Insights

Following a client breakfast, Practice Lead for Sustainability Elizabeth Beall sat down with Mary Creagh MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, to discuss the circular economy and the UK's Waste and Resource Strategy.

Last week, the UK government’s Digital Competition Experts Panel published its report ‘Unlocking digital competition’, addressing the role and economic power of large tech firms. The report, also known as the Furman review after lead author Jason Furman, may not have been obvious reading for the energy sector on a day when the Chancellor announced several climate measures…

I recently listened to a presentation by Al Gore on ‘Sustainable Capitalism and the Climate Crisis’ at Carne and Dechert’s Funds Congress. Gore highlighted the growing risk to financial markets from climate change. Like David Wallace-Wells (in his recent Uninhabitable Earth), he is not afraid of sounding apocalyptic.

UK: Global Counsel Senior Director Stephen Adams and Chief Economist Gregor Irwin discuss US investors' attitudes to Brexit, looking at challenges and opportunities for US investors in a post-Brexit UK, following Gregor's recent trip to North America.

New York congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (widely known as AOC), has once again captured headlines with a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the US government to undertake a “10 year mobilization” to create a ‘Green New Deal’ (known by its own initials GND). Two weeks on and the resolution is now scheduled to go to the floor of the Senate where…

Global Counsel Senior Director, Stephen Adams and Practice Lead, Matt Duhan, discuss his recent blog on the implications of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal.

Between 1993 and 2017, the percentage of overweight or obese adults in England has risen from 53% to 64%. While year on year increases have remained stable, it is an ever-growing area of concern as population health shifts from mortality to morbidity. Meaning that though life expectancy is increasing, so are the number of years spent in ill health. It is undeniably one of…

French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, called this week for political oversight of the quasi-judicial commission merger control process, creating a new tool to help European industries compete internationally. With the European Parliament and European Commission entering a period of transition next month, national leaders will have space to set the agenda for an EU…

Global Counsel Senior Director, Stephen Adams and Research Associate, Ana Martínez, discuss her recent blog about how the European Commission's decision to stop the EDP against Italy could affect the Netherlands

During the Eurogroup meeting on February 11th, the European Commission is expected to present a detailed account of its decision to halt the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) against Italy. The back and forth between Brussels and Rome at the end of last year kept some of us at the edge of our seat. But the EDP was not only an existential crisis for Rome and the euro zone…

We’ve now seen several votes in the House of Commons which are revealing about the appetite for rebellion on Brexit. Three stand out: the “meaningful vote” on January 15th; and the votes on the Brady and Cooper amendments two weeks later. The meaningful vote saw a record defeat for the government by a margin of 230, with 118 Conservatives rebelling against the party whip…

Global Counsel Senior Director Stephen Adams and Chief Economist Gregor Irwin discuss Gregor's latest blog, looking at where things currently stand in the UK's Brexit negotiation.

The last couple of months have been “suboptimal” for Saudi Arabia, to say the least. The Khashoggi murder has brought the leadership around the crown prince, Mohammad bin Salman under severe international and domestic pressure. Rumours of wider discontent with “MBS” were likely one reason why King Salman extended by another year costly household allowances at the expense…

Most assessments of the impact of AI on European labour markets conclude that it will have two key impacts: displacing human labour and driving productivity. In the long run, both of these effects can be positives. In the short run, they are likely to be disruptive and disorienting. The reach of automation into parts of the cognitive labour market that have heretofore…

What are the politics of artificial intelligence? What does it mean when we talk about regulating the actions of a machine that expresses intelligence?

The initial promise of the internet age was for a free and open space to exchange information. However the advent of algorithm-driven content raises important questions about what we see, how much we share a common information landscape and the reliability of what we rely on for news.

AI is already transforming the delivery of financial services. This is true both at the highly sophisticated end of the market, where firms make use of AI to execute high-frequency trading strategies and at the level of the individual retail investor, where AI can tailor and deliver financial “robo-advice” to consumers. Deferring to machine judgement and automation is by…

Healthcare systems across the OECD, whether publicly or privately funded, face a range of challenges that threaten their financial and operational sustainability. The demographic crunch is the backdrop to this. Life expectancy has risen inexorably over recent years, but quality of life has often failed to keep pace. More people are living longer, but frequently with…