United Kingdom: International Trade & Investment

A recent English court decision examined two critical aspects of force majeure clauses in commercial contracts: what constitutes an "unforeseeable" event and whether notice requirements operate as conditions precedent. The case arose from a grain shipment dispute involving a vessel stranded in the Black Sea during the Ukraine invasion, where the seller invoked force majeure after Russian inspectors halted vessel inspections.

The world will look different within two to three years, and investment decisions need to account for that reality. By the end of the decade, many of today's political leaders will be leaving office, facing succession challenges, or governing with weaker mandates. Donald Trump will have left office by January 2029, closing a chapter in which American politics was defined by his influence.

The UK Supreme Court has ruled on whether sovereign states can invoke immunity to resist enforcement of adverse ICSID arbitration awards in English courts. Spain and Zimbabwe challenged the registration...

HMRC has announced a significant policy shift by publicly naming Petrofac in a £569,157 compound settlement for Russia sanctions breaches, ending its longstanding practice of anonymising offending companies. This marks a fundamental change in UK sanctions enforcement strategy, aligning HMRC's approach with other enforcement bodies like OTSI and OFSI, while potentially altering how companies calculate their response to trade sanctions investigations.

On 5 June 2026, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and HM Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) published a renewed Memorandum of Understanding (the MoU) setting out their arrangements for co-operation and information sharing in relation to UK sanctions.

The UK Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism enters into force on January 1, 2027, imposing a carbon price on imports of aluminum, cement, fertilizers, hydrogen, and iron and steel to address carbon leakage and ensure competitive parity with domestic producers under the UK Emissions Trading Scheme. Operating as a tax administered by HMRC, the mechanism will phase out free allowances over nine years while potentially exempting EU imports if UK-EU ETS linking negotiations succeed.

The European Commission has unveiled a comprehensive package of measures designed to simplify the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), promising to slash annual compliance costs by approximately 75% while...

Businesses affected by the Strait of Hormuz crisis are likely to be navigating both sides of the contractual liability equation: seeking to enforce protections while simultaneously trying to limit their own exposure.

In the EU, the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988 (“GPSR”) came into force on 13 December 2024, replacing the decades-old General Product Safety Directive 2001/95/EC and applying directly...