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Our multi-disciplinary, full-service teams across Europe can support your mergers and acquisitions, investment, employment, IP and tax work, wherever you are based.  If you are faced with litigation, our dispute resolution specialists can represent your interests before all major national courts, institutions and forums. Our sector-focused experts are committed to putting you and your business success first.

Contact us via our online form or give us a call if you are seeking experienced legal experts to help you successfully grow and expand your European business interests. 

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29/05/2023
CMS European Private Equity Study 2023
We are very pleased to share with you the second edi­tion of the CMS European Private Equity Study 2023.This study ana­lyses hun­dreds of Private Equity deals that we ad­vised on in 2022 and pre­vi­ous years, provid­ing unique in­sights in­to mar­ket trends and dif­fer­ences between private equity and trade deals. Key find­ings: Deal activ­ity re­mained strong un­til Q3 2022, but ex­per­i­enced a sig­ni­fic­ant drop in Q4.New in­vest­ments ac­coun­ted for 85% of PE deals ana­lysed, with few­er exits and sec­ond­ary buy-outs in 2022 com­pared to 2021.Bid­ding pro­cesses de­creased in 2022, po­ten­tially due to less in­volve­ment of PE funds on the sell-side.Entry in­to new mar­kets was the most com­mon deal driver (64% of deals), while di­git­al­isa­tion was no longer a deal driver­Tech­no­logy, me­dia, and tele­coms (TMT) was the busiest sec­tor, fol­lowed by Real Es­tate & Con­struc­tion and life sci­ences.Use of MAC clauses de­creased to 10% in 2022, com­pared to 15% in 2021.Few­er FDI ap­provals or clear­ances were sought in 2022 (8%) com­pared to 2021 (15%).W&I in­sur­ance played a prom­in­ent role in PE M&A trans­ac­tions, in­creas­ing with deal value.Locked box mech­an­isms for set­ting pur­chase price were pre­ferred in 80% of PE deals, while pur­chase price ad­just­ments de­creased.Earn-out pro­vi­sions in­creased over­all in 2022 but were more com­mon in smal­ler deals than high­er value deals.ESG con­sid­er­a­tions have not yet fea­tured in leg­al due di­li­gence or trans­ac­tion doc­u­ments.Man­age­ment in­cent­ive schemes saw short­er vest­ing peri­ods, in­creased man­age­ment al­loc­a­tion, but tightened leav­er pro­vi­sions.Over­all, there were buy­er-friendly de­vel­op­ments in some deal met­rics, such as the use of "tip­ping" bas­kets.
22/05/2023
Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion - Life Sci­ences & Health­care
The Life Sci­ences and Health­care Sec­tor is highly tech­no­logy-driv­en and an in­creas­ingly dy­nam­ic ap­proach is taken when ad­opt­ing busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies. This sec­tor’s above-av­er­age up­take in tech­no­logy is re­flec­ted in its pri­or­it­isa­tion of meas­ures against IT fail­ure. However, the sec­tor is of­ten un­der­prepared for tech­no­logy risks, with many busi­nesses still not hav­ing pro­cesses in place to man­age key risks des­pite cur­rent and fu­ture con­cerns around dis­putes arising from this area.This re­port is a deep dive in­to data first pro­duced for the re­port Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion: Man­aging Risks in a Chan­ging Land­scape. This saw over 500 people sur­veyed from mul­tiple in­dus­tries across the world.Here we look in de­tail at the 75 re­spond­ents from the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­tor, and their per­spect­ives on the risks as­so­ci­ated with busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies.Down­load the Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion Life Sci­ences and Health­care re­port now to read about:Drivers of tech­no­logy ad­op­tion in the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­torNew risks emer­ging and tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to risk man­age­ment­Cur­rent tech­no­logy risks in the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­tor­Fu­ture risks, in­clud­ing IP con­cerns and AIPre­ferred ap­proaches to tech­no­logy dis­pute res­ol­u­tion for the Life Sci­ences and Health­care sec­tor
22/03/2023
CMS European M&A Study 2023
