The baseline for the trade relationship after a no-deal Brexit would be WTO rules. In practice – and depending on the political atmosphere – there would at least be some enhancements to this baseline in the form of bilateral agreements between the EU and the UK on specific issues that are...
As Global Counsel and Herbert Smith Freehills convene a discussion on the UK’s future relationship with Euratom, this paper provides an overview of the legal and political background. The paper also identifies some of the potential options for mitigating the impact on the UK. Lastly, the paper...
Earlier this month, the German cabinet adopted a directive expanding the scope of the German state’s ability to investigate foreign acquisitions in a wide range of critical infrastructure and the IT services that support it. In parallel, Berlin has led an advocacy campaign at the EU level over...
The political environment facing large international businesses has rarely been more uncertain or more complicated. Over the past twelve months, the UK has voted to leave the European Union, Donald Trump has become President of the United States, and Dilma Rousseff has been impeached and removed...
In collaboration with Herbert Smith Freehills and The Boston Consulting Group, Global Counsel has co-authored a paper looking at the impact of Brexit on the energy sector in the UK and the EU. The paper identifies key energy and climate change policy implications as well as highlighting the role...
When Theresa May’s UK’s government was stripped of its majority in last week’s general election, the result was widely interpreted as a demand that the UK government focus on minimising the impact of its exit from the EU. One concrete consequence has been to put the question of customs union...
5 years have passed since the establishment of the banking union concept as the EU’s three-pillar response to breaking the sovereign-bank “doom loop” behind the EU sovereign debt crisis. Those five years have seen some advances, especially in the creation of a new single supervisor for the EU’s...
Ten years of serial crises and rising voter scepticism about mainstream political parties have definitively buried the managerialist consensus that dominated EU policymaking in the early 2000s. The financial crisis, strained public finances and large-scale immigration flows have exposed the...
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has all but ruled out maintaining freedom of movement between the UK and EU post-Brexit. This implies a new migration system, providing recruitment challenges for a range of sectors from social care to agriculture. Businesses should now plan to adapt, but policy...
Interest in a universal basic income is growing at both ends of the political spectrum, albeit for very different reasons. It is also attracting support, and some financial backing, from tech entrepreneurs. The flexibility of the concept explains why it has created such broad interest. It can...