Starting December 30, 2024, the provisions of the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR) will apply to large and medium enterprise operators. From that date, relevant commodities and products – including cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy, and wood – may only be placed on the market, made available, or exported if they are deforestation-free. Additionally, they must have been produced in accordance with the relevant legislation of the country of production, and a due diligence statement must be submitted.

Belarus has supported its close ally Russia in its invasion of Ukraine from the outset. In response, the European Union (EU) imposed a first set of sanctions against Belarus as early as February 2022 - under the long-standing sanctions regime established in 2006 - and has regularly expanded the scope of restrictive measures against the country over the past two years. While some restrictions were already aligned with the Russia sanctions regime, the sanctions against Belarus, which were last amended in August 2023, did not keep pace with the development of the Russia sanctions. Until recently.

Im Rahmen ihrer Sanktionspolitik verhängt die EU seit mittlerweile zehn Jahren Sanktionen gegen Russland (Verordnung (EU) Nr. 833/2014 des Rates vom 31. Juli 2014 über restriktive Maßnahmen angesichts der Handlungen Russlands, die die Lage in der Ukraine destabilisieren, Russland-VO). Gegenstand dieser sind zahlreiche nicht personenbezogene Maßnahmen, die dazu dienen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Druck auf das Land auszuüben. Maßnahmen mit Bezug zum Gesundheitssektor – etwa Verbote über die Ausfuhr von Arzneimitteln und Medizinprodukten – sind zwar nicht unmittelbarer Gegenstand der Verordnung, gleichwohl besteht angesichts ihres breiten Anwendungsbereichs (Art. 13 Russland-VO) und ihrer weitreichenden Verbote und Einschränkungen (Art. 2 ff. Russland-VO) stets die Gefahr, dass auch der Gesundheitssektor von den Sanktionsbestimmungen berührt wird.

Companies from Western countries increasingly find that their (sanctioned) contractual partners from Russia are trying to circumvent arbitration clauses by resorting to Russian courts. In an order of 1 June 2023 (12 SchH 5/22), the Kammergericht (i.e., the Higher Regional Court of Berlin) shed light on topics surrounding these issues, affirming the admissibility of arbitral proceedings even though the Russian company had already lodged a claim in Russia. In addition, the Kammergericht provided clarifications on the service of legal documents when Russian authorities refuse to serve documents under international conventions. Important conclusions can be drawn from this decision for future proceedings, both for procedural and substantive issues.

As announced in January, BLOMSTEIN is publishing a series of briefings introducing European and German legal issues for the security and defense sector. In our last briefing we provided an overview of new funding opportunities made available to industry by the European Investment Bank.

This issue deals with various new ESG obligations for the defense and security industry. Companies in this sector are subject to a wide range of regulatory obligations. For some time now, these have included ESG obligations in particular. The number of new requirements for companies in this area is high. There were already some changes in the first half of the year (see our corresponding ESG briefings). This briefing provides an overview of the latest developments in Germany and at European level in the ESG area and their impact on the defense and security industry.

This briefing is the sixth in a series on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), where BLOMSTEIN addresses the key aspects that (in)directly affect businesses both within and outside the EU, explores its interplay with the existing legislation in Germany (LkSG) and examines interactions with other recently adopted EU legislation (e.g., EUDR, CSRD) which partially set overlapping obligations.

The German Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (Außenwirtschaftsverordnung – AWV) establishes rules, in particular, concerning the export of weapons, armaments and goods that can be used for both civilian and military purposes (so-called dual-use items). An amendment of these national export control regulations, the 21st Ordinance amending the AWV, was adopted by the German federal government on 17 July 2024 and will enter into force shortly. Its key content is the expansion of the national dual-use items list, subjecting certain emerging technologies to unilateral export controls. Below, we provide a brief overview of the planned changes and put them into context.

Take a seat and grab some popcorn. The DMA series, starring the six gatekeepers Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and Byte Dance continues. The European Commission has been an active director who has not been exclusively happy with the performance of its main actors. Have business users or end users acted as supporting actors so far or have they only been extras? Here is what happened since the DMA entered into force through the lens of a camera team.

As in the previous Series A 2021 and Series B 2023 financing rounds, BLOMSTEIN also supported the DeepTech company Helsing in its EUR 450 million Series C financing round with regard to foreign direct investment control law.

The 14th package of EU sanctions against Russia, aimed at further increasing economic pressure and tackling sanctions circumvention in response to Russia's continued aggression towards Ukraine, entered into force on 24 June 2024. The new amendments to Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 can be found in Regulation (EU) 2024/1745. In this briefing, we outline the most significant changes.