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History made: Stephanie Fougou elected President of ECLA 🇪🇺

Posted on May 31, 2024 by admin

History made: Stephanie Fougou elected President of ECLA… 🇪🇺

The 49th General Assembly just elected Stephanie Fougou (Director Legal, VP, Ex-Com member Technicolor Group) as the first ever female president in the 41 years of ECLA’s history. She follows Jonathan Marsh after his 8 years of presidency. Stephanie announced that she would continue on the successful path of ECLA of advocating for the in-house legal profession, offering a vital European network for knowledge transfer and assisting our profession in the ongoing transformation.

The General Assembly also elected Laure Lavorel (Senior Associate General Counsel at Broadcom) into the Executive Board as one of the four Vice Presidents of ECLA together with Mark Cockerill, Silvia Bonacossa, Waldemar Koper, as well as Eric Lennerth as Treasurer and Stéphane BARTHE as Secretary. Laure will support ECLA with her outstanding international network and experience.

Jonathan Marsh was elected Honorary President of the association and will continue advising the Executive Board.

The General Assembly also thanked Didier Pissoort of Belgium for his 41 years of service as ECLA Auditor.

We would like to thank Spotify; Miranda Espenäs and Åsa Henriksson for hosting the 49th General Assembly in its remarkable headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪.

The 22 member associations are now closing the 49th General Assembly with a joint afternoon and dinner

ECLA 49th General Assembly in Stockholm, Sweden

Posted on May 30, 2024 by admin

Pre-evening of the 49th General Assembly in Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪

Starting with a scenic boat cruise visiting Stockholm’s archipelagos and a traditional Swedish dinner in the long summer sunset…

With our elections tomorrow ECLA will make history…stay tuned!

Many thanks to our Swedish member association Sveriges Bolagsjurister(Swedish Company Lawyers Association) and their entire executive board for organizing such a great evening for the representatives of our 22 member associations.

ECLA/GCLC General Counsel Roundtable In London

Posted on April 26, 2024 by admin

ECLA and the GCLC Europe are in London, England 🇬🇧 for our General Counsel Roundtable.

👩‍⚖️👨‍⚖️ 26 Participants from 🇪🇺 15 European countries and with 🏢🏭 17 different industry focuses are discussing latest developments and challenges in cross-border litigation and dispute resolution in the lovely Leonardo Royal Hotel at St. Pauls.

Main topics of today are:
💡 Insights into ESG litigation: Addressing emerging risks across industries,
💡 Navigating Europe’s class action legal landscape and assessing related risks,
💡 Artificial intelligence in dispute resolution

European Court of Human rights passes ruling on State’s responsibility on the environment

Posted on April 11, 2024 by admin

On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights passed a landmark judgment on the responsibility of States concerning climate change impact on its citizens. The Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz And Others V. Switzerland ruling based its reasoning on Article 8 of ECHR, regarding the right to private and family life, as the Court ruled that States have a positive obligation to implement sufficient measures to combat climate change and that individuals have a right to effective protection by the State authorities from the adverse effects that climate change has on the health, well-being and quality of life.

The applicants are Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz, a non-profit association whose goal is to promote and implement effective climate protection on behalf of its members – senior women living in Switzerland who are over the age of 70, with the rest of the applicants being seniors who are members of the association. The complaints put forth by the applicants concern restrictions that the extreme heatwaves that Europe has experienced in the last decade impose on them – inability to leave their houses, lethargy, and flaring of underlying health issues.

The legal remedy that the applicants were seeking concerned compelling the State to achieve its greenhouse gas emission targets so that it would hold the increase in global average temperature at most above 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The annual temperature in Switzerland had increased around 2.1°C since 1864, with the five warmest summers on record happening since 2003. This has led to an increase in heat-related mortalities, particularly among the elderly population, with 2022 experiencing a notable spike in such deaths.

CJEU clarifies edge cases of GDPR

Posted on April 3, 2024 by admin

On 7 March 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed out two judgments on data processing with cases C-479/22 P and C-604/22. The cases clarified what constitutes personal data processing under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), particularly in contexts involving the dissemination of information by public authorities and the management of consent in digital advertising. The second judgment also touched on the responsibilities of entities involved in such processing, defining under what circumstances an entity might be considered a controller or joint controller of personal data.

European Commission publishes recommendations to combat online and offline counterfeiting

Posted on March 20, 2024 by admin

On 19 March 2024, the European Commission published a Recommendation on how to increasingly combat counterfeiting and enhance the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Commission estimates that industries that “make intensive use of IP” contribute 47% of total EU GDP and nearly 40% of total employment within the Union. It further emphasises the intrinsic value that IP holds, pointing to a 2021 firm-level analysis report by EUIPO, which found that companies with IP rights pay on average 19% higher wages and that IP rights convey increased revenue regardless of company size, pointing out that European SMEs that rely on IP rights “appear to generate 68% higher revenues per employee.”

