In a boost for global free trade, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and EU Presidents Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk yesterday signed the Japan-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) to lay the ground work for the creation of an open trade zone covering over 600 million people. Also known as JEFTA, the deal has been long in the making, but was […]
Data has become a valuable resource and currency over the past years. Methods of data processing, profiling and automated decision making are improving constantly, enhancing business processes and customer relations. From the perspective of the EU, it was just about time to update the old 1995 Data Protection Directive to protect its citizens against data and privacy breaches. Adopting the […]
When the EU signed a free trade agreement with South Korea in 2010, it guaranteed protection against liability for Internet platforms – a key ingredient to maintaining Internet freedom. When the EU signed a free trade agreement with Japan last year, the guarantee against liability for Internet platforms was missing. Guarantees also were gone on the freedom of data flows […]
After invoking Article 50 on March 29, the United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union by March 2019. Yet with only 18 months to go and after a third failed round of negotiations, it looks increasingly possible that the parties may miss reaching a deal. Such a scenario is problematic for non-European multinationals, many of which steer their […]
On the eve of the G20 summit in Hamburg, the European Union and Japan reached a political understanding about a new comprehensive free trade agreement. During the EU-Japan Summit, Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, hailed the agreement as “the birth of the world’s largest, free, industrialized economic zone.” EU officials proclaimed it “the most important bilateral trade agreement ever concluded […]
