In view of “Russia’s actions destabilising the situation in Ukraine”, as the relevant Regulations coin it, the EU has tightened the financial sanctions on Russia. Introduced via Council Regulations of 25 February, 28 February and 1 March, the revised and newly inserted Articles 5 to 5i of the amended Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 seek to largely restrict access to the EU capital market by Russia’s central bank, several major banks and key companies. As announced in our briefing of 26 February 2022 on the EU’s second round of Russia sanctions, we will go into more detail on these sanctions in the following.

Since last night, the EU has adopted further sanctions against Russia. The new restrictions concern the listing of further persons, including Oligarchs with close ties to President Putin, and the aviation sector. The SWIFT de-coupling is not yet legally implemented.

On 25 February 2022, the European Union (EU) has agreed upon further sanctions against Russia as a reaction to, as the European Council put it, “the Russian Federation’s unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Ukraine.” :

If the Western states stick to their pronouncements of the past few days, the imposition of further sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine is only a matter of time. The EU has already announced a crisis summit for tonight (24 February 2022), which will lead to a massive tightening of yesterday’s sanctions for Russia’s recognition of independence of Ukrainian’s regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The current sanctions regime consists of two layers:

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action was able to fend off an attempt by Taiwanese chip supplier GlobalWafers to have the foreign trade law condition for the Siltronic takeover established by means of an urgent appeal. The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg dismissed GlobalWafers’ appeal against the ruling of the Berlin Administrative Court passed shortly before (OVG 1 S 10/22).

While generally, sustainability initiatives and Environmental Social Governance (ESG) become increasingly important for both consumers and investors, the line between strengthening cooperation to achieve sustainability goals and compliance with competition law remains a fine one (see also our briefing of 7 February 2021). The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has recently examined three sector initiatives aimed at sustainability gains. While the agency did not publish detailed decisions or case reports, some guidance can still be concluded from its findings.

BLOMSTEIN advises Chinese terminal operator COSCO Shipping Ports Limited (COSCO) on foreign direct investment aspects relating to its entry into the German market. COSCO is acquiring a minority stake of 35 % in Container Terminal Tollerort (CTT) from the Port of Hamburg Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA). The deal is subject to various FDI and merger control clearances.

Today, 17 December 2021, is the deadline for implementing the EU Whistleblower Directive. So far, only Sweden and Denmark have transposed the Whistleblower Directive into respective national regulations; Portugal managed to pass a law by majority vote of the parliament in time, but the Portuguese transposition law will not enter into force until mid-2022. Germany, on the other hand, is threatened with infringement proceedings as the coalition partners of the old government could not agree on a first draft bill, the so-called Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA) of the Federal Ministry of Justice. However, the recently published coalition deal of the newly elected coalition picks up the issue again, so that new developments on the Whistleblower Protection Act seem to be underway. The coalition agreement commits to implement the directive, which creates a uniform legal framework for the protection of whistleblowers throughout the Union, in a “legally secure and practicable” manner. Germany plans to protect whistleblowers from legal disadvantages not only when reporting breaches of EU law, but also when reporting significant breaches of national regulations or any other significant misconduct, where disclosure is of special public interest.

BLOMSTEIN has successfully advised Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (Teva) on the German foreign direct investment aspects of its strategic licensing collaboration with MODAG GmbH (MODAG).

A Comissão Europeia apresentou, em 17 de novembro de 2021, a “Proposta de regula-mento sobre produtos sem desmatamento” (Regulamento sobre Desmatamento ou Regulamento, cujos documentos relevantes podem ser encontrados aqui), com objetivo de evitar a comercialização em seu território de produtos associados a desmatamento ou degradação florestal. A lista de produtos é definida pelo art. 1º do Regulamento sobre Desmatamento, a saber: gado (seja o gado in natura, carne ou couro), cacau, café, óleo de palma, soja e madeira, bem como subprodutos, produtos que contenham ou que resultem dos mesmos (em conjunto, Produtos Relevantes). O Anexo I do Regulamento apresenta a lista exaustiva dos subprodutos e derivados sujeitos a suas regras.