DiversityInclusionHumanRightsRuleOfLawIn 1857, in the case of Dred Scott v Sandford 60 US 393, a majority of the United States Supreme Court delivered one of the clearest examples of a judiciary breaching the rule of law.  In this notorious case, it was held that coloured people were property and, as chattels, were not entitled to citizenship of the United States and the protection of its Constitution.  A bloody civil war followed this decision, which ultimately led to an end of slavery in the United States.  However, progress towards any form of racial equality was hindered by the United States Supreme Court.  In Plessy v Ferguson 163 US 537 (1896) a majority of the court held that racial segregation did not breach the equal protection clause of the Constitution, bringing about the infamous doctrine of “separate but equal”.  Racial segregation did not end until 1954, when a unanimous Supreme Court held in Brown v Board of Education 347 US 483 that the equal protection clause applied to everyone, regardless of race. 
On the other side of the Atlantic, a majority of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council – comprised of judges also sitting at the Supreme Court of the UK – held, in Boyce v the Queen [2004] UKPC 32, that colonial laws dating from the time of the British Empire, regardless of their being “inhumane or degrading”, cannot be held to be inconsistent with the declaration of fundamental rights and freedoms of the written constitution.  Immunity was said to be “complete”, i.e. absolute in perpetuity. Such interpretation of a codified declaration of fundamental rights and freedoms obviously feels wrong and may be argued to as defying any basic sense of human dignity or understanding of what the rule of law means.  The implications are profound and broad-ranging.  The decision’s precedential value has consequences beyond the case in which it was decided in that many Caribbean laws that discriminate against LGBTI people, or even still criminalise consensual sexual intercourse between two adults of the same sex, are also untouchable colonial laws as a result. 
The Diversity and Inclusion Council along with [x] call for a special panel discussion to consider the implications of wrong judicial decisions what mechanisms can be employed to mitigate against such eventualities (e.g. such as not representing governments that wish to perpetuate errors of law) and if there are means to hold the judiciary to account for clearly erroneous decisions. 
 

The impact algorisms and other forms of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace is significantly increasing. From hiring to termination, the employment relationship is bound by the potential directions given by Artificial Intelligence. New developments on AI in the workplace face a number of legal uncertainties that will be explained as part of this session. 

The session will focus on typical challenges an entrepreneur or an entrepreneurial family will face when taking a Private Equity investor on board as a new shareholder. panellists will talk about their personal experience as an entrepreneur or an advisor to owner families in crucial situations for their companies. We will take a look behind the scene and give valuable insight into key considerations and concerns driving the negotiations with Private Equity investors from an entrepreneurial standpoint. The experience to share with the audience will be different in respect to various jurisdictions and economies worldwide. However, there will also be similarities when talking about key challenges and benefits to be considered - and lessons learned, to be shared with the audience.

Immigration lawyers from around the world talk about their best practices for managing their practices including the best use of technology, managing your teams, marketing your firms and staying on top of your finances.

In the context of the EU’s digital strategy, the European Commission is conducting a significant review of the rules governing the online environment, which have been applying for the last two decades in the region. Several important regulations will change the level playing field as the Data Act, the Data Governance Act, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Similarly, the US agencies, the AAA and other agencies around the world are paving the way to regulating the digital economy. In parallel, antitrust and competition law are still very much relevant and topical. What will be the impact in the telecommunications industry, the internet, advertising and e-commerce ecosystems? The session will analyse what changing are occurring in the different regions around the world and how the digital map will look in the forthcoming years.

Real estate industry representatives and lawyers from various jurisdictions will discuss the future trends and tools for real estate in a post-pandemic world, including:

• Tokenization of real estate projects and commercialization through crypto currencies.
• Metaverse as a new submarket in the global real estate market? What are the real perspectives for this incipient new world?
• Suburban vs urban areas
• Conversion of downtown areas (former office areas) into residential areas
• What to bear in mind in new office developments. Lessons learned from the pandemic
• New trends in the residential market; Co-living & sharing tendency that emerges in follow-up of the co-working, analyzed from a leisure/hospitality perspective
• Hotels’ new developments and trends
• Shopping centers vs. strip stores vs. online commerce.
   

