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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 | August 2018
The government published a long-heralded draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill on July 23, 2018.
The purpose of the Bill is to “prevent and combat the use of land in the UK for money laundering purposes by increasing the transparency of beneficial ownership information relating to overseas entities that own land in the UK”. It seeks to achieve this by establishing a new register of the beneficial owners and controllers of such entities – the first of its kind. The new register will be held by Companies House and the current intention is that it will go live by 2021.
In broad terms the Bill provides that
Comments on the draft Bill are invited by September 17, 2018 but it is unlikely that the fundamentals will change. Overseas entities need to be aware that compliance may be onerous, not to say time-consuming, particularly for those with sophisticated ownership structures. There will also be additional levels of due diligence for those proposing to enter into a land transaction with an overseas entity.
Publication
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
Publication
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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