The CMS Cor­por­ate/M&A Group is pleased to launch the 15th edi­tion of the European M&A Study
07/03/2023
CMS Ex­pert Guide to ESG Com­pens­a­tion
In­cor­por­at­ing ESG KPIs in­to dir­ect­ors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion The ur­gent need to place sus­tain­ab­il­ity at the heart of com­pany strategy is in­ex­tric­ably linked to in­cent­ives provided to its dir­ect­ors and em­ploy­ees. This Ex­pert Guide aims to provide prac­tic­al in­sights in­to key mar­ket prac­tices and trends aimed at in­cor­por­at­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity and/or En­vir­on­ment­al, So­cial and Gov­ernance (“ESG”) KPIs in­to dir­ect­ors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion.The reg­u­la­tions and re­com­mend­a­tions on ESG-re­lated re­mu­ner­a­tion vary con­sid­er­ably from sec­tor to sec­tor and from coun­try to coun­try. The trend is, how­ever, un­doubtedly to­wards provid­ing dir­ect­ors (and in some cases seni­or/mid-level man­agers) with an in­cent­ive to com­mit to ESG ob­ject­ives de­signed to sup­port and pro­mote ef­fect­ive man­age­ment of sus­tain­ab­il­ity risks.We hope this guide provides the prac­tic­al roadmap you need to fur­ther your busi­ness’s sound re­mu­ner­a­tion prac­tices – wherever in the world you need to op­er­ate. For fur­ther leg­al sup­port and ad­vice, get in touch with your reg­u­lar CMS con­tact or email us at em­ploy­ment@cmsleg­al.com.
23/03/2023
On the Pulse we­bin­ar series 2023 - Spring
Wel­come to the launch of the On the Pulse we­bin­ar series
08/11/2022
Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion – Me­dia
The me­dia sec­tor is known to be highly com­pet­it­ive, with that com­pet­i­tion driv­ing in­nov­a­tion. Older me­dia busi­nesses have had to grapple with dis­rupt­ive new entrants. And those new entrants are con­stantly work­ing to de­liv­er bet­ter and more en­ga­ging con­tent and user ex­per­i­ences to main­tain their ad­vant­age. Di­git­isa­tion has changed how me­dia com­pan­ies in­ter­act with their audi­ence in ways we could not have ima­gined just a few years ago, but this comes with risk.This re­port is a deep dive in­to the data first pro­duced for the re­port Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion: Man­aging Risks in a Chan­ging Land­scape. This saw over 500 cor­por­ate coun­sel and risk man­agers sur­veyed from mul­tiple in­dus­tries across the world. Here we look in de­tail at the 75 re­spond­ents from the me­dia sec­tor, and their per­spect­ives on the risks as­so­ci­ated with busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies. What did we find? Me­dia is a dy­nam­ic sec­tor and can be an early ad­op­ter of many nov­el tech­no­lo­gies as com­pan­ies push for com­pet­it­ive ad­vant­ages to cre­ate and sat­is­fy cus­tom­er de­mand. As we look to the fu­ture, the sec­tor does seem un­der­prepared in some areas, which is a po­ten­tial cause for con­cern.Down­load the Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion me­dia sec­tor re­port now to read aboutThe prin­cip­al drivers in the ad­op­tion of busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­logy in the me­dia sec­tor­Con­fid­ence in man­aging tech-re­lated risks among seni­or me­dia ex­ec­ut­ivesFu­ture threats from new tech­no­lo­gies like AI and block­chain­Which plans and pro­cesses me­dia com­pan­ies are put­ting in place to pro­tect tech in­fra­struc­ture­Cul­tur­al bar­ri­ers to man­aging tech risks in the me­dia sec­tor­Preferred ap­proaches to dis­pute res­ol­u­tion in the me­dia sec­tor
18/10/2022
Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion – Fin­an­cial Ser­vices
The Fin­an­cial Ser­vices (FS) sec­tor is a lead­er in pro­tect­ing its tech in­fra­struc­ture, re­flect­ing the high de­gree of scru­tiny from reg­u­lat­ors. FS firms are at a tip­ping point, with large in­cum­bents ey­ing smal­ler firms and fintechs for their IP and skills to re­main com­pet­it­ive while con­sid­er­ing up­grades to leg­acy sys­tems. Sim­ul­tan­eously, reg­u­la­tion is chan­ging to re­flect new and emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies and threats.This re­port is a deep dive in­to data first pro­duced for the re­port Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion: Man­aging Risks in a Chan­ging Land­scape. This