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In April, a report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that international trade agreements could hamper government-led decarbonization projects.

He cited the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) – a legally binding pact protecting investments in activities such as oil and gas extraction, coal mining and petroleum refining – as the most egregious case, largely because several claims filed under the ECT had been “settled in favor of foreign investors” at the expense of “much-needed climate action”.

The 1994 treaty, which entered into force in 1998, has 53 signatories, including the UK and the EU. Its original purpose was to protect Western companies investing in the newly independent former Soviet states, but the scope of the ECT has expanded to include countries such as Cyprus, Jordan and Yemen.

“Its main goal was to promote energy security where investors were unsure of going to new places because there was a chance that their assets would be expropriated or nationalized,” says Boston University researcher Rachel Thrasher. Global Development Policy Center.

Aside from its “historical neo-colonial background,” as Audrey Changoe, business activist at Friends of the Earth Europe puts it, the biggest problem with the treaty is a mechanism called the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system. This allows energy companies to sue foreign governments in arbitration tribunals.

“It’s done behind closed doors,” she said. “The documents are not publicly available and many of the arbitrators are corporate lawyers, even though a lot of taxpayers’ money is at stake. This is a huge problem for transparency and democracy.

Climate was neither high on the global political agenda nor particularly relevant to the ECT in the mid-1990s, but that has changed in recent years. When the Slovenian government asked British energy company Ascent Resources to conduct an environmental impact assessment to obtain a fracking license, for example, the company refused and filed a €120 million compensation claim. (£103m) under ISDS in 2020. At the start of this year, Slovenia backed down and cleared all small-scale fracking projects. The weakening of environmental legislation by a state for fear of having to pay large sums of money is an example of what is now called “regulatory chill”.

Claims filed under ISDS can run into the billions, which is money that could be used for the green energy transition. After the Dutch government revealed plans to shut down all coal-fired power plants in the Netherlands by 2030. German energy companies RWE and Uniper sued in 2020 for 1.4 billion euros and 1 billion euros respectively to compensate them for their imminent loss of business there.

Changoe notes that governments “are phasing out fossil fuels due to pressure from civil society. Dutch citizens actually sued their own government in 2015 for failing to protect them from the climate crisis. a democratic process that big fossil fuel companies seek to undermine.

The UK government’s exposure to ECT litigation risk is also significant. According to research by Thrasher and his Boston colleagues in work published in Science, if Westminster were to cancel all projects that do not fit the International Energy Agency’s path to net zero, it would make the UK liable for any claims for ECT compensation. totaling £9.4 billion.

The mere threat of such litigation can often lead to regulatory chill. In 2017, for example, the Canadian company Vermilion Energy indicated that it would sue the French government if it accepted its proposals to end oil and gas extraction by 2040. Subsequently, the French minister of the Environment, Nicolas Hulot, has considerably watered down his plans. I resigned in frustration the following year, complaining that corporate interests had too much power in shaping environmental policy.

Thrasher notes that some law firms are even advising their clients to restructure their business so that they can use the ISDS system. This practice cannot realistically be considered to be in line with the spirit of the treaty and it “seems underhanded”, she says.

The problem of ISDS liability is compounded by the presence of a so-called sunset clause, which allows companies to continue to file claims against any government that leaves the treaty for up to a decade afterwards. This means that a country cannot expect to escape unscathed. For example, Italy abandoned the TCE in 2016 and banned gas drilling along its coastline, but the country was still being sued by British company Rockhopper Exploration a year later.

The European Commission is working to modernize the ECT and bring it into line with the UN’s Paris agreement on climate change, but Changoe does not hold out much hope for a satisfactory solution. Any reform must be approved unanimously – and some member states still want to protect the fossil fuel industry. Bearing in mind that the sunset clause could be neutralized if countries decide to abandon the treaty en masse, she believes that the best solution might be for governments to withdraw from it at the same time.

Changoe is concerned that the ECT secretariat is seeking new members and trying to bring oil-producing countries in the southern hemisphere – including Bangladesh, Colombia and Nigeria – into the fold. This outcome, she predicts, would “lock developing countries back into this spiral of fossil fuels.”

Thrasher points out that poor signers aren’t often sued, because it’s usually not worth it. “Middle-income countries are being sued the most, according to ISDS dispute data,” she says. “They lose about half the time, while high-income countries lose about a quarter of the time.”

Regarding treaty reform, Thrasher says lawmakers could ensure that environmental concerns take precedence over ECT claims or even scrap ISDS, which she describes as “a departure from what is generally permitted by the international law”.

