Feed

14/06/2023
Cost-cut­ting and re­struc­tur­ing in times of crisis
A tough glob­al eco­nom­ic out­look is driv­ing many em­ploy­ers to re­view their op­er­a­tion­al costs. Across busi­nesses, hard ques­tions are be­ing asked about where ef­fi­cien­cies can be made – and ul­ti­mately what...
09/06/2023
New re­gime for dis­tance con­tracts for fin­an­cial ser­vices
On 6 June 2023, the European Par­lia­ment and Coun­cil agreed upon the new dir­ect­ive con­cern­ing fin­an­cial ser­vices con­tracts con­cluded at a dis­tance (i.e. by phone or on­line), which amends the Dis­tance Mar­ket­ing...
06/06/2023
CMS ap­points Erik Vorst as man­aging part­ner
CMS in the Neth­er­lands ap­points Erik Vorst (49) as man­aging part­ner as per 1 Au­gust 2023. He suc­ceeds Willem Hoo­rne­man (62) who is leav­ing the firm after 34 years. With this ap­point­ment, CMS con­tin­ues...
06/06/2023
The European Com­mis­sion in­vest­ig­ates the pro­ject of ac­quis­i­tion of Asi­ana...
Korean Air­lines no­ti­fied the European Com­mis­sion of its pro­posed ac­quis­i­tion of Asi­ana Air­lines on 13 Janu­ary 2023. On 17 Feb­ru­ary 2023, the Com­mis­sion opened an in-depth in­vest­ig­a­tion in­to the pro­posed...
06/06/2023
CMS Ex­pert Guide to Crypto Reg­u­la­tion in The Neth­er­lands
1. How is crypto reg­u­lated? 2. Are the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies reg­u­lated or un­reg­u­lated in your jur­is­dic­tion? ― Ex­change (buy/sell) ― Cus­tody (hold) ― Bor­row­ing/lend­ing ― Yield/stak­ing 3. How...
Comparable
01/06/2023
State aid: fol­low­ing ap­peals by Ry­anair, the Gen­er­al Court of the EU an­nuls...
On 11 May 2023, the Gen­er­al Court of the EU can­celled two European Com­mis­sion de­cisions au­thor­iz­ing State aid in the form of cap­it­al in­jec­tions for the air­lines SAS and Deutsche Lufthansa, in par­tic­u­lar...
01/06/2023
CJEU provides clar­ity on data pro­tec­tion: judg­ments on right to com­pens­a­tion...
CJEU judg­ment on right to com­pens­a­tion for non-ma­ter­i­al dam­age un­der GDPR (Case C-300/21)On 4 May 2023, the CJEU de­livered a judge­ment con­cern­ing the right to com­pens­a­tion fol­low­ing an in­fringe­ment of...
31/05/2023
UPC – the “Long-arm” jur­is­dic­tion
UPC Long-arm jur­is­dic­tion­With the UPC set to open its doors on 1 June 2023, just how far might its reach ex­tend?Un­less a European pat­ent has been op­ted out of the UPC, the na­tion­al courts and the UPC...
30/05/2023
Dutch Sen­ate has ad­op­ted the Fu­ture of Pen­sions Act
On 30 May 2023, the Dutch Sen­ate has ad­op­ted the Fu­ture of Pen­sions Act. On 30 May 2023, the bill and sub­mit­ted mo­tions were voted on and a ma­jor­ity was achieved. The plen­ary de­bate took place on 22 and 23 May 2023, with a total of 30 mo­tions sub­mit­ted. The Fu­ture of Pen­sions Act will come in­to ef­fect on 1 Ju­ly 2023, with a trans­ition peri­od un­til 1 Janu­ary 2027. Pen­sion funds will have un­til 1 Janu­ary 2028 to com­ply with the new law.The Fu­ture of Pen­sion Act brings sig­ni­fic­ant changes, in­clud­ing:Trans­ition from pen­sion en­ti­tle­ments to per­son­al pen­sion pots: the cur­rent defined be­ne­fits schemes will be re­placed by defined con­tri­bu­tion schemes.Ab­ol­i­tion of the uni­form premi­um: the premi­um con­tri­bu­tion in the new defined con­tri­bu­tion schemes will be­come age-in­de­pend­ent. Each par­ti­cipant, re­gard­less of age, will re­ceive the same premi­um per­cent­age (a flat-rate premi­um). The max­im­um premi­um is 30% of the pen­sion­able salary.Trans­ition­al ar­range­ment for cur­rent age-de­pend­ent premi­ums: em­ploy­ers who already have a defined con­tri­bu­tion ar­range­ment with an age-de­pend­ent premi­um be­fore 1 Ju­ly 2023, can use a trans­ition­al ar­range­ment. They can con­tin­ue the ex­ist­ing pen­sion scheme for par­ti­cipants who are em­ployed be­fore 1 Janu­ary 2027.Min­im­um entry age of 18: the stat­utory min­im­um entry age for the pen­sion scheme will be lowered from 21 to 18 years as of 1 Janu­ary 2024.Changes to part­ner and orphan pen­sions: the amount of in­sured part­ner and orphan pen­sions will be stand­ard­ized and ex­pressed as a per­cent­age of the salary.Em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees will face chal­lenges, as non-com­pli­ance with the le­gis­la­tion from 1 Janu­ary 2027 will res­ult in tax­a­tion and sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cial con­sequences. Trade uni­ons and works coun­cils will also need to take ac­tion. CMS can provide guid­ance and as­sist­ance in this pro­cess. Please con­tact us for any ques­tions or con­cerns. For more de­tails, vis­it our pre­vi­ously pub­lished art­icle. Con­tact Should you wish to re­ceive more in­form­a­tion or if you have any ques­tions re­gard­ing the im­pact of the new pen­sion law on your busi­ness, please con­tact us.
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.
26/05/2023
Per­form­ing ser­vices in a de­cent­ral­ised man­ner un­der Mi­CAR
26.05.2023
26/05/2023
Per­form­ing ser­vices in a de­cent­ral­ised man­ner un­der Mi­CAR
At the end of April 2023, the European par­lia­ment de­cided on a uni­form reg­u­la­tion of crypto as­sets across the EU by vot­ing on the MiCA reg­u­la­tion (i.e. mar­kets in crypto-as­sets). The in­ten­ded in­nov­a­tions...