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Supply chain finance in the EU: Part 1 – lessons from recent failures and the case for a targeted SCF Regulation?
Supply chain finance (SCF) is vital for EU working capital but operates within a fragmented and opaque regulatory framework. Recent high-profile failures in or otherwise affecting the SCF market have exposed critical structure weaknesses, including inconsistent private-law rules, insufficient transparency beyond securitisation and uneven operational safeguards. These issues obscure leverage, create liquidity risks and complicate cross-border enforceability, significantly impeding the Single Market.
This article advocates for a proportionate, targeted EU SCF Regulation. It proposes a framework encompassing harmonised definitions, calibrated data and disclosure standards via light-touch repositories and enhanced private-law certainty, including a uniform conflicts-of-law rule and an interoperable e-notice mechanism. These reforms would substantially improve legal certainty, transparency and market stability, ultimately lowering funding costs, increasing small and medium-sized enterprises access to finance and advancing the EU’s Savings and Investments Union objectives.
Losing privilege for iniquity short of fraud: implications of recent s 423 cases
Section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986 allows courts to unwind transactions entered into to prejudice creditors without requiring proof of dishonesty or fraud. Recent case law has nevertheless treated such claims as inherently alleging “disreputable” conduct, with significant implications for privilege and pleading requirements. This article examines the iniquity exception to privilege in s 423 claims, with particular focus on the November 2024 decision in Invest Bank v El-Husseini [2024] EWHC 2976. That decision suggests that establishing a prima facie case of an undervalue transaction entered into for the statutory purpose engages stricter pleading rules and displaces privilege. However, uncertainty remains about the boundaries of this presumption of inherent iniquity and its practical implications for privilege loss across s 423 cases.
22 November 2025Digitising collateral: the LBMA’s digital gold initiative and UCC Art 12
Gold and other precious metals have long been central to the financial system and remain key assets today. However, as global markets expand and technology advances, traditional transactional approaches risk falling behind. London’s $900bn bullion market is preparing to test a new initiative: a digital version of gold. The initiative aims to modernise the way gold is owned, traded, and settled, and facilitates the use of gold as collateral. This shift, together with developments such as Art 12 of the Uniform Commercial Code, bridges the gap between tradition and innovation, simplifying transactions under clearer frameworks and expanding market opportunities.
22 November 2025Loan participations: conflict-of-laws challenges under English and New York law
This article examines the divergent treatment of loan participations under English and New York law, focussing on how each jurisdiction characterises the legal relationship between grantor and participant. It explores the conflict-of-laws challenges that arise when structuring cross-border financing transactions in which the underlying loan and participation agreement may be governed by different legal systems.
22 November 2025Debt relief moratoria: important issues for creditors
The Debt Respite Scheme (Breathing Space Moratorium and Mental Health Crisis Moratorium) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020/1311 (the Regulations), which were made under s 7 Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018, created two types of debt relief moratorium:
(i) the breathing space moratorium, providing short term relief to debtors to enable them to obtain debt advice; and
(ii) the mental health crisis moratorium, providing relief to debtors undergoing a mental health crisis.
A moratorium affords the debtor far-reaching protection by significantly restricting the rights of affected creditors during the lifetime of the moratorium, most notably the right to take enforcement action.
There have now been a number of cases considering the Regulations but, as this article explains, aspects of their operation are ill-defined, and their scope remains uncertain in important ways. This article identifies the contentious and problematic elements of the Regulations and surveys the case law.
Financing data centres in the US and Europe: Part 2
In our previous article ('The key characteristics of data centres in the US and Europe: an overview for those involved in financings – Part 1' (2025) 10 JIBFL 694), in order to provide some background as to data centres as an asset class, we looked at data centres' real estate fundamentals, where in the world they are located, and different types of data centre. We also touched on concerns around energy, electricity, heating, cooling and water, all of which in turn make ESG topical in the context of data centres.
In this second article, we will discuss the financing of data centres, focusing particularly on the capital markets. No consideration of this topic would be complete without considering the pre-eminent US data centre financing market, so we will look at this, and in particular the division there between asset-backed securitisations and commercial mortgage-backed securitisations. We then move on to consider recent European data centre financings; their key features and how we expect this financing market to develop.
In this article we will not explain the basic fundamentals of financings, as this is intended for an audience which is already reasonably familiar with these structures.
Risky business: brokers and platforms in the UK’s crypto regime
Once the UK’s draft regime regulating the conduct of certain activities in “qualifying cryptoassets” takes effect, firms offering particular services in the UK will need to decide whether to do so as a trading platform or a broker. Both are permitted options, but these are often pursued separately (and future crypto regulation in the UK might make them mutually exclusive). This article analyses and compares the commercial costs and benefits of offering services via on-platform trading in cryptoassets as operators of cryptoasset trading platforms (CATPs) and via over-the-counter activities as cryptoasset brokers.
25 October 2025Data privacy in a retail CBDC system built on a public blockchain
This article examines the data protection and privacy concerns arising from the use of retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), specifically in the context of a system built on a public blockchain, such as Ethereum. It examines the extent to which the risks and concerns can be minimised by building in privacy-enhancing technologies in the governance framework of the retail CBDC as set out in documents and legislative provisions explaining the operation of the digital pound and the digital euro.
25 October 2025The key characteristics of data centres in the US and Europe: an overview for those involved in financings – Part 1
In this first article of two, we seek to provide some background for those involved or interested in the financing of data centres, we describe what a data centre is, who uses it and some of its typical key features and hot topics. In a second article, we will consider how data centres are financed, both in the US and Europe, with a particular focus on the securitisation market.
25 October 2025Anti-suit injunctions outside contract: a new beginning
The decisions in Broad Idea and Wolverhampton provide a much-needed opportunity for the courts to re-shape the grounds on which they will restrain foreign proceedings outside those cases involving jurisdiction and arbitration clauses. The article offers an outline of a new account, which covers a large part of the field, founded on the applicant’s interest in the just and efficient resolution of their dispute and a principle of protecting the English natural forum from interference.
25 October 2025
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