Insights

As with much of the rest of the world, countries in Southeast Asia are scrambling to roll out covid-19 vaccines. While the region has weathered the pandemic better than others and has managed to keep fatalities relatively low, the economic impact of the covid-19 outbreak has been severe. It has been the largest growth shock for Southeast Asia since the Asian Financial…

GC has collaborated with UK Finance to produce a comprehensive strategic overview of how the UK might define a trade policy for financial services. The UK and international trade in financial services report:

For those who questioned the sincerity of President Joe Biden’s rhetoric around addressing climate change, his first few weeks in office has likely cast those doubts aside. Biden has signed more executive orders (over 50 as of this writing) than any president before him. The most prominent ones include re-joining the Paris Agreement and revoking the permit for the…

The EU’s new trade strategy unveiled last week has the ambition to guide Brussels’ trade policymaking for the next decade. But what is notable about it is the way that it actually struggles to set out a clear and unequivocal direction for policy. Instead, it tries to strike a difficult balance between two conflicting impulses on free trade and growing inward-looking…

On Friday, the UK Supreme Court issued its long-awaited ruling on the employment status of Uber drivers. It concluded that Uber drivers are “workers”, a form of intermediary status in UK employment law which provides individuals with some, but not all the rights enjoyed by permanent employees, including minimum wage and paid holiday. The ruling was the latest and last in…

Global Macro Practice Lead Thomas Gratowski, and Senior Associates Isabelle Trick and Brigitta Kinadi examine how Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa are approaching covid-19 vaccines and look at how well different emerging markets are positioned to achieve vaccine targets. They also explore how countries have handled the transmission of cases and and when we might be able to…

President Joe Biden’s initial actions on trade shows that President Trump’s trade legacy and his willingness to leverage national security powers to enact trade remedies is likely to prove stickier than many in the private sector would have hoped. So far, the key difference in the new administration’s approach has been largely rhetorical as President Biden positions…

Over the last few years, Global Counsel has convened a policy conference each January to look at the year ahead, taking a big theme and unpacking it. This year’s event was held fully online and focused on the politics of life after covid-19.

Earlier this month, GC hosted a debate on the success and future of clinical trials in the UK. The UK’s profile as a global leader in life sciences has been enhanced by the covid-19 pandemic. Industry, the NHS and regulators collaborated effectively to be at the forefront of innovation in vaccines and treatments. The RECOVERY trial and its identification of dexamethasone…

Amidst the noise of the Scottish Parliament’s ongoing inquiry into Alex Salmond and the SNP’s acrimonious Westminster reshuffle, one would be forgiven for having missed the publication of the party’s “Roadmap to a Referendum”. The plan, while not immediately dictating the prospects of success, charts in detail how an SNP Government would force the issue following the…

Senior Associate, Jens Presthus, and Associate, Frederick Michell, join Senior Director, Stephen Adams, to look at internet regulation in China and Russia. They explore how digital companies, both foreign and domestic, could be affected by future regulation and how each country plans to tackle misinformation. Their discussion highlights that the two countries, whilst…

Policymakers’ concerns about Big Tech’s market power are nothing new. The European Commission has been launching antitrust investigations against the likes of Google, Facebook and Apple for over a decade. However, efforts to rein in big tech reached a new plateau in 2020, with the EU and the UK publishing detailed proposals for “ex-ante” regulation of large technology…

Senior Associates Miranda Lutz and Max von Thun join Senior Director Stephen Adams to analyse what anti-trust law proposals in the US, UK and the EU mean for tech companies operating in each of these respective jurisdictions and question whether reform can truly be meaningful without international collaboration.

The great Irish-American politician Tip O’Neill was famous for pointing out that all politics is local. But local politics doesn’t always stay local. The history of Northern Ireland is decades-long proof of that, and that proof is again being applied to the whole UK/EU relationship.

The UK government’s willingness to accept the Financial Conduct Authority’s recommendation to pass new laws to regulate the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) market indicates growing political concern about household finances amid the pandemic, and a willingness to regulate if necessary. Irrespective of how the government decides to regulate, the measures signal a move towards a…

Policy addressing health, climate, and poverty has often occurred in silos. Covid-19 has emphasised the interconnected nature of each of these areas, and particularly in how they relate to food systems. Global Counsel Chairman, Peter Mandelson recently discussed these issues with Special Envoy on Covid-19 for the World Health Organization, David Nabarro, where they looked…

Debit Balances in US Securities Margin Accounts ($ in millions)

There is no country in Southeast Asia that has escaped the impact of covid-19 unscathed, although the intensity of the pandemic’s disruption and individual countries’ abilities to adapt have varied significantly. Early government intervention to restrict international travel and the implementation of strict lockdown measures meant that in terms of covid-19 cases,…