Recent Articles

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  29/05/2024

  Europe

  European hydrogen auctions with a focus on Germany, UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands

  Hydrogen auctions have emerged across the globe in recent years to subsidise and promote the production and use of renewable hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels. The EU, individual member states and the UK have all designed and held their own auction/subsidy schemes to bolster the green hydrogen markets in their respective countries.Green hydrogen (i.e. hydrogen electrolysed from power generated from renewable sources) has a much lower greenhouse gas impact compared to conventional ways of producing hydrogen. As such, more cleanly produced hydrogen is expected to play a key role in the decarbonisation...

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  29/05/2024

  Switzerland

  Switzerland announces new cyber-attack reporting requirement for financial institutions

  BackgroundOn 22 May 2025, the Swiss Federal Council released its draft ordinance implementing the reporting requirement in the event of cyber-attack as set out in the Information Security Act. The public consultation will last until the 13 September 2024. This new reporting requirement is expected to apply from 1 January 2025.The Information Security Act contains a relatively detailed list of operators of "critical infrastructures" subject to the obligation to report cyber-attacks. Among other sectors, such as energy, education and healthcare, certain actors in the financial sector are specifically...

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  29/05/2024

  United Kingdom

  The Media Bill receives Royal Assent and becomes the Media Act 2024

  At 8.32pm on Friday 24th May 2024, moments before Parliament was prorogued prior to the upcoming general election, the long-anticipated Media Bill was given Royal Assent and officially became the Media Act 2024. Two years ago the Government published its White Paper ("Up next - the government's vision for the broadcasting sector"), which proposed to introduce the most radical shift to the regulation of UK media in two decades (since the Communications Act 2003). The Draft Media Bill came a year later, and after some wrangling in the two Chambers of Parliament in the last 14 months, a surprise call...

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  29/05/2024

  United Kingdom

  TMO4+ and “First Ready, First Connected” – reforming a disorderly queue?

  The name “TMO4+” doesn’t give much away – but the proposals and emerging regulatory implementation process show that the “first ready, first connected” grid connection reforms envisaged under this badge will significantly impact new grid connection offers received from 1 January 2025 for generation, interconnection, demand or significant modification applications (both onshore and offshore) and existing grid connection offers for projects that have not yet connected.In this Law-Now we place these proposals in their wider context and unpack the new connection...

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  29/05/2024

  United Kingdom

  Operational Resilience: The Countdown

  The countdown is on to make sure your firm is ready to comply with the operational resilience rules by 31 March 2025. This date marks the end of the transition period, but the requirement to be operationally resilient is not a once and done activity, or something that should be seen as tick-box regulatory compliance. Instead, this should be a way of working that is embedded into a firm’s overall culture.The FCA provided feedback to firms on 28 May 2024 which included insights and observations to support firms with their continued implementation of the rules.In our view, this FCA...

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  29/05/2024

  England and Wales

  The future for fusion: Government consults on National Policy Statement EN-8 for Nuclear Fusion Energy

  The Government is now seeking views for a new National Policy Statement (NPS) for nuclear fusion. Full details of the consultation can be found here. This new NPS, which will be termed ‘EN-8’, is intended to provide both a clear market signal that the UK is ‘open for business’ for developers of Fusion Energy facilities, while also providing guidance to those developers and consenting authorities about what is required to obtain consent.It was confirmed within the Energy Act 2023 that nuclear fusion energy facilities will not be subject to the Nuclear Installations Act 1965....

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