On 9 September 2026, the European Commission adopted its proposal for a new Public Procurement Regulation. The goal: To make public procurement simpler, more flexible, and more effective with a single, directly applicable Regulation. The proposal replaces the current Directive 2014/23/EU on concessions, Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement and Directive 2014/25/EU on procurement by entities operating in the water, energy, transport and postal services sectors. This is not just a technical redesign. On the contrary, the European Commission uses its proposal to align public procurement more closely with the European Unions (EU)’s industrial, security and geopolitical agenda. Below we outline the key changes, and explain why this marks a new era for the industry, taking into account that the EU’s public procurement market’s value is around EUR 2.5 trillion annually.

On 10 August 2026, the European Commission (Commission) definitively imposed anti-dumping (AD) duties on imports from the Republic of Korea (Korea) and Mexico of terephthalic acid (TA), i.e., the essential feedstock for PET bottles, polyester fibres and food packaging. This Regulation is unusually rich in points that matter well beyond the TA world. It (i) signals that China is not the only target; explains how the Commission calculates (ii) dumping margin when its own sample partly do not dump and (iii) injury margin when it treats two different-behaving exporting countries as one.

According to recent press reports (examples available here and here), the European Union may be quietly assembling an economic security bloc with the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea to shield their automotive sectors from Chinese overcapacity. No official statement made yet, and the Commission declined to confirm. This note sets out, from an EU and WTO perspective, what an “alliance" could actually mean in law, which of its plausible building blocks are already in place, and where the difficulty lies.

Mit dem Inkrafttreten der reformierten EU-Screening-Verordnung Mitte Juli sind die neuen europarechtlichen Vorgaben für die Investitionskontrolle gesetzt (ABl.  2026/1386, 26.06.2026). Für Deutschland stellt sich nun die Frage, wie diese Vorgaben in nationales Recht umgesetzt werden. Die Bundesregierung plant, die bislang im AWG und in der AWV geregelte Investitionskontrolle in einem eigenständigen Investitionsprüfgesetz zu bündeln und dabei die Anforderungen der reformierten Verordnung zu berücksichtigen.

Das Briefing zeigt auf, welche Neuerungen die EU-Screening-Verordnung für das deutsche Investitionsprüfungsrecht mit sich bringt und an welchen Stellen gesetzlicher Anpassungsbedarf besteht.

The European Commission has launched an 8-week consultation on whether additional categories of steel products should be covered by the EU Steel Overcapacity Regulation that came into force on 1 July 2026. Stakeholders have until 30 September 2026 to submit comments. The European Commission will decide by 31 December 2026 whether to extend the scope to cast iron pipes and hollow profiles, non-alloy and other alloy wire, stainless steel wire, and forged bars. This is the first of many reviews planned under the Regulation. It is likely to attract attention from other industries facing similar challenges.

Die Investitionskontrolle wird seit Jahren ausgeweitet. Im Zentrum der Wahrnehmung standen dabei meist das Ergebnis der verwaltungsrechtlichen Prüfung durch das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWE) – Untersagung, Erlass von Anordnungen oder Freigabe. Weniger im Blick war bislang, dass Verstöße gegen die Stillhaltepflichten während des Prüfverfahrens nicht nur zivilrechtliche, sondern auch strafrechtliche Folgen haben können.

The European gaming industry, like many digital sectors, is currently facing a perfect storm arising from an arguably incomprehensible – some might even say incoherent – patchwork of EU regulatory requirements. Driven by the European Commission’s (Commission) ambition to establish digital sovereignty, the regulatory net has tightened, moving from general data protection (GDPR) to specific technical and behavioural obligations for companies. The following briefing breaks down the key legislation on consumer protection as well as its implications on the European gaming industry.

The steel safeguards are dead, but steel protection lives on. On 30 June 2026, the safeguard measures that have protected European and British steel industries for eight years reach their legal limit. Both jurisdictions unveiled new instruments designed to tackle global steel overcapacity while sidestepping the constraints that apply to safeguards. Similar objective, different architecture. This briefing examines how the EU and UK have reinvented steel protection as from 1 July and what their new approaches reveal about the evolution of trade defence policy.

The recent surge in gaming M&A activity (see Drake Star Report, available here) has been matched by a sharp increase in regulatory complexity and unpredictability. No deal illustrates this better than the proposed USD 55 billion buyout of Electronic Arts by a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund; a transaction simultaneously navigating merger control, screening by the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and FDI scrutiny. This convergence of three distinct regulatory regimes on a single transaction is no anomaly: It reflects a structural shift in how gaming deals are regulated. Companies pursuing transactions in this environment must navigate an increasingly dense web of regulatory hurdles, including merger control, FDI and potentially even the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), depending on the scale of the transaction and whether or not it involves state-backed parties. As authorities tighten their scrutiny, successful deal planning hinges on aligning transaction strategy with the current regulatory landscape.

Mit der Ende 2024 beschlossenen Verordnung (EU) 2024/2847, auch Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), legt die Europäische Union weitere verbindliche Standards für die Cybersicherheit fest. Während es bei der Umsetzung der NIS-2-Richtlinie vor allem die Cybersicherheit von Unternehmen und kritischen Infrastrukturen adressiert, steht beim CRA die Produktsicherheit im Fokus.