From fraud scandals and allegations to the Covid-19 lockdowns, 2020 was a chaotic year for trade and trade finance. We have rounded up our most popular articles from the past 12 months, which reflect the twists and turns trade faced during this time.
Having tracked click-through rates and time spent on page, we can reveal that the most popular topics that trade professionals read about are: the string of
commodity finance
fraud cases filed across Asia which, in some cases, caused banks to withdraw from the sector; the disruption to trade as a result of
Covid-19 lockdown measures; the ways in which
Law firm Squire Patton Boggs has appointed Singapore-based Kate Sherrard as partner in its financial services practice, marking a further expansion of its commodities and shipping group.
Sherrard joins from Clifford Chance, where she was head of the firm’s Asia Pacific maritime and offshore group. She is accompanied by senior associate Bernice Chia, who also joins Squire Patton Boggs from Clifford Chance’s Singapore office.
Sherrard has previously held the position of partner at Norton Rose Fulbright in Singapore, before which she was a solicitor at Watson, Farley & Williams in London.
She specialises in structured finance transactions across the maritime and oil and gas sectors, and has advised on asset and project financing transactions including export credit agency matters.
The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has confirmed it will provide project financing to the Vung Ang II coal project in Vietnam, despite pressure from climate activist and investor groups to reverse course and drop the deal.
Alongside the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) and a group of private lenders, the Japanese export credit agency (ECA) will provide nearly US$1.8bn in loans for the project.
Funds will go towards a limited liability company set up in Vietnam, which has received investment from Tokyo-based trading company Mitsubishi Corporation as well as other entities, and which is tasked with constructing and operating the coal-fired plant.
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On 24 December 2020, the European Union
(
EU ) and the United Kingdom
(
UK ) finally struck a deal over
Brexit. They notably reached a Trade and Cooperation Agreement
(
TCA ).
In respect of personal data protection, this Trade and
Cooperation Agreement provides for a temporary period during which
transfers made to the UK will not be considered as transfers within
the meaning of the laws of the EU law, insofar as –
inter
alia – the UK Data Protection Act 2018
(
DPA ) as amended in 2019 applies. The
DPA was amended to incorporate the principles of the GDPR and has
On December 17, 2020, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (‘
ICO’) published its Data Sharing Code of Practice (the ‘
Code’) following a public consultation which commenced in 2019. The Code focuses mainly on data sharing among data controllers who are subject to the GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act (‘DPA’) 2018. Data controllers falling within the scope of the ICO’s enforcement powers should take the Code into account when sharing personal data because it will help them comply with their data protection obligations. Due to the detailed way in which the Code covers data sharing in the context of the GDPR, it will also be of wider interest to data controllers in the EU and beyond – even after the end of the Brexit transition period.