PRACTICE NOTES
Practice Note This Practice Note offers a concise overview of Regulation ( EU) 2022/2065, the EU Digital Services Act ( EU DSA). It sets out key points on scope, service categories, the four-tier obligations structure, the availability of exemptions, and the enforcement framework. The EU DSA was published in the Official Journal of the EU on 27 October 2022, entered into force on 16 November 2022 and, for most providers, has applied from 17 February 2024. It requires providers to address illegal content, goods and services online while safeguarding users’ fundamental rights. It does not, however, impose general monitoring or proactive fact-finding duties. The regime is asymmetric: every intermediary service must meet baseline duties; hosting services, online platforms and online search engines bear additional obligations; and the most demanding requirements apply to very large online platforms ( VLOPs) and very large online search...
Read More
PRACTICE NOTES
Copyright is a bundle of rights granted to creators of creative works, covering: literary, dramatic, artistic and musical works broadcasts databases sound recordings typographical arrangements It includes economic rights first owned by the creator or author, and can also refer to additional personal rights afforded to authors and performers, known as moral rights or neighbouring rights. Moral rights are not generally harmonised at EU level and their infringement is not specifically addressed in this Practice Note. For information on the subsistence of copyright in the EU, see Practice Note: EU- Copyright subsistence. EU copyright legislation Copyright is not fully harmonised across the EU. Even so, the regulatory framework for copyright and neighbouring rights consists of multiple directives and regulations developed over the past three decades, together with extensive case law applying that legislation. This has produced a...
Read More
PRACTICE NOTES
Introduction The practice of an investor from one EU Member State relying on intra‐ EU bilateral investment treaties ( BITs) and the Energy Charter Treaty ( ECT) to bring arbitration against another EU Member State as the host has sparked substantial controversy in recent years. That debate has underscored the friction between protections afforded by EU law and those conferred under BITs and the ECT. As explained further below, this issue is now, for the most part, resolved as a matter of EU law. Yet, strikingly, in almost all intra‐ EU investor‐state arbitrations (under either BITs or the ECT) to date, tribunals have declined to dismiss cases for lack of jurisdiction on the basis of the intra‐ EU objection. As a result, many EU investors are pursuing enforcement of arbitral awards against EU Member States outside the EU, and many others are opting to seat...
Read More
CHECKLISTS
ARCHIVED This Practice Note has been archived and is no longer updated. For details on Directive 2016/97/ EU, the Insurance Distribution Directive ( IDD), see: Insurance Distribution Directive ( IDD)-essentials, and for guidance on the implications of the UK’s exit from the EU, see: Impact of Brexit: Insurance distribution-quick guide [ Archived]. 2023 Date Source Document Description 2 October 2023 - European Parliament: Draft report on a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council amending Regulation ( EU) No 1286/2014 to modernise the key information document ( COM(2023)0278 – C9-0180/2023 – 2023/0166( COD)). Draft report on a proposal for a directive amending Directives ( EU) 2009/65/ EC, 2009/138/ EC, 2011/61/ EU, 2014/65/ EU and ( EU) 2016/97 regarding Union retail investor protection rules. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs ( ECON) issued draft reports on the European...
Read More
PRACTICE NOTES
Carbon pricing: background Carbon pricing remains the principal tool in endeavours to tackle climate change. At the international level, the Kyoto Protocol and its flexibility mechanisms gave parties with Kyoto commitments market-based avenues to cap or cut greenhouse gas ( GHG) emissions, alongside domestic actions. These mechanisms comprise: Clean Development Mechanisms ( CDM) (art 12) Joint Implementation ( JI) (art 6) International Emissions Trading (art 17) These correspond to arts 12, 6 and 17, respectively. The Kyoto framework, in turn, prompted the EU’s Emission Trading System ( ETS), created through Directive 2003/87/ EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 2003, which set up a Community-wide scheme for trading GHG emission allowances and amended Council Directive 96/61/ EC (the EU ETS Directive). Since then, an extensive and diverse suite of carbon pricing...
Read More