The range of risks in major projects is broad and risk allocation is a key factor which will impact on the delivery of projects. This session will consider risk allocation in areas such as ground risk, unforeseen events (such as a pandemic), environmental issues and pricing risk. It will consider aspects such as; do fixed price contracts deliver certainty on price or do they inevitably lead to project failure? Impact of risk allocation on the ability to fund, impact of onerous risk pass-down on the procurement, does it restrict the pool of contractors willing to deliver the project, does it simply lead to increased costs? Are there unintended consequences of overly-onerous risk allocation?

An open meeting of the European Regional Forum held to discuss matters of interest and future activities.

YoungLawyersYoung lawyers play an indispensable role in the success of their teams. This panel hears from these young team members and the senior supervisors they work with. What makes a junior team member indispensable? What learning opportunities should they have? What kind of mentoring is most useful? What are their expectations in this changing world? And how can senior supervisors best support them to help them transition to the next step in their professional careers?

Traditionally, law firms were owned and invested in by lawyers to ensure that the firm remained independent and unbiased. However, this meant firms were restricted to the amount the owners could afford to invest into it. Since the Legal Services Act came into force in 2007 in the UK, law firms are now able to operate as Alternative Business Structures (ABS). Most notably, ABS’s are eligible to receive funding from external sources and be managed by non-solicitors. They’re also able to provide several services under one brand name – including non-legal services. In recent discussions, we are discovering that mainly common law firms are thinking about the possibilities and opportunities given by ABS. But where are the civil law firms? May they lose market shares and clients in their own countries when foreign law firms from common law jurisdictions offer services under the ABS umbrella internationally? Do clients interpret ABS as a sign of unreliability, although there are already plenty of professionals working in traditional law firms that are not legally fully qualified yet, as, for example, paralegals? What about initiatives in the Common Market and International Trade Agreements that may be capable to change the professional lives of lawyers in civil law countries (and not only there…)? We will talk with lawyers, policy makers and legal tech providers from civil and common law jurisdictions, to understand where the legal profession stands today and how it will flow tomorrow in the international legal market on ABS.

Not always talented corporate counsels will have the possibility to achieve a continuous career development within a legal department that may not have enough senior roles for them to move up into. The session will address the possibility for alternative career paths within a company or in law firms and how to build them. Furthermore, if you are a GC: what's next?

Regulators and litigators seem to be playing catch up with Big Tech and misuse of personal information as they try to reign in Big Tech's reach and power. We are starting to see multiple nation state regulators taking action or passing legislation to limit what they have uncovered about the misuse of personal data by Big Tech. We have also seen the varying successes and failures of class actions around the world taking on Big Tech. This session will survey the current global state of play and see what might lie in class actions in this fast moving and truly global space. 

The panel will discuss the recent changes in law firm work culture, particularly how law firms around the world are dealing with post-pandemic challenges such as the Great Resignation, hybrid working, AI/technology, employee wellbeing, etc. Law firm managing partners from different regions around the world will discuss how they have re-structured their work culture to adapt to the changing norms, and how they have turned un-precedented challenges into long-term advantages. In addition to discussing the effective steps the panellist have taken to create and maintain the right law firm work culture for the current environment, we will be examining the forward-looking actions that law firms are taking to plan for and manage future challenges and changes. Overall, we will exchange thoughts and experiences on how to create and sustain a work place culture that is better for people, business and the society at large.   