The value of IP-protected products has enabled a vast illegal market flourish, ranging from counterfeit goods to both digital and product piracy. The OECD/EUIPO joint 2022 report on Dangerous Fakes highlights the dangers that products that do not follow rigorous safety standards or processes can impose. Though there are some industries where public acknowledgement of the risk is higher, such as adverse health risks when consuming counterfeit pharmaceutical products, cosmetics, or alcohol, there are other areas, such as electrical and electronic equipment or even children’s toys where, due to a lack of adequate safety standards, the risks the products pose can be significant to the average consumer.

OECD two-pillar global tax framework at risk

Posted on February 28, 2024 by admin

The OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (IF) represents a significant overhaul of international tax rules, aimed at addressing the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy. The global tax solution seeks to ensure that multinational enterprises (MNEs) pay a fair share of tax wherever they operate. Over 130 countries were signatories to the initial deal in 2021. The final deal included several concessions, including by Ireland to cap the minimum tax threshold at 15%, instead of the initial wording that would have allowed tax rates under these rules to exceed it.

The framework is based on two separate pillars. Pillar One focuses on the reallocation of taxing rights over MNEs to the countries where their goods or services are consumed, regardless of the MNEs’ physical presence there. The Pillar’s scope covers MNEs with global turnover exceeding €20 billion and profitability above 10%. This pillar introduces a new nexus rule not tied to physical presence and allocates taxing rights through a formula that considers the revenue generated in each market jurisdiction.

Europe remains a global leader in innovation, ability to commercialise lagging

Posted on February 21, 2024 by admin

In 14 February 2024, the European Commission published its 2024 Annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report. The report, following established KPIs that define competitiveness based on nine distinct drivers, aims to give a comprehensive overview of both positive and negative trends within the Single Market. As part of the report, the Commission also produced a staff working document on the key findings from the European Monitor of Industrial Ecosystems. Part of this document characterised the position of EU industries in the global technology race and how the EU has fared against its global competitors, in particular the US and China.

The first element covered concerns innovation capacity within the EU regarding green and digital technologies. Though the absolute number of transnational patents filed in the EU has remained stable in comparison to the US, China’s rise in the last few decades has decreased the relative share of EU patents held. The EU’s world share of transnational patents filed has decreased from around 32% in 2010 to 23% in 2020. Similarly, on green transition-related global patent applications, the EU still holds leadership, although there also its share has decreased from 30% in 2010 to 24% in 2020. There are sectoral differences regarding the patents filed by the geopolitical powers, with the EU dominating the patent environment in wind power, having an approximate world share of 62% of patents in that area. Additionally, it is tied with China in solar power, with both having approximately 27% shares of patents, whereas the US is ahead concerning energy-saving technologies, having a global share of 41,3%.

ExxonMobil sues investor activists for “micromanaging”

Posted on February 7, 2024 by admin

Shareholder activism in the oil and gas industry has gained traction in recent years, with activist shareholders pushing multinational conglomerates towards sustainable practices to decrease the negative and harmful impact that fossil fuel production has. Thus far, the companies have been ambiguous in their promises to decarbonise and have not made any significant transitions towards the marketing slogans that they have put forth.

Still, the efforts by activist groups seem to be having an impact beyond what executives in these companies would tolerate, exemplified by ExxonMobil recently filing a lawsuit against Follow This, an Amsterdam-based investor activist group, and Arjuna Capital, a registered investment adviser. The suit claims that the activist proposal violates SEC rules for investor petitions, which disallow resubmitting proposals that do not gain investor support over time.

The goal of the lawsuit is to block a motion that the activist group, as an ExxonMobil shareholder, had put forward at the company’s annual investor meeting, to increase the pace for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This was the first time that the company had turned to courts to block a shareholder motion. Even though filing the lawsuit that ExxonMobil filed succeeded in practical terms, forcing activist investors to shelve the call to motion, ExxonMobil has decided to continue with the lawsuit.

What will happen to the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive?

Posted on January 31, 2024 by admin

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive is part of the broader ambitions by the European Union, as set out in the European Green Deal and the European Climate Law. The due diligence process aims to cover the six steps defined by the OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct, which include: integrating due diligence into policies and management systems; identifying and assessing adverse human rights and environmental impacts; preventing, ceasing or minimising actual and potential adverse human rights, and environmental impacts; assessing the effectiveness of measures; communicating; and providing remediation.