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Global rules on foreign direct investment (FDI)
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
Global | Publication | February 2018
In our November Focus we looked at new Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) when letting domestic and commercial premises in England and Wales.
A landlord cannot grant a lease or tenancy of “sub-standard” premises on or after 1st April 2018. Sub-standard domestic properties that are already let must comply from 1st April 2020 and commercial from 1st April 2023. A recent report claims that nearly one-fifth of properties in the private rented sector are sub-standard.
A “sub-standard” property is a property that does not achieve an “E” Energy Efficiency Certificate (EPC) rating or higher. But landlords need to prepare for the fact that this is likely to change - and soon.
The government’s Clean Growth Strategy published towards the end of 2017 proposed a consultation on raising the current “E” minimum standard for the commercial private rented sector.
The bar is also to be raised on the domestic front. Improvements to bring a domestic property to the “E” minimum standard are currently only required if they are at “no cost” to the landlord, for example because government funding is available. However the government is consulting on replacing the “no cost” rule with a capped financial contribution. With a cost cap, domestic landlords would need to invest in improvements to a sub-standard property up to the value of the cap, the recommended cap being £2500 per property.
A response to the consultation is expected in spring 2018, with the cost cap expected to come into force in April 2019.
For further information please contact Sian Skerratt-Williams or your usual contact at Norton Rose Fulbright.
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Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
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On February 2, 2024, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union confirmed that the Committee of Permanent Representatives had signed the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Regulation, referred to as the AI Act. Approval by the EU Parliament followed on 13 March 2024, and the AI Act is likely to appear in the EU’s Official Journal around May 2024. The AI Act aims to establish a stringent legal framework governing the development, marketing, and utilisation of artificial intelligence within the region, thereby marking a significant advancement in the regulation of this burgeoning domain.
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The private credit market and direct lending have grown and diversified immensely in the past decade, offering alternative sources and terms of debt compared to those historically provided by the syndicated leveraged loan and public issuance markets. Consequently, they are fast becoming pivotal components in the capital ecosystem, so much so that the Bank of England consider that the private credit market is currently responsible for approximately $1.8 trillion of debt issuance, which is four times its size in 2015. This growth has been particularly pronounced in Europe and the US but there has also been significant activity in Asia.
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