Numerous regulatory regimes and soft law standards have been introduced in recent years which ask businesses to collect data and report on an increasingly broad range of sustainability-related topics. Disclosure regimes can impact businesses directly and indirectly and can vary across jurisdictions creating challenges for global corporations and requiring a consistent and strategic approach to reporting. With further disclosure regimes on the horizon, this area is rapidly evolving.

We have a deep knowledge of the ESG-related disclosure regime and have advised clients on their application and compliance for a number of years. We help our clients understand what information needs to be disclosed and where, assist in identifying market trends and best practice and help align disclosures with business strategy and policy commitments. We also help clients navigate potential challenges and pitfalls such as ensuring disclosures are appropriately balanced, understanding hot button issues and areas of particular sensitivity, ensuring that risks and challenges and dependencies are clearly articulated, and cautionary statements and disclaimers are used appropriately.

Having a broad, deep and multi-disciplinary understanding of the span of demanding and fast-paced regulatory reforms, we advise many buy-side, sell-side firms and corporates on the way in which the new and emerging regulatory requirements will impact their institutions and on the compliance programmes and dis-closures necessary to achieve compliance at both entity and product level. We are advising several large asset managers and investment funds on how to comply with the new requirements. Closely watching the development of detailed, technical standards in this space, and with strong links to many industry associations, we are able to provide rigorous legal analysis of legislation, rules and policy guidance with the ability to benchmark their practical implementation in the market. With contrasting regimes already in place or pro-posed in jurisdictions including the EU and the UK, our cross-practice capability enables clients to stay on top of reforms and develop practical implementation solutions.

As with every major area of regulatory reform, governance and control to embed it within an institution will be a core concern of the regulators. With our understanding of our clients’ existing organisational framework and governance structures, we are able to advise senior management teams on how responsibility for ESG risks and opportunities should be mapped, managed and harnessed across the institution.

We have a ESG antitrust team that has been at the forefront of thought leadership in the space and advises clients, including trade associations in various sectors, on cutting-edge ESG matters. Crucially, we can translate our extensive expertise and award-winning innovation across all areas of antitrust law into practical and dynamic solutions for clients both under the existing competition framework and the changes that will come as thinking in this space continues to evolve.

Our Employment & Incentives team is a market-leader in helping clients navigate through the ever-increasing regulatory requirements and investor expectations to incorporate ESG considerations into workplace policies and reward design and disclosure. Our multidisciplinary team can support you with:

• Regulatory remuneration: Our dedicated Incentives practice has steered numerous global firms through dramatic change in remuneration in the financial services sector and has worked with regulators to clarify and influence the practical application of the rules.
• Regulatory employment: Our dedicated Employment practice regularly advises clients on the changing legal and regulatory landscape which has led to enhanced protection for whistleblowers and a corresponding expectation on organisations to implement effective whistleblowing arrangements. The need for robust whistleblowing arrangements, and the increased accountability of senior management for ensuring that those arrangements are fit-for-purpose, has only increased with the implementation of the new EU Whistleblower Protection Directive. We help employers not only with legal compliance, but also on how to “listen up” to what their staff say.