saw over 500 people sur­veyed from mul­tiple in­dus­tries across the world. Here we look in de­tail at the 85 re­spond­ents from the FS sec­tor, and their per­spect­ives on the risks as­so­ci­ated with busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies. This sec­tor is more highly reg­u­lated than most of the oth­er sec­tors sur­veyed, with many his­tor­ic­al tech dis­putes re­lat­ing to reg­u­la­tion. But the fo­cus of reg­u­la­tion is shift­ing, and so are the risks af­fect­ing this sec­tor.Down­load the Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion Fin­an­cial Ser­vices re­port now to read about:Drivers of tech­no­logy ad­op­tion in the fin­an­cial ser­vices sec­torNew risks emer­ging and tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to risk man­age­ment­Cur­rent tech­no­logy risks in the fin­an­cial ser­vices sec­tor­Fu­ture risks, in­clud­ing AI and crypto­cur­ren­cies, and meas­ures to deal with themPre­ferred ap­proaches to tech­no­logy dis­pute res­ol­u­tion for the fin­an­cial ser­vices sec­tor
08/09/2022
Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion - Con­sumer Products & Re­tail
Di­git­al­isa­tion has trans­formed how con­sumer products are man­u­fac­tured, dis­trib­uted and sold.The push to main­tain a com­pet­it­ive ad­vant­age, drives in­creased in­vest­ment in new tech­no­lo­gies. This in­vest­ment may re­duce op­er­a­tion­al cost and ease the re­ten­tion of leg­acy sys­tems, but what chal­lenges arise and how do busi­nesses ap­proach the chan­ging risk pro­file?This re­port is a deep dive in­to data first pro­duced for the re­port Tech­no­logy Trans­form­a­tion: Man­aging Risks in a Chan­ging Land­scape. In the ori­gin­al re­port we sur­veyed over 500 cor­por­ate coun­sel and risk man­agers from mul­tiple in­dus­tries across the world.Here, we look in de­tail at the 75 re­spond­ents sur­veyed in the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor, and their per­spect­ives on the risks as­so­ci­ated with busi­ness-crit­ic­al tech­no­lo­gies, in­clud­ing emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies. Our sur­vey shows that busi­nesses across the sec­tor, wheth­er re­tail­ers or man­u­fac­tur­ers, have the same con­cerns but the in­flu­ences on the ad­op­tion of tech­no­logy, the res­ult­ing risks, and the ap­proaches taken to mit­ig­ate or re­solve those risks vary de­pend­ing on wheth­er or not the busi­ness in­volves a dir­ect sales re­la­tion­ship with the con­sumer.Down­load the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor re­port now to read about: Drivers of tech­no­logy ad­op­tion in the con­sumer and re­tail sec­torNew risks emer­ging and tra­di­tion­al bar­ri­ers to risk man­age­ment­Cur­rent tech­no­logy risks in the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor­Fu­ture risks and meas­ures to deal with themPre­ferred ap­proaches to tech­no­logy dis­pute res­ol­u­tion for the con­sumer and re­tail sec­tor
29/07/2022
CMS Ex­pert Guide to Cash pool­ing | 2022 up­date
Cash pool­ing ar­range­ments & agree­ments - 2022 up­date We are pleased to present an up­dated and ex­ten­ded ver­sion of CMS Ex­pert Guide to Cash Pool­ing.Cash pool­ing en­ables cor­por­ate groups to min­im­ise ex­pendit­ure in­curred in con­nec­tion with bank­ing fa­cil­it­ies through eco­nom­ies of scale. Cash pool­ing agree­ments must be care­fully struc­tured in or­der to min­im­ise the risks of civil or crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity of the par­ti­cip­at­ing group com­pan­ies and their of­ficers, and also take in­to ac­count the tax is­sues.Es­pe­cially in dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times like we are ex­per­i­en­cing now, with a mul­ti­tude of risks (raw ma­ter­i­al prices, dis­rup­ted sup­ply chains, to name but a few), the im­port­ance of ef­fi­cient cash man­age­ment is grow­ing. We see in­creas­ing de­mand on ex­pert­ise on cash pool­ing.In this con­text, this guide provides an over­view of the risks of civil and/or crim­in­al li­ab­il­ity as­so­ci­ated with cash pool­ing in mul­tiple jur­is­dic­tions in which CMS is rep­res­en­ted and dis­cusses the vari­ous means by which such li­ab­il­ity may be avoided.Please do get in touch if you have any ques­tions you would like to dis­cuss with our team.
