In a further effort to help listed companies align their ESG-related disclosures in line with other international standards and best practices, and to build on ESG reporting landscape in Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF) have identified 12 technical skills and competencies for professionals within
Amidst the recent uptrend of climate litigation cases in Brazil, the Brazilian Supreme Court has scheduled for March 30, 2022 a trial session covering several different lawsuits involving the protection of the environment and effects on climate change. This is an important milestone for the Brazilian climate litigation landscape, as this is the first time
On March 21, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted 3:1, with only Commissioner Hester Peirce dissenting, to propose long-awaited rules that, if adopted, would require extensive reporting by public companies of climate change-related disclosure and related attestation (the “Proposal”). Comments on the Proposal are due 30 days after publication in the Federal
On February 9, 2022, the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (“FHFA”) released its Draft FHFA Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2022-2026 (the “2022 Strategic Plan”) for public input.
This year, FHFA added a novel objective to this plan – to identify options for incorporating climate change into FHFA’s governance of the entities it regulates.
According to
The recent publication, on 27 February 2022, of the second instalment to the Sixth Assessment Report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) did not receive the same degree of attention as the first instalment in August 2021. The findings, and message, of the second instalment, are no less severe, or potentially consequential,
In a recent Legal Update[1], we discussed the emerging intersection between Tax and ESG and highlighted the various external stakeholders pressuring for greater visibility into the global tax positions of multinational companies (MNEs). One increasingly vocal stakeholder group is activist shareholders. Recently, a group of institutional investors of a Fortune 50 company initiated
On 2 March 2022, 175 nations endorsed a historic resolution at the fifth session of the United Nations Environmental Assembly to develop a draft global agreement on plastic pollution by the end of 2024. Significantly, the resolution covers the full lifecycle of plastic including its production, design and disposal. Inger Andersen, Executor Director of the
In a recent Legal Update[1], we discussed the intersection between Tax and ESG and the challenges companies will face responding to external pressures for greater transparency into a company’s global tax position. We predicted that once the SEC reporting season began this month, the press would focus on the effective tax rates of
On 23 February 2022, the European Commission published its much-anticipated draft corporate sustainability and due diligence directive (the Draft Directive), after a number of delays (see our Previous Blog). The Draft Directive sets out a proposed EU standard for human rights and environmental due diligence (HREDD). This includes an obligation for companies to take
On 11 February, the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) published its Sustainable Finance Roadmap for 2022-2024 (the “Roadmap”).
The Roadmap builds on ESMA’s 2020 Strategy for Sustainable Finance and will be of interest to those in the EU and beyond looking to understand the focus and ambition of the EU’s securities market regulator in