Ultimately, other forces may play a role in deterring companies from suing countries trying to decarbonise. Given the explosion of interest in ESG principles among the investment community and the rest of the world, could the risk of bad publicity be enough to give the most far-sighted companies pause?

“If public opinion compels them to behave better and has a chilling effect on them carrying this kind of business,” Thrasher says, “that would be a favorable outcome.”

The great digital asset exchange Huobi Global has launched a new investment arm focused on decentralized finance (Challenge) and initiatives Web3. The new fund joins the list of venture capital plans in the space crypto. Therefore, venture capital inflows into the cryptocurrency space have continued to rise despite the market downturn.

Deployment of funds from billions of Ivy Blocks

The new investment arm of Huobi world is called ivy blocks. The division manages more than $1 billion in assets to be deployed on specific projects. The company stated that the funds are earmarked for “identify and invest in promising blockchain projects.”

Projects Challenge and Web3 selected for the the program will benefit financing and a variety of services that contribute to the success of the project. These services include asset management platforms, dedicated research units, and blockchain incubators.

Lily Zhang, CFO of Huobi Global, said “the company’s asset management arm will provide cash investments to support projects Challenge Y Web3 looking to start their operations. »

The first project financed by Ivy Blocks is Capricorn Finance. It is a market maker automated based on the Cube blockchain. Other projects should follow and benefit from the wide range of services offered by the platform.

Bonus: Binance’s US Subsidiary Sued Over Terra Token Sale

the Challenge heavily affected by winter crypto

Ivy Blocks’ emphasis on space Challenge It comes at a crucial moment. The total value locked TVL in the industry Challenge has dropped considerably during the last month. All Challenge TVL it is currently around $133 billion. Whereas in December 2021, Challenge TVL it was $316 billion, which is a big drop.

The misfortunes suffered by the industry Challenge stemming from the crypto winter buzz that has dominated the industry since early 2022. Market analysts point out that these gains are coming from the current bear market. Analysts say bear markets are healthy because they form after “irrational” periods of sharp asset price increases.

Space Challenge took a big hit after the collapse of Terra LUNA. Terra is one of the largest blockchain fields and prior to its collapse it was listed as the second largest blockchain network by TVL. The Blockchain Crash Has Reduced Investor Confidence In The Space Challengeand the chips Challenge They have been hit hard in recent months.

To find out: Tron injects 700 million dollars to defend the parity of the stablecoin USDD.

B2B Rocks è an invitation to fare networking rivolto agli imprenditori a livello internazionale. With my own support for the event, Montpellier Mediterranean Metropolis it has given the continuity of its support to the innovation ecosystem of the French territory.

A driving force for the French economy and occupation

Dedicated to the world of professional software, Appvizer è uno dei fiori all’occhiello della French technology. The store without its birth received the support of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole. Nel corso del tempo has also benefited from the support of the BIC (Business & Innovation Center), la cui missione è quella di I will support the innovative organization in the metropolis of Montpellier.

As Appvizer continues to grow, the founder Colin Lalouettedecided to acquire B2B Rocks, the event dedicated to the world of software and technology initially organized in Paris and Sydney.
Quest’anno il format prize vita dal 9 al 10 giugno, presso il Domain of Biargreen site of the Eoden group, alle porte di Montpellier.

LEGGI REED: SaaS e Tech: B2B Rocks takes the stage in Montpellier

B2B Rocks in Occitania

I’m entering 2022, The Global B2B Software Market Will Be Worth $670 Milliondi cui 190 miliardi reported dal Software as a service. Specifically, the SaaS has registered a growth in the number of negli last 10 years and impiega mezzo milione di persone in tutto il mondo.

Se gli Stati Uniti sono stati pionieri in this field, è in Europa che si sono verification the raccolte fondi di maggior successo. Basti will think that by October 2021 the startup Swile di Montpellier has raised 200 million euros.

In France, with growth of 9% and a turnover of 18 billion euros in 2020, the SaaS sector is one of the most promising for employment in the service sector. A market which represents almost 1% of the French PIL and, other of the whole Île-de-France, Occitania is the region that generates the most fatturato. Reasons why they brought in B2B Rocks to stabilize Montpellier, by obtaining the good support of the Montpellier Méditerranée Metropolis.

Special support for a unique event

Da 19 anni il BIC di Montpellier, in collaboration with bpifrancearrange Montpellier Venture Capitalan event that has shown in the corso degli anni, in all its editions, the ability to bring together the greatest investment opportunity of the moment.

“Montpellier Capital Risque, in association with B2B Rocks, which has been growing for a year, is recognized as one of the essential meetings for financing start-ups in the metropolis. Consenting to our entrepreneurs who will access the internationally renowned investment fund, it is a strong signal of the influence of Montpellier’s ecology and a real rifleman of its innovation ecosystem in Occitania.“, he said Michel Delafossesindaco di Montpellier and president of Montpellier Mediterranean Metropolis.