03/11/2021
Hey, Copy­right Dir­ect­ive
A video series to ex­plain copy­right rules re­vamped
26/05/2021
Belt and Road Ini­ti­at­ive
China’s Belt and Road Ini­ti­at­ive (BRI) con­tin­ues to evolve and of­fer op­por­tun­it­ies for na­tions, com­munit­ies and busi­nesses. But it is not without con­tro­versy in areas such as en­vir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al debt.As a lead­er in many Belt and Road sec­tors, CMS has polled and in­ter­viewed over 500 BRI par­ti­cipants around the world, about their cur­rent think­ing on BRI and the pro­spects they see for it. This series of re­ports ana­lyses sen­ti­ment around the world, con­siders what BRI means for each re­gion, shines a spot­light on dif­fer­ent na­tions and high­lights leg­al con­sid­er­a­tions.  You can ac­cess the full series of re­gion­al re­ports be­low.16%me­di­um16%me­di­um16%me­di­um16%me­di­um16%me­di­um16%me­di­um 
14/04/2021
Di­git­al Ser­vices Act (DSA): A new leg­al frame­work for the plat­form eco­nomy
The European Com­mis­sion has is­sued the draft pro­pos­al for the Reg­u­la­tion on a Single Mar­ket for Di­git­al Ser­vices (Di­git­al Ser­vices Act, the “DSA”), which cre­ates a new leg­al frame­work for di­git­al ser­vices, amends the e-Com­merce Dir­ect­ive, and pre­pares the EU law for new and in­nov­at­ive in­form­a­tion so­ci­ety di­git­al ser­vices.The DSA sets out uni­form, har­mon­ised rules for in­ter­me­di­ary ser­vice pro­viders (the “ISPs”) to foster in­nov­a­tion, growth and com­pet­it­ive­ness, to bet­ter pro­tect con­sumers and their fun­da­ment­al rights on­line, to en­sure a safe, pre­dict­able and trus­ted on­line en­vir­on­ment, to of­fer more choices for users and less ex­pos­ure to il­leg­al con­tent, to provide ac­cess to busi­ness users to EU-wide mar­kets through plat­forms, and to fa­cil­it­ate the scal­ing up of smal­ler plat­forms, SMEs and start-ups. The new draft rules es­tab­lish:a frame­work for the con­di­tion­al ex­emp­tion from li­ab­il­ity of ISPs;rules on spe­cif­ic due di­li­gence and oth­er ob­lig­a­tions tailored to dif­fer­ent cat­egor­ies of ISPs;law en­force­ment rules and a new re­gime for co­oper­a­tion of and co­ordin­a­tion between the com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies. 1. Which di­git­al ser­vice pro­viders are covered? The DSA cov­ers those ISPs, wheth­er es­tab­lished in or out­side the EU, that provide in­ter­me­di­ary ser­vices such as con­duit ser­vices, cach­ing ser­vices, host­ing ser­vices to re­cip­i­ents (users, busi­ness users, con­sumers, in­di­vidu­als and leg­al en­tit­ies us­ing the in­ter­me­di­ary ser­vices) hav­ing an es­tab­lish­ment or res­id­ence in the EU.The defin­i­tions of con­duit, cach­ing and host­ing ser­vice pro­viders re­mained the same as in the e-Com­merce Dir­ect­ive; the DSA only re­peats those e-Com­merce Dir­ect­ive defin­i­tions word-for-word.The draft reg­u­la­tion con­tains spe­cial ob­lig­a­tions for on­line plat­form host­ing pro­viders and very large plat­forms as a spe­cial cat­egory of on­line plat­forms, and defines those host­ing ser­vices as fol­lows:On­line plat­forms are pro­viders of host­ing ser­vices which store and make avail­able in­form­a­tion to the pub­lic at the re­quest of a re­cip­i­ent of the ser­vice, e.g. on­line mar­ket­places, app stores, col­lab­or­at­ive eco­nomy plat­forms and so­cial me­dia plat­forms. However, if stor­ing or mak­ing in­form­a­tion avail­able to the pub­lic is a minor and an­cil­lary fea­ture of an­oth­er ser­vice, and can­not be used without that oth­er ser­vice for ob­ject­ive and tech­nic­al reas­ons, the ser­vice does not qual­i­fy as an on­line plat­form. This is the