Insight

Trade Post-Brexit

Trade & Manufacturing

In collaboration with Herbert Smith Freehills and The Boston Consulting Group, Global Counsel has co-authored a paper looking at the meaning and implications of a hard Brexit for businesses, aiming to help them understand the role they may play in shaping this or an alternative outcome.

The UK’s vote to leave the EU brings with it the possibility of so-called 'hard Brexit'. Business needs to understand what Britain leaving the EU without a smooth transition to a new framework might mean for cross-border trade both within Europe and between Europe and the rest of the world.

At the point when the British government announces its formal intention to exit the EU by triggering Article 50, a two-year countdown will begin to the UK leaving the EU. Understanding the various changes, analysing the risks they pose and working through potential solutions will all be essential to help firms position themselves to navigate the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

The peculiarity of the Article 50 process - with its two-year ticking clock - makes this preparatory work all the more urgent. If no alternative relationship or even temporary transitional arrangement were to be agreed between Britain and the EU before the two years run out, the EU treaties would cease to apply to the UK, with nothing to replace them. This has profound implications for both sides. This report is designed to help business leaders understand and prepare for a sharp shift in the UK’s relationship with the EU: hard Brexit.

Our conversations with business leaders suggest the mood is not necessarily one of negativity, but the scale of the potential change coupled with the lack of clarity as to how it might be effected leaves a lot of uncertainty in the short-to-medium term. Businesses are struggling to understand what Brexit would mean for them. Understanding hard Brexit is a good place to start. 

'We do not necessarily think that a hard Brexit is the most likely outcome of negotiations,’ says Lode Van Den Hende, a partner and international trade law specialist at Herbert Smith Freehills. ‘But planning for this scenario is the most effective way for businesses to compare their current position from within the EU single market with a counterfactual position in which the UK trades with the EU and the rest of the world on the basis of WTO rules. From this baseline, organisations can see most clearly the potential impact of the possible changes and make a corresponding plan of action.’

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