B2B Rocks, which brings together the rock star of the software publishing industry, integrates and values ​​innovation, and also integrates it.

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It is probably not surprising that many international trade rules are based on English “merchant law”. England, after all, was the world’s leading naval power for centuries. What might be more surprising is that these laws, as they stand, require commercial banks to mail approximately 4 billion documents worldwide each year.

Why are they doing this? Because some of the documents they deal with – like a ship’s bill of lading – give title to the goods, but only when the document is in paper form. Under current English law, if something isn’t physically tangible, you can’t own it. This is why a paper bill of lading is valuable and an electronic bill of lading is more fragile.

There have been calls to change this for many years and it looks like it will finally happen – in part thanks to the harsh light the Covid lockdowns have thrown on existing practices. The UK Electronic Business Documents Bill is expected to come into force before the end of 2022.

And that’s not the only major legal change. The G7 agreed to collaborate on electronic transferable records in April 2021. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) called the decision “momentous”.

What the G7 has informed in favor of the Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR), which was adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law in July 2017 but is slow to take off. At the end of 2021, only seven jurisdictions were on board.

The MLETR is technology agnostic; can include information from any industry standard (which often means more information than a paper document); treats electronic documents as equivalent to transferable documents or instruments; and is recognized across borders.

When G7 ministers outlined their decision in a statement, they said: “Paper-based transactions, which still dominate international trade, are a source of costs, delays, inefficiencies, fraud, error and of environmental impact.

This neat summary may have minimized the problems. The change in law that will allow electronic documentation, says Chris Southworth, ICC General Secretary, UK, “is by far the most commercially transformative change in commerce. What this allows us to do is sweep all the paper and bring technology and innovation to scale. »

The digitalization of global trade is very promising simply because the sector is so vast. The largest cargo ships can carry 24,000 containers, each requiring its own paper documentation that must be routed through many hands. UNCTAD reports that around 750 million containers moved through ports around the world in 2017.

The costs – and the potential for errors – associated with it are one of the main reasons for the $3.5bn (£2.81bn) ‘trade deficit’ – trade finance which does not is not available to SMEs – both in the UK and in emerging markets – because they cannot afford to use the existing system.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Trade says more than half of SME trade finance applications are rejected and less than 8% of SMEs use traditional forms of trade finance. He says ‘mostly manual’ bureaucracy in banks means incorporating an SME can cost £60,000. He sees lowering the cost of finance and integrating more SMEs into the trading system “as an imperative…in the context of a monthly drop in exports since the first quarter of 2019.”

A study by Coriolis Technologies indicates that UK trade fell by around 18% in value between December 2020 and the end of February 2021 and that the number of exporters, their income and their turnover have decreased since the fourth quarter of 2019 by 5% to 25%. Big companies fare better, in part because they are better able to overcome bureaucratic hurdles. These obstacles are both a function of Brexit, but also of the stricter rules in terms of, among other things, the fight against money laundering, introduced after the 2008 financial crisis.

Removing the sand from the trading gears can therefore only help – which the new law seems to want to do. “The EU is the most sophisticated customs union in the world,” says Southworth. “Goods can move easily, but less than 1% of trade documents are currently in digital form.”

But smoother processes are not always welcome. What about the potential for job losses as machines take over tasks currently done by people, such as checking business documents at banks?

“The reality is that it’s hard enough to find good document verifiers,” says Alex Gray, head of commercial and transaction banking at the London Institute of Banking & Finance. “Digital processes will allow trade finance professionals to focus on decisions that machines cannot make and leave the routine work to computers. This is a real victory for the industry.

However, perhaps the greatest challenge of fully digital commerce is that not all economies are equally ready. “The world is a diverse place, with diverse abilities. Half the world doesn’t have internet access,” says Southworth.

“In some parts of the world, the cost of trade exceeds its value. It is super, super important that we help governments discuss the policies and changes needed,” says Southworth. “The risk for everyone is that we have a global trade divide.”

To try to ensure this doesn’t happen, the ICC is working on a digital standards initiative for a “globally harmonized business environment”. The DSI maps each country according to its digital readiness stage and its digital capacities and laws, and offers practical support. The council includes the Asian Development Bank, the World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization.

However, even countries that should be able to act quickly still face challenges. “Trading is a very old business, everyone is comfortable with the systems already in place, so digitization is also about behavior change,” says Southworth.

Yet allowing electronic documentation is a historic change in international trade and one that, done right, should be transformative.