situ­ation with the com­ment sec­tion in an on­line news­pa­per or email and private mes­saging ser­vices.Very large on­line plat­forms are on­line plat­forms which provide their ser­vices to a num­ber of av­er­age monthly act­ive re­cip­i­ents of the ser­vice in the EU equal to or high­er than 45 mil­lion. The list of very large on­line plat­forms is pub­lished in the Of­fi­cial Journ­al of the EU. 2. No change in the li­ab­il­ity of ISPs for in­form­a­tion stored or trans­mit­ted in their ser­vices The DSA does not change the li­ab­il­ity re­gime of ISPs for il­leg­al con­tent. It only re­peats the li­ab­il­ity pro­vi­sions of the e-Com­merce Dir­ect­ive word-for-word and also main­tains the e-com­merce rule that ISPs do not have a gen­er­al ob­lig­a­tion to mon­it­or the in­form­a­tion they trans­mit or store, or to act­ively seek facts or cir­cum­stances in­dic­at­ing il­leg­al activ­ity.As an ad­di­tion, the draft reg­u­la­tion stip­u­lates that ISPs can still refer to the ex­emp­tion of li­ab­il­ity even if they con­duct vol­un­tary self-ini­ti­ated in­vest­ig­a­tions or oth­er activ­it­ies aimed at de­tect­ing, identi­fy­ing and re­mov­ing, or dis­abling ac­cess to, il­leg­al con­tent, or take the ne­ces­sary meas­ures to com­ply with the re­quire­ments of EU law. 3. What are the new ob­lig­a­tions? The DSA stip­u­lates new ob­lig­a­tions on ISPs at dif­fer­ent levels. Com­mon ob­lig­a­tions ap­ply to all kind of ISPs, in­clud­ing on­line plat­forms and very large on­line plat­forms. Host­ing pro­viders have ad­di­tion­al ob­lig­a­tions, and the DSA con­tains spe­cial ob­lig­a­tions for on­line plat­forms com­pared to oth­er host­ing ser­vices. In ad­di­tion, very large on­line plat­forms have fur­ther ob­lig­a­tions to man­age sys­tem­ic risks. 3.1 Com­mon ob­lig­a­tions ap­plic­able to all ISPs Provid­ing in­form­a­tion to au­thor­it­ies based on or­ders: if an ISP re­ceives an or­der from an au­thor­ity to act against il­leg­al con­tent, the ISP must in­form the au­thor­ity without un­due delay about the ac­tions it takes and the time of those ac­tions. Fur­ther­more, if the ISP re­ceives an or­der to provide in­form­a­tion about a spe­cif­ic in­di­vidu­al re­cip­i­ent of a ser­vice, the ISP must con­firm the re­ceipt of the or­der to the au­thor­ity without un­due delay and must provide the re­ques­ted in­form­a­tion with cer­tain lim­it­a­tions.Des­ig­nat­ing points of con­tact and leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ives: ISPs must es­tab­lish a single point of con­tact for dir­ect elec­tron­ic com­mu­nic­a­tion with the au­thor­it­ies and pub­lish it. Fur­ther­more, ISPs not es­tab­lished in the EU but of­fer­ing ser­vices in the EU must des­ig­nate in writ­ing a leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive (to­geth­er with its name and con­tact de­tails) in one of the EU coun­tries where the ISP of­fers ser­vices for re­ceipt, ex­e­cu­tion and en­force­ment of au­thor­ity de­cisions and for co­oper­a­tion with the au­thor­it­ies. This des­ig­nated leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive can be held li­able for non-com­pli­ance with ob­lig­a­tions un­der the DSA.In­dic­at­ing re­stric­tions in terms: all re­stric­tions (in­clud­ing con­tent mod­er­a­tion, al­gorithmic de­cision-mak­ing, and hu­man re­view rules) re­lated to the use of ISPs’ ser­vices re­gard­ing in­form­a­tion provided by the re­cip­i­ents must be in­cluded in the terms and con­di­tions of the ser­vices.Pub­lish­ing an­nu­al trans­par­ency re­ports: ISPs must pub­lish de­tailed an­nu­al re­ports of any con­tent mod­er­a­tion they en­gaged in dur­ing the rel­ev­ant peri­od. These re­ports must