After a lacklustre finish to 2022 when compared to the vintage year for M&A that was 2021, dealmakers expected 2023 to see the market continue to cool in most sectors, in response to the economic headwinds of rising inflation (with its corresponding impact on financing costs), declining market valuations, tightening regulatory scrutiny and increasing geopolitical tensions. Hopes remained high, however, for deal activity in the perennially active TMT sector, which was expected to capitalise on the ever-increasing digitalisation and connectivity requirements of businesses and consumers alike ..read more

The United States Federal Government is turning its attention to privacy and cybersecurity laws, and the result has been several recent legal developments that may have an impact on your business. Keeping up with these developments is not easy, so we’ve created a fun way to test your knowledge of the same ..read more

2023 was a challenging year for global FinTech M&A and investment. Intense macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds led to investor caution. The result was that the sector experienced the lowest levels of M&A and investment activity since 2017, both in terms of deal value and volume ..read more

The insurance industry is founded on predicting, as accurately as possible, whether or not a risk will materialize in a fast-moving competitive environment. Such predictions are intensively focused on data ..read more

On March 27, 2024, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (“CIRCIA”), which imposes new reporting requirements for entities operating in critical infrastructure sectors. The CIRCIA was originally enacted in part as a response to recent attacks on critical infrastructure, such as the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline in May 2021, but CISA’s proposed regulations take a surprisingly broad view of who may be considered a covered entity and what incidents ar ..read more

On 22 April 2024, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a speech by its chief executive, Nikhil Rathi, entitled ‘Navigating the UK’s Digital Regulation Landscape: Where are we headed?’. In the speech, Mr Rathi announced the FCA’s plans to focus on Big Tech, which are included in Feedback Statement FS24/1 (published alongside the speech). The speech also covered the FCA’s response to the Government’s White Paper on Artificial Intelligence (AI), which was also published in parallel with the speech ..read more

On March 28, 2024, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued guidance to federal government agencies on agency use of artificial intelligence (AI). The guidance recommends that agencies take a risk-based approach with respect to AI ..read more

When talking about digital assets, how much is saying too much? How much is saying too little? Did what you say ultimately matter? Recent court decisions arising from the purchase and sale of digital assets have grappled with liability claims posing such questions about information that had been stated or omitted ..read more

On March 13, the EU Parliament voted to adopt the EU’s AI Act. The AI Act is the EU’s first comprehensive legislation setting rules regulating artificial intelligence on an EU-wide basis. It will impose new and significant obligations on those developers, distributors, and users of AI systems that affect people in the EU ..read more

On 7 March 2024, the European Court of Justice (the ECJ) published an important decision in relation to IAB Europe’s Transparency and Consent Framework (the TCF ..read more