauthorised, reproduced well-known trade marks owned by the Juventus football club. Read more

Herbert Smith Freehills recently hosted a webinar to discuss the way in which the recent Russian oil price cap measures will operate across the UK, EU and US and to consider the potential challenges that may arise for companies wishing to deal in Russian oil and those who provide related services. The introduction of the … Read more

The last week has seen a further flurry of Russian sanctions activity, with both the UK and the EU introducing new restrictions. In this briefing we summarise the new UK restrictions, in particular the additional restrictions on the provision of services to Russia, and the EU's ninth Russia sanctions package. Read more

On 7 December, the European Commission announced proposals for a ninth sanctions package against Russia. The measures are not yet in force and full details are not yet available, but we have summarised below the areas intended to be covered by the new package, along with a round-up of other UK and EU Russia sanctions developments. Read more

On 17 November 2022, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) published a collection of questions and answers on Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/1288 (SFDR Delegated Regulation) (ESAs Q&A). The SFDR Delegated Regulation, often also called "SFDR RTS", applies from 1 January 2023. Over 34 pages, the ESAs Q&A compiles 70 questions asked by market participants and industry associations, partitioned in six chapters. Read more