in­clude, among oth­ers, cer­tain in­form­a­tion on the or­ders from au­thor­it­ies, no­tices on il­leg­al con­tent and com­plaints re­ceived by the ISP, as well as on con­tent mod­er­a­tion by the ISP. 3.2 Ad­di­tion­al ob­lig­a­tions on all host­ing pro­viders Man­aging no­tices on il­leg­al con­tents: the host­ing pro­vider must in­tro­duce eas­ily ac­cess­ible, user-friendly elec­tron­ic pro­cesses for man­aging no­tices on il­leg­al con­tents. The DSA lists the man­dat­ory ele­ments of such a no­tice. The host­ing pro­vider must con­firm the re­ceipt of such no­tice in a re­spond­ing email and no­ti­fy the claimant of its de­cision without un­due delay.Provid­ing reas­on­ing for de­cisions: if the host­ing pro­vider de­cides to re­move or make un­avail­able any il­leg­al con­tent provided by the re­cip­i­ent, it must in­form the re­cip­i­ent of the de­cision and give clear reas­on­ing for that de­cision. This reas­on­ing must con­tain all man­dat­ory ele­ments lis­ted in the DSA. The de­cision must be pub­lished in an an­onymised way in the Com­mis­sion’s pub­lic data­base. 3.4 Spe­cial ob­lig­a­tions of on­line plat­forms The pro­vi­sions ap­plic­able to on­line plat­forms can­not be ap­plied to SME on­line plat­forms. The fol­low­ing ad­di­tion­al ob­lig­a­tions ap­ply to on­line plat­forms, in­clud­ing very large on­line plat­forms:Com­plaint man­age­ment sys­tem: on­line plat­forms must main­tain an in­tern­al, user-friendly, eas­ily ac­cess­ible elec­tron­ic com­plaint man­age­ment sys­tem and must grant ac­cess to it to the re­cip­i­ents. The re­cip­i­ents can sub­mit com­plaints elec­tron­ic­ally here against the on­line plat­form’s de­cisions on their il­leg­al con­tent.Out of court dis­pute set­tle­ment: re­cip­i­ents af­fected by an on­line plat­form’s de­cision on il­leg­al con­tent are en­titled to turn to an out-of-court body cer­ti­fied by the di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or. The on­line plat­forms are bound by the de­cision of this body. The DSA con­tains the de­tailed rules for the pro­ceed­ings and the de­cisions of this cer­ti­fied body.Pri­or­ity for trus­ted flag­gers: on­line plat­forms must pro­cess the no­tices on il­leg­al con­tent sub­mit­ted by trus­ted flag­gers with pri­or­ity. The di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­ors are en­titled to qual­i­fy an en­tity as a trus­ted flag­ger if all con­di­tions lis­ted in the DSA are met. The list of trus­ted flag­gers is pub­lished in the Com­mis­sion’s pub­licly avail­able data­base.Meas­ures against ab­us­ive no­tices and counter-no­tices: on­line plat­forms must sus­pend their ser­vices to re­cip­i­ents that fre­quently provide mani­festly il­leg­al con­tent. Fur­ther­more, on­line plat­forms must also sus­pend the pro­cessing of no­tices and com­plaints sub­mit­ted by per­sons that fre­quently sub­mit no­tices or com­plaints that are mani­festly un­foun­ded. The DSA con­tains de­tailed rules for the cir­cum­stances to be as­sessed in the case of such sus­pen­sion.Re­port­ing sus­pi­cions of crim­in­al of­fences: on­line plat­forms must promptly in­form the mem­ber states’ com­pet­ent law en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies, or in cer­tain cases Euro­pol, if they be­come aware of any sus­pi­cion of a crim­in­al of­fence in­volving a threat to the life or safety of per­sons has taken place, is tak­ing place or is likely to take place.Know Your Busi­ness Cus­tom­er: on­line plat­forms must identi­fy their traders pro­mot­ing mes­sages or of­fer­ing products or ser­vices to EU con­sumers, and must ob­tain in­form­a­tion about them lis­ted in the DSA, among oth­ers the name, con­tact