Clifford Chance Global Financial Markets Perspectives Series

Competition authorities around the world have increased their focus on fintech as part of a broader increase in intervention in financial services and tech markets. Deals have been blocked, fines have been imposed and fintech firms taken to court. Our international panel will discuss the risks and opportunities that come from new developments and legislative reforms.

This in-person session will offer an interactive analysis of recent English case law of significance for the financial markets. This will include the circumstances when banks must disregard their customers and when directors must disregard their shareholders. We will also cover when anti-assignment clauses allow defendants to disregard subrogated insurers and when ISDA events of default may never be disregarded.

With increasing global demand for batteries to power the clean energy transition (including in automobiles), the opportunities and risks are multiplying. Our international team will survey the issues arising from new technology, new markets, and new deals, including those associated with mineral extraction (human rights and supply chain), regulatory changes and the race to find funding.

We are continuing to see stress in the real estate sector, with rising refinancing costs and asset values below their peaks. Our speakers will identify the important legal and commercial considerations for stakeholders to take into account to ensure that they maximise their returns. We will also consider the range of contractual and non-contractual options being used to rebalance capital structures.

Our panellists will discuss the new EU Pilot Regime (which takes effect from 23 March 2023) for distributed ledger technology (DLT), and the extent to which its success or failure will impact the adoption of DLT in financial services in Europe. We will compare it with the UK’s financial market infrastructure sandbox proposal, as well as consider digital bond issuances and the link between the development of DLT market infrastructures and the tokenisation of financial products both in the EU and UK.

The cryptoasset markets are facing an extended period of volatility and uncertainty following the bankruptcy filings of significant market participants. Our international panel will discuss the key issues for crypto market participants right now, including the lessons learned from the recent market challenges and what steps businesses, regulators and other market participants should be taking to protect themselves against future liquidity and solvency concerns.

The EU and UK have both undertaken reviews of their respective securitisation regulatory schemes in the last 18 months and we are at a point where it looks likely that the two jurisdictions will start to diverge. Our panellists will discuss the progress so far on either side of the channel and how the European securitisation markets might cope with the increasing divergence.

Private debt funds are increasingly making use of “back leverage” to enhance internal rates of return on their lending positions and to enable them to write the sizeable loans that traditionally were the preserve of investment banks, reflecting developments in the commercial real estate market and elsewhere, including risk retention financing. We have advised on a wide variety of back leverage structures in Europe and the US whether in the form of loan on loan, repo (both US and European), structured repos, total return swaps (TRS) and CRE collateralised loan obligations (CRE CLOs). We will discuss their principal features and some of the key market issues and trends.

The consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been far-reaching –  impacting growth, inflation, energy, food and other supply chains. This has resulted in commercial pressure for a range of public and private entities. We will examine the legal risks and challenges they face, and the remedies and opportunities that may be available to them.

Driven by the green transition, national security concerns, and commitments to support domestic production, countries are increasingly taking measures to develop green economies and energy systems, and to stimulate the production of green technologies at home. New legislation in the US, especially the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, and EU responses (including the proposed Green Deal Industrial Plan for the Net-Zero Age) are creating new challenges and opportunities for clients. Our global team will examine these latest developments and likely future trends, and what all of this means for business.

The EU and the UK are currently revising their respective prospectus regimes. We will consider the context for the EU Listing Act proposals and draft illustrative UK Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Public Offers and Admissions to Trading) Regulations 2023, the related FCA engagement papers and associated changes, and the impact of diverging approaches.

Decommissioning is an integral part of the energy transition journey. The move by oil and gas majors to decarbonise their operations often leads to a transfer of the ageing assets to new, and often under-resourced, players. This can create opportunities but is also fraught with complexities and challenges for both outgoing and incoming operators. We will discuss the key risks arising in decommissioning operations, offer suggestions on how to mitigate and manage those risks and key factors for any robust decommissioning strategy.

The legal landscape for cross-border data sharing is complex and evolving. Privacy laws and data localisation requirements are developing globally. Data transfer, including cross-border data minimisation, is in the regulatory spotlight. Joining this legal landscape are legislative proposals requiring the sharing of certain data. We will examine recent legal developments impacting data flows, related international cooperation efforts and how organisations can navigate the challenges of international data transfer.

2023 marks a turning point when it comes to insurance recovery and resolution, following the publication of the EU Commission’s legislative proposal for an Insurance Recovery and Resolution Directive (IRRD) and HM Treasury’s consultation for an Insurance Resolution Regime (IRR). Both proposals appear to be moving in a similar direction, namely, establishing insurance recovery and resolution frameworks similar to those we have seen on the banking side, and aligning the EU and the UK with international standards set by the Financial Stability Board. We will discuss how the proposed regimes will work, their differences and the implications for the EU and UK insurance sectors and groups.

The industries, products and focus of class actions is expanding and changing with the rise of ESG and a rapidly evolving regulatory and legal framework. Corporate accountability is increasingly demanded by society and Courts are responding to new and novel claims. The risk of class action claims, therefore, is only going to increase and businesses must be alive to the changing international landscape. We will discuss these global trends and the implications for businesses across all sectors.

Firms are increasingly looking for ways to work together to promote environmental sustainability. While competition authorities in the UK, EU and Australia have supported co-ordination, some authorities in the US have taken a more critical approach. In this webinar, our panel will discuss what this scrutiny means for private sector co-ordination on environmental sustainability and participation in industry climate alliances such as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.