Additionally, with the pandemic, the ongoing global climate crisis and other crucial current events, the world’s focus on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) compliance has been further heightened, and lawyers worldwide are now also examining how they and their law firms can adopt ESG best practices and adhere to them. As ESG compliance has become an important aspect of law firm management, the IBA Law Firm Management Committee has published an ESG Toolkit for lawyers and law firms; taking that discussion forward in person, we will discuss with the help of our panellist the need and practical approaches for successfully adopting and integrating SDGs/ESG compliance in everyday law firm management practices. 

The session will address different legal and practical aspects of containers, such as:

• Demurrage and detention
• The shortage of container and how to overcome it
• Safety issues and different types of containers
• Challenges concerning pre- and on-carriage / intermodality

RuleOfLawFrom the outset of the pandemic, barristers and advocates recognised and were supportive of the attenuations to the justice system, which were necessary to ensure that justice could be delivered in the circumstances, which prevailed. In that context, it was accepted that remote hearings were necessary to ensure that system of justice continued to function. These remote hearings and other arrangements were however introduced as part of an emergency response. There was no time to gather any of the necessary stakeholder requirements nor to consult, design, test and implement a reformed system that would ensure these requirements were met in a sustainable manner. Against this background, it should not therefore come as a surprise to find that, for some, although the reforms that have been introduced have successfully avoided justice grinding to a standstill, they have not achieved the necessary or optimal levels of suitability or practicability and have arguably weakened adherence to some core principles of justice. Indeed in several areas the changes introduced have been regressive, limiting and jeopardizing access to justice and introducing impediments to the proper conduct of court proceedings.

This session will examine the benefits and drawbacks of the new ways conducting trails during the pandemic and try and assess their overall impact. Speakers will reflect a variety of different jurisdictions and perspectives

The investor space for oil and gas assets and companies continues to change, driven, amongst others, by ESG requirements, commodity price fluctuations, access to debt and equity financing and host government initiatives. Who will be the owners, partners and financiers of the industry going forward? What types of deals are we likely to see driven by such investors? A number of important M&A and financing issues will be covered in this session.

Two of the global fundamental rights are privacy and freedom of expression. The ability of the law to keep pace with technological developments is being challenged. Years ago, an invasion of privacy that appeared in print in a local area could be more easily contained and remedied than today, when a violation of one’s privacy can go “viral” and circulate for years on the Internet. Similarly, the ability of people to comment without fear of retribution has been compromised, as technology has facilitated what many call the “cancel culture.” These issues are playing out daily in North America. This panel looks at the impact of technology and the stress on traditional legal theories to protect these rights in the digital world.

With billions in dry power and the global pandemic (hopefully) receding, shareholder activist funds are back at full speed, building stakes in companies, calling for structural, operational, personnel and capital structure changes, running proxy contests, pushing for (or resisting) M&A transactions or holding up squeeze-outs. Their relationships with long-term institutional investors, strategic and private equity acquirers and other market participants are rapidly evolving.  Also in a state of flux are the rules governing their activities, sometimes to their benefit (the introduction of universal proxy cards in the US) and sometimes not (like tighter disclosure requirements on stakebuilding).  The tilt towards ESG adds a powerful new element into the mix.  This session will focus on what companies and the lawyers who represent them need to know about the evolving shareholder activist environment in various jurisdictions.

This session will look at the relationship between academic law and law in practice, and the marked differences between the common law world and civil law jurisdictions. These differences may be seen in the perceived value of academic qualifications, in the perceived benefit of practising lawyers pursuing parallel academic careers, and in the courts' approach to academic publications. We will explore what academic law brings to the practice of law, and how the practice of law is improved, the service to clients optimised, and the development of the law itself enhanced, by striking the right balance.

MNCs are facing challenges in the face of legislative changes and other post pandemic challenges: including, supply chain breakdowns, rising cost of capital, and diversification of manufacturing. This panel will discuss how companies can handle US tax reform, tax regulations in multiple jurisdictions and regions, state aid, and source country revenue thirst. Can the capital exporter rely on investment treaties and other non-tax treaties for protection?