de­tails, re­gis­tra­tion num­ber, copy of the ID card of the trader. More de­tailed trans­par­ency re­ports: on­line plat­forms must in­clude ad­di­tion­al in­form­a­tion in their an­nu­al trans­par­ency re­port, such as in­form­a­tion about out-of-court dis­putes, sus­pen­sions, and auto­mated con­tent mod­er­a­tion. Fur­ther­more, on­line plat­forms must pub­lish in­form­a­tion at least once every six months on the av­er­age monthly act­ive re­cip­i­ents of the ser­vice in each EU coun­try.User-fa­cing trans­par­ency of on­line ad­vert­ising: on­line plat­forms must en­sure that ad­vert­ise­ments dis­played in their ser­vices con­tain in­form­a­tion that this is an ad­vert­ise­ment, who is the ad­vert­iser, and the tar­get audi­ence of the ad­vert­ise­ments. 3.5 Very large on­line plat­forms’ spe­cial ob­lig­a­tions for man­aging sys­tem­ic risks The draft reg­u­la­tion con­tains the fol­low­ing spe­cial ob­lig­a­tions for very large on­line plat­forms for man­aging sys­tem­ic risks:Risk man­age­ment ob­lig­a­tions: very large on­line plat­forms must con­duct an­nu­al risk as­sess­ments on the sig­ni­fic­ant sys­tem­ic risks stem­ming from the func­tion­ing and use of their ser­vices in the EU. Fur­ther­more, based on these risk as­sess­ments, they must put in place reas­on­able, pro­por­tion­ate and ef­fect­ive risk mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures for the sys­tem­ic risks they identi­fy. The DSA con­tains a de­tailed list of those risk-mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures.Ex­tern­al risk audit­ing and pub­lic ac­count­ab­il­ity: very large on­line plat­forms must con­duct an­nu­al audits on com­pli­ance with the DSA and the code of con­duct via an in­de­pend­ent, ex­tern­al pro­fes­sion­al aud­it­or. The aud­it­or must is­sue a writ­ten audit re­port in­clud­ing the man­dat­ory ele­ments lis­ted in the DSA in writ­ing.Trans­par­ency of re­com­mend­er sys­tems: if a very large on­line plat­form uses a re­com­mend­er sys­tem, it must in­clude the main para­met­ers of and cer­tain in­form­a­tion about this sys­tem in its terms and con­di­tions, and must en­sure op­tions for users not in­volving pro­fil­ing.More trans­par­ency in on­line ad­vert­ising: very large on­line plat­forms must make pub­licly avail­able, through APIs, an an­onymised re­pos­it­ory about the on­line ad­vert­ise­ments dis­played on the plat­form. The re­pos­it­ory must con­tain the con­tent of the ad­vert­ise­ments, each ad­vert­iser’s name, the peri­od when each ad­vert­ise­ment was dis­played, and cer­tain in­form­a­tion about the tar­get audi­ence of each ad­vert­ise­ment.Data shar­ing with au­thor­it­ies and re­search­ers: very large on­line plat­forms must provide ac­cess to the data to the di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or or the Com­mis­sion for mon­it­or­ing and as­sess­ing com­pli­ance with the DSA, and must grant ac­cess to the data to vet­ted aca­dem­ic, in­de­pend­ent re­search­ers for con­duct­ing re­search that con­trib­utes to the iden­ti­fic­a­tion and un­der­stand­ing of sys­tem­ic risks. Data ac­cess must be en­sured via APIs or on­line data­bases.Com­pli­ance of­ficer: very large on­line plat­forms must ap­point at least one pro­fes­sion­al com­pli­ance of­ficer to mon­it­or com­pli­ance with the DSA. The com­pli­ance of­ficer’s name and con­tact de­tails must be provided to the di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or and the Com­mis­sion.Ad­di­tion­al trans­par­ency re­port­ing du­ties: very large on­line plat­forms must pub­lish trans­par­ency re­ports every six months and must pub­lish and sub­mit ad­di­tion­al re­ports lis­ted in the DSA to