On 3 November 2022 the CMA published guidance for social media platforms, brands and content creators setting out how they should approach online advertising in order to ensure they comply with the relevant UK consumer protection legislation. Read more

The UK introduced further sanctions against Russia on 4 November 2022, via the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 16) Regulations 2022 (the "No. 16 Regulations"). These introduce further amendments to the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (the "Russia Regulations"). The amendments introduced by the No. 16 Regulations will come into force on 5 December 2022 (although, as set out below, certain specific measures will not take effect until February 2023) and introduce further measures relating to Russian oil, as discussed further in this briefing. Read more

New UK Russia sanctions legislation was published on 28 October: the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 15) Regulations 2022 (the "No. 15 Regulations"). These amend the UK's principal Russia sanctions legislation: the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (the "Russia Regulations"). This briefing summarises the key amendments to the Russia Regulations, the majority of which came into force on 29 October. Read more

The FCA published today their long-awaited consultation paper on sustainability disclosure requirements and investment labels (the "Consultation"). This follows the discussion paper published in November 2021. The Consultation builds on the core elements of the regime outlined in the discussion paper: sustainable investment labels, consumer-facing disclosures, detailed product-level disclosures and entity-level disclosures. In addition, the Consultation also proposes naming and marketing rules with broader applicability, a general anti-greenwashing rule and other specific obligations on distributors. In this post, we summarise our key takeaways from the Consultation, together with a high-level overview of the FCA's proposals. Read more

As financial institutions get to grips with the opportunities and challenges presented by the constantly evolving ESG landscape, we set out below the top five trends that we are seeing in this space. Firms should take note of these trends as they are likely to influence the ESG agenda into 2023 and beyond. Read more

On 30 September, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced the imposition of a round of new UK sanctions against Russia. Full details of the new measures had not been published at the time of writing, but we set out a summary of the new restrictions and will of course provide a further update when more information is available. Read more

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 October and November 2022. Read more

As readers of this blog are aware, in our regular 'sanctions tracker' we focus on updating clients on new sanctions developments. Nearly six months on from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there is also a developing body of experience regarding the practical impact of the sanctions measures in a number of different fields. Read more