The UK will soon stop being a part of the EU single market customers union once the transition period is set to end on 31 December 2020. From 1 January 2021, changes will take place on how the UK will continue to trade with the European Union as well as in the customs, safety and regulatory checks that occur at the UK-EU border. The EU from the end of the transition period onwards will begin regarding the UK as a third country and execute full controls on goods being exchanged between the UK and the EU. The UK is currently in the process of negotiating its future relationship with the EU, including trying to arrive at a free trade agreement (FTA). Much unlike the deadlines that came before, and paying little mind to the resulting outcome of the current negotiations, a big change will be taking place from 31 December and onwards. Continue reading…

by Dina-Perla Portnaar

ProctorExam, the largest European online proctoring company and the global leader in providing a flexible SaaS proctoring technology, enables 2 million+ remote sessions during COVID-19 that would otherwise have been cancelled. Partners include universities, education technology / service providers and a range of older and newer clients that have used ProctorExam in their transition to a full online digital experience. These clients picked ProctorExam as the main European alternative to US based online proctoring vendors. Being European, ProctorExam offers the stringent General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to all its clients, regardless where they may be based.    Continue reading…

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently published a progress report on implementation of reforms to major interest rate benchmarks. The roadmap sets out a timetable of actions for financial and non-financial sector firms to take in order to ensure a smooth LIBOR transition by end-2021. With only one year left, all market participants – both financial and non-financial firms across the globe – must now ensure they follow the necessary steps to avoid disruption to the performance of their contracts. For transition to occur on time, market participants will need to cease use of LIBOR as a benchmark in all new activity across global markets as soon as possible and this needs to be a key priority for the months ahead. Continue reading…

To help meet the EU’s goal of climate neutrality by 2050, the European Commission recently presented the EU Strategy on Offshore Renewable Energy. The Strategy proposes to increase Europe’s offshore wind capacity from its current level of 12 GW to at least 60 GW by 2030 and to 300 GW by 2050. The Commission aims to complement this with 40 GW of ocean energy and other emerging technologies such as floating wind and solar by 2050. This ambitious growth will be based on the vast potential across all of Europe’s sea basins and on the global leadership position of EU companies in the sector. It will create new opportunities for industry, generate green jobs across the continent, and strengthen the EU’s global leadership in offshore energy technologies. It will also ensure the protection of our environment, biodiversity and fisheries. Continue reading…

Ms. Anita Angelovska Bezhoska, Governor of the National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia, recently gave a speech on the occasion of the World Savings Day, Skopje on the October 30, 2020. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to address you at today’s event on the occasion of the World Savings Day. This year’s marking happens at a time when the world faces the worst crises since the big depression. It is a synchronised global crisis that does not spare a single economy, and small positive economic growth rates are expected in only 26 countries in the world. Unfortunately, the Western Balkan countries are not in this small group of countries, i.e. according to the IMF negative growth rates are expected in the region ranging from 2.5% in Serbia to 12% in Montenegro. Continue reading…

by Michel Klompmaker & Dina-Perla Portnaar

We are all familiar with the supermarket chains Ahold and Delhaize, which a few years ago merged into one multinational company with roots in the Netherlands and Belgium. This multinational company has major interests on the other side of the Atlantic and in many European countries with its supermarkets. To get an idea of ​​the size: In the third quarter of 2020, worldwide sales amounted to 17.8 billion euros, which is 10 percent more compared to the third quarter of 2019. That things are not going too badly for this multinational is evident from the report beginning of November. A new large-scale share buyback program for an amount of EUR 1 billion has been announced at the headquarters in Zaandam, the Netherlands. This purchasing program will start in early 2021. What is wrong with that? Nothing at all in itself, but much further from the Zaandam headquarters, in Indonesia, something is wrong. There, Ahold Delhaize is accused of serious animal cruelty. How has that come about exactly? We recently spoke about it exclusively with Erwin Vermeulen of Animal Rights. Continue reading…

The European Central Bank (ECB) will launch an independent review of an incident that affected its real-time gross settlement system TARGET2 on 23 October 2020, causing an outage for almost 10 hours. An initial investigation determined that a software defect in a network device was the specific technical cause of the incident. The independent review will also take into account other incidents that affected TARGET Services during 2020, including those affecting directly and indirectly TARGET2 Securities (T2S), the securities settlement platform operated by the Eurosystem. Continue reading…

Battlefield evidence, such as photos depicting crimes committed against civilians, fingerprints on explosive devices and e-mails describing terrorist plots, is increasingly being used to prosecute suspects of terrorism and core international crimes, including returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters. The 2020 Memorandum on Battlefield Evidence, which was published recently by Eurojust, the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, shows that while there are many challenges in obtaining such data and making sure it meets the criteria for admissible evidence, it has paved the way for bringing terrorist suspects to trial. Continue reading…

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU securities markets regulator, recently published its second risk dashboard for 2020 which sees a continued risk of decoupling between asset valuations and economic fundamentals. During the third quarter of 2020, EU financial markets have continued their recovery and equity market valuations have edged up further. There are increasing signs of strong geographical and sectorial differentiation across financial markets with fixed income markets seeing large-scale valuation increases across various segments such as emerging markets, investment grade and high yield. Credit rating downgrades have been slowing and investment funds recorded inflows across asset classes, especially for bond funds.

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