Kelley Drye & Warren LLP (JD Supra European Union)

The WTO has given final approval for the EU to impose tariffs on at least $4 billion of U.S. goods in retaliation over illegal aid in connection with the Boeing/Airbus aircraft dispute. The EU has set a target date of November 10, 2020 to impose tariffs, regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. Press accounts indicate the EU Commission has given EU member states until...

On July 16, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) issued a highly-anticipated decision evaluating the validity of two popular mechanisms for transferring personal data from the EU to the United States: Privacy Shield and Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs). The Court struck down Privacy Shield, but upheld the validity of SCCs – although not without providing a reminder about company...

Nearly four years after the narrowly won referendum to leave the European Union, so-called “Brexit” was delivered on 31 January when the United Kingdom withdrew from EU membership. The two big questions are whether the two sides will be able to conclude even a bare bone free trade agreement within the allotted time to avoid imposition of tariffs and customs formalities, and how much the UK...

The holiday season is nearly upon us, yet things in the trade world are not so jolly. The United Kingdom (UK) eked out a slight gain in the third quarter to avoid a recession. In the fourth quarter, the usual High Street hustle and bustle is expected to be dampened somewhat as Brexit uncertainty continues and voters prepare for the first December general election since 1923, when a similarly...

The crowd of journalists, functionaries, trade association reps, and political junkies hovering in Brussels for fresh Brexit news grew over the course of the last week following what appeared to be a positive meeting between UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

On Tuesday, September 24, 2019, the European Court of Justice issued two rulings that further defined the right to be forgotten under European laws. The right to be forgotten, also known as the right to erasure, is a fundamental tenant of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) dispute settlement process risks collapse by the end of this year as the United States continues to block appointments to the WTO Appellate Body. Once the terms of two of the three remaining WTO Appellate Body Members expire on 10 December 2019, the WTO’s appeals court no longer will possess the necessary quorum to hear new appeals cases.

On 28 June 2019, the European Union and the South American customs union Mercosur (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay) struck a sweeping trade agreement covering almost 100 billion dollars’ worth of bilateral trade annually. Twenty years in the making, with stop-start trade negotiations having started in 1999, the EU-Mercosur political agreement is considered by the negotiating parties on...

Results of the European elections held in the UK on 23 May resulted in a significant defeat for the ruling Conservative party and a win for the Brexit Party, a single issue political group seeking for the UK to withdraw from the European Union. Several contenders, including former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, are taking a hard-line approach to Brexit and have pledged that under their...

The European Union has just released a list of U.S. products for retaliatory tariffs following the recent announcement by the U.S. of its intent to levy additional duties on European products. The EU list covers nearly $23 billion worth of U.S. goods including tractors, luggage, frozen fish, fruit, wine, ketchup, nuts, and orange juice. The proposed list is available for public comment until May

On 10 April 2019, the European Union granted the United Kingdom a flexible extension, coined a “flextension”, until 31 October. This additional period of time is intended, to allow the UK to ratify the Brexit Deal, an agreement devised between the EU and the UK for the orderly exit of the UK from the bloc.

The Danish and Polish data protection authorities issued their first GDPR fines last month. The cases serve as indicators of the kinds of technical violations enforcement officials are looking to deter as they police the EU’s new privacy regulation.

The U.S. and other companies that export foods, additives, colorings, etc. to the European Union (EU) should take notice: new legislation applicable to the agri-food industry is being billed as one of the world’s “most transparent” laws raising potential concerns about protecting proprietary information from competitors.

Both the EU and the UK are eager to achieve a Brexit deal. However, with time running short and red lines continuing to be drawn on both sides, a no-deal Brexit scenario remains a possibility. For this reason, both the EU27 and the UK are expediting preparations for a hard Brexit.

By November 2021, the European Union (EU) is requiring that clothing, accessories, footwear and other textiles (such as furniture upholstery and bed linens) be essentially free of 33 “CMR” substances, including lead, cadmium, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, formaldehyde, several phthalates, and certain azodyes, aromatic amines, and hydrocarbons, among other substances often found in a variety of...

