Recent Articles

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  21/06/2024

  United Kingdom

  Finch: Supreme Court decision on environmental impact assessment regulations and the requirement to assess “scope 3” emissions

  The UK Supreme Court has handed down its much-awaited decision in R (on the application of Finch on behalf of Weald Action Group) (Appellant) v Surrey County Council and others (Respondent) (“Finch”). The case concerned a challenge to a development consent for an onshore oil and gas development on the basis that the relevant environmental impact assessment (EIA) did not consider indirect (commonly referred to as ‘scope 3’ or ‘downstream’) emissions from the combustion of eventually refined hydrocarbons produced by the development. The court’s decision –...

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  21/06/2024

  England and Wales

  Manifest-EES

  Despite Rishi Sunak’s September 2023 MEES U-turn and announcement of a “more pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic approach” to meeting net-zero, energy costs and climate policies remain crucial topics of national debate ahead of the election on 4 July.MEES is (was?) a flagship policy designed to support the UK’s drive and commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. For many years, we have been examining and discussing the impact of the MEES regulations on commercial real estate: from application through to enforcement (or lack thereof).With the Climate Change Committee’s...

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  21/06/2024

  EU

  Publication of CRD6/CRR3: countdown to implementation of third country branch requirements

  On 19 June 2024, the final texts of the EU banking package known as CRD6 and CRR3 were published in the Official Journal of the European Union. As covered in our earlier update, CRD6 introduces a new, EU-wide requirement for certain “core banking services” to be provided in the EU through a third country branch or local subsidiary. The package also introduces significant new prudential supervision requirements for third country branches in the EU.In addition to implementing the final parts of the global Basel III standards for banks in the EU, the package includes a range of EU-specific...

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  21/06/2024

  Italy

  Italian Supreme Court Upholds OECD Transfer Pricing Rules

  The decisions of the Italian Supreme Court nos. 10577/2024 and 10499/2024 (concerning the same case for corporate income tax and regional income tax purposes) confirm important principles regarding transfer pricing transactions between associated companies.Firstly, the approach taken in the previous decision of the Italian Supreme Court no. 15668/2022 (available here) is confirmed with regard to the relevance of the arm’s length principle set forth by Article 9 of the OECD Model Tax Convention and included in Article 110, par. 7 of the Italian Income Tax Code.Moreover, the principle that,...

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  21/06/2024

  EU

  ESAs propose improvements to the SFDR and suggests introducing categories and/or sustainability indicators

  BackgroundOn 18 June 2024, the three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA, and ESMA, collectively known as the ESAs) published an opinion (the Opinion) on the evaluation of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). This Opinion was initiated by the ESAs themselves and was addressed to the European Commission.Through two consumer testing exercises, the ESAs observed that the SFDR could be perceived as “complex and difficult to comprehend”. Furthermore, its practical use as a classification tool for financial products could potentially lead to greenwashing and mis-selling...

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  21/06/2024

  Czech Republic

  New Obligations on Czech Employers who have Employees working under Agreements to Complete a Job from 1 July 2024

  CZ

  From 1 July 2024, all employers who employ employees under agreements to complete a job (“DPP”), a special contract governed by Czech labour law, based on which the employee can work up to 300 hours per calendar year, will face new social security obligations.From 1 July 2024, employers will be required to register all their employees working under agreements to complete a specified task (dohoda o provedení práce”, “DPP”) with the Czech Social Security Administration (CSSA) and regularly submit information about their income, using a special...

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