the di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or and the Com­mis­sion. 4. Com­pet­ent au­thor­it­ies, for­um shop­ping All EU mem­ber states must des­ig­nate a com­pet­ent na­tion­al en­force­ment au­thor­ity for the DSA and the same or an­oth­er au­thor­ity as the di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or. Each di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or has the power of in­vest­ig­a­tion and is en­titled to de­mand in­form­a­tion from the ISPs and any oth­er per­son on sus­pec­ted in­fringe­ments of the DSA, to carry out on-site in­spec­tions, to ask staff of the ISPs to give ex­plan­a­tions, to or­der the ces­sa­tion of an in­fringe­ment, to im­pose fines, and to ad­opt in­ter­im meas­ures.The EU mem­ber state in which the main es­tab­lish­ment of the ISP is loc­ated will have jur­is­dic­tion over the ISP. If an ISP does not have an es­tab­lish­ment in the EU but of­fers ser­vices in the EU, it will be deemed to be un­der the jur­is­dic­tion of the EU mem­ber state where its leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive resides or is es­tab­lished, which en­ables for­eign ISPs to choose the EU jur­is­dic­tion by des­ig­nat­ing its leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive. If the ISP fails to ap­point a leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive, all EU mem­ber states will have jur­is­dic­tion over that ISP.The DSA es­tab­lishes the European Board for Di­git­al Ser­vices, an in­de­pend­ent ad­vis­ory group of di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­ors on the su­per­vi­sion of ISPs with ad­vis­ory tasks for di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­ors and the Com­mis­sion.The DSA in­tro­duces en­hanced su­per­vi­sion for very large plat­forms. In this case, the di­git­al ser­vices co­ordin­at­or will con­sider all opin­ions and re­com­mend­a­tions of the European Board for Di­git­al Ser­vices and the Com­mis­sion. The Com­mis­sion and the Board is en­titled to re­com­mend that the di­git­al ser­vice co­ordin­at­or in­vest­ig­ates the in­fringing activ­ity. The Com­mis­sion is en­titled to ini­ti­ate its own pro­ceed­ings against a very large on­line plat­form in cases defined in the DSA. The DSA con­tains spe­cial rules for pro­ceed­ings ini­ti­ated by the Com­mis­sion against a very large plat­form, with spe­cial pro­ced­ur­al rights and ob­lig­a­tions. 5. Sanc­tions The DSA does not con­tain an ex­haust­ive list of sanc­tions for an in­fringe­ment of the reg­u­la­tion; the Mem­ber States will set out the rules on sanc­tions. The draft reg­u­la­tion defines the fol­low­ing max­im­um amount of pen­al­ties:6% of the an­nu­al in­come or turnover of the ISP for in­fringing the ob­lig­a­tions in the DSA;1% of the an­nu­al in­come or turnover of the ISP for sup­ply­ing in­cor­rect, in­com­plete or mis­lead­ing in­form­a­tion, fail­ing to reply or rec­ti­fy in­cor­rect, in­com­plete or mis­lead­ing in­form­a­tion, and fail­ing to sub­mit to an on-site in­spec­tion;5% of the av­er­age daily turnover in the pre­ced­ing fin­an­cial year per day, cal­cu­lated from the date ap­poin­ted by the de­cision in the case of daily, peri­od­ic pen­alty pay­ments. 6. Next steps The European Par­lia­ment and Mem­ber States will dis­cuss the Com­mis­sion’s pro­pos­al ac­cord­ing to the or­din­ary le­gis­lat­ive pro­ced­ure, which will take at least 18 months. Once ad­op­ted, the DSA will dir­ectly ap­ply across the EU and ISPs will have three months to pre­pare for the new leg­al re­gime.We will con­tinu­ously mon­it­or the status of the le­gis­lat­ive pro­cess and keep you up­dated on any changes to the draft text of the DSA.