The European Union (EU) is about to dramatically expand the reach of mandatory chemical disclosure requirements for consumer products. The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced recently that it is preparing to launch, by the end of 2019, a new database on the presence of hazardous chemicals in articles.

The European Union (EU) is preparing to treat the United Kingdom (UK) as a third country after its withdrawal from the bloc, commonly known as Brexit. Unless a deal is agreed before 29 March 2019, the UK’s trade with the EU will be heavily impacted by regulatory restrictions, increased costs, and lengthier procedures applicable to the movements of people, goods and services.

The REACH Committee of the EU Commission agreed on July 11 to advance a proposal that would restrict the presence of four phthalates (DEHP, DBP, BBP, DIBP) in products placed on the market. The proposed restriction would limit the amount of these common plasticizers, individually or in any combination, to a concentration below 0.1% by weight.

Thousands of companies that sell chemical products online should pay close attention to a new EU enforcement initiative aimed at the apparent widespread failure to disclose health and safety hazard information to consumers making website purchases. EU member state enforcement authorities will focus on internet sales of chemical products, according to an announcement regarding the launch of the 8t

Under the GDPR, processors must have a lawful basis for processing any data of an EU data subject. Consent is one of six lawful bases under the GDPR, and in this installment of GDPR SIDEBAR, we’ll cover best practices that can help achieve an acceptable level of compliance with GDPR consent requirements.

The EC announced that it is moving forward with a package of measures to blunt the impact of renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran following the U.S. exit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Included in those measures is the planned activation of the EU blocking statute, which would bar EU companies from complying with the extraterritorial effects of U.S. sanctions requirements on Iran.

On 26 January 2018, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe adopted Resolution 2206 and Recommendation 2122 on the jurisdictional immunity of international organizations and rights of their staff, in which the Assembly was critical of the current availability of internal remedy mechanisms for staff members and recommended several measures to strengthen staff members’ right of access...

Large public companies with a presence in the European Union may be required to comply with an obligation to report additional non-financial information in addition to standard financial reporting. As the obligation applies to reporting on financial years starting from 1 January 2017, companies will be faced with this new obligation for the first time in 2018.

The European Union is launching new privacy and data protection rules in May 2018. This new regulatory framework, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is known to have a substantial extra territorial reach (also likely to apply to every US organization processing personal information of even a single individual in the EU) and boast sanctions of up to € 20 million in fines or, in

The European Commission has fined Google €2.42 billion ($2.7 billion) after concluding the company had abused its dominance in search. According to a letter from the EC announcing the results of its investigation, Google has a dominant market position in search, and the company leveraged that dominance to give itself an unfair advantage in comparison shopping search. For example, according to...

The highest court of the European Union recently issued two judgments allowing employers to ban the visible wearing of political, philosophical or religious signs at the workplace (Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in case C-157/15 and in case C-188/15). If you have a policy in place for your EU-based employees that touches upon the wearing of political, philosophical or...

In long-awaited Opinion 2/15 delivered on 16 May 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union, sitting as a Full Court, held that the Free Trade Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Republic of Singapore (EUSFTA) cannot be signed and concluded by the EU alone: it has to be signed and concluded both by the EU and by each of its Member States.

An Update on the New EU General Data Protection Regulation - On 16 April 2016, the EU adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) which largely rewrites and harmonizes the European legal framework of data protection. The new regulation will become applicable in May 2018, but given the scope and complexity of the GDPR it is important to

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on the structures of excise duties applied to alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the EU. This is part of the process of the potential revision of EU law (Directive 92/83/EEC) which defines and classifies alcoholic products and their level of excise duty within the single EU market.

The Chinese government wasted no time initiating a dispute at the World Trade Organization against the U.S. and the European Union the day after a provision in its WTO accession protocol expired. The provision permits other WTO members to disregard Chinese prices when determining unfair trade tariffs. By disregarding Chinese prices, the agency charged with determining these duties avoids the...