OECD I Implementing the Anti-Bribery Convention in the United States and Europe. According to a report published by the OECD Working Group on Bribery in November, the United States is commended for a significant upward trend in anti-bribery enforcement and confirms the prominent role it plays globally in combating foreign bribery. There are also reports on the implementation of the Convention in Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland. Read more.

EU I Agreement on the Modernization of EU Export Controls. This new Regulation provides a new basis for the coordination of controls on a wider range of emerging dual-use technologies in support of the effective enforcement of controls throughout the EU. Due diligence obligations and compliance requirements for exporters have also been introduced, recognising the role of the private sector in addressing the risks posed by trade in dual-use items to international security. The new Regulation also provides a strong basis for the EU to engage with third countries in order to support a global level-playing field and enhance international security through more convergent approaches to export controls at global level. Read more.

EU I Competition Authority Opens Antitrust Investigation against Amazon. The European Commission has informed Amazon of its preliminary view that it has breached EU antitrust rules by distorting competition in online retail markets. The Commission takes issue with Amazon systematically relying on non-public business data of independent sellers who sell on its marketplace, to the benefit of Amazon's own retail business, which directly competes with those third party sellers. The Commission also opened a second formal antitrust investigation into the possible preferential treatment of Amazon's own retail offers and those of marketplace sellers that use Amazon's logistics and delivery services. Read more.

EU I First EU Social Bond Honored in New York. On October 21, the European Commission issued a €17 billion inaugural social bond under the EU SURE instrument to help protect jobs and keep people in work.The funds raised will be transferred to the beneficiary Member States in the form of loans.The first beneficiaries are Spain, Italy and Poland. Barclays congratulated the Commission on the successful placement via a projection on its Times Square building in New York City. The projection took place on October 28 for one hour in the morning and for one hour in the afternoon. Read more.

Canada I Federal Privacy Law Overhaul Following EU's Schrems II Ruling. On Nov. 17, 2020, the Canadian government introduced the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020 (DCIA, or Bill C-11), a much-anticipated bill aimed at overhauling the country’s comprehensive private sector data privacy legal regime - the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA). The proposed update to Canada’s privacy laws comes as other countries that have received an adequacy determination from the European Commission, as Canada did in 2002, are reevaluating their domestic data protection legislation in light of the Court of Justice for the European Union’s Schrems II ruling in July 2020, which invalidated the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, signaling a much tougher stance on what Europe considers insufficient privacy protections in its trading partners. Read further.

EU High Representative Welcomes Victory of Joe Biden. The victory of Joe Biden as the President-elect has been warmly welcomed in Europe. Now we need to seize the opportunities this offers to rebuild EU-US cooperation. With a new US leadership ready to restore the partnership, the EU should prepare itself to step up its contributions. The world needs a US ready to listen and a Europe able to act... Read more.

EU I Latin America - Europe: the 'other' Transatlantic Relationship. Germany has offered to host a ministerial EU-LAC conference planned in Berlin in December with the aim of setting in motion a new dynamic of high-level engagement and re-energizing the EU’s relationship with Mexico and Brazil.Together the EU and LatAm represent almost one-third of the votes at the UN. The stock of EU27 foreign direct investment (FDI) in LAC amounts to €758 billion; more than the total of EU investment in China, India, Japan, and Russia combined. The EU is also the region’s principal development partner and a main provider of humanitarian assistance. And there are intense people-to-people contacts: close to 6 million nationals from EU and LAC work and live across the Atlantic. The EU has negotiated association, trade or political & cooperation agreements with 27 of the 33 countries, making LAC the region with the closest institutional ties to the EU. Read more.

EU - 4th Annual Report on the Implementation of the EU's Trade Agreements. The EU has in place the largest trade network in the world, with 45 applied trade agreements covering 77 partner countries. Trade with the 65 preferential partners covered in the report grew by 3.4% in 2019, while the EU’s total external trade grew by 2.5% overall. The EU’s trade agreements with Canada and Japan have especially boosted trade, by nearly 25% and 6% respectively, since their entry into force. Read more.

EIB I Brazil: Finance in Common Summit – EIB and BDMG support SMEs impacted by COVID. The agreement will provide flexibility and widen the eligibility criteria of the current EUR 100m BDMG CLIMATE ACTION Framework Loan II, to support and accelerate lending to private sector business in Latin America, especially in Brazil. This flexibility will accelerate access to finance for SMEs and in particular micro-enterprises across the country to the tune of EUR 30m. The EIB and BDMG are partnering to support a series of climate action projects in Brazil, including solar PV, small-scale hydropower and other renewable sources. Read more.

OECD-IDB Peer Review of Competition Law and Policy: El Salvador. The Peer Review published in November finds that the basic pillars of competition law in El Salvador are in line with good international best practices. The latest reform proposals show the efforts of El Salvador to increase the effectiveness of the competition law. Read more.

EU I Standard Contractual Clauses for Cross-Border Transfers of Personal Data and Controller-Processor Relationships. The current SCCs (old SCCs) are styled only to apply to transfers originating in the EU, not to extend to onward transfers. The Schrems II decision declaring invalid the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework has caused a gap for a large number of data transfers from the EU to the U.S., and the onward transfers of such data. The uncertainty was further magnified by the CJEU when it required undefined “supplementary safeguards” for those transfers based on the old SCCs. Once adopted, those two Implementing Decisions should provide much needed guidance. Read further.