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Goods imported into the UK from countries with a lower or no carbon price will face a levy by 2027.

By Paul A. Davies, Michael D. Green, and James Bee

On 18 December 2023, the UK government announced a proposal for a new carbon border adjustment mechanism (UK CBAM). The announcement follows extensive consultation earlier this year on possible measures to mitigate carbon leakage risks and aims to support the UK’s decarbonisation efforts.

The UK has made a number of decarbonisation commitments including reaching net zero by 2050. These commitments to decarbonise can be undermined by “carbon leakage”, in which production of goods and associated emissions move from a jurisdiction with more ambitious climate policies (which add costs to carbon-intensive processes) to another jurisdiction with less ambitious policies, resulting in an overall negative impact on the carbon intensity of the processes/goods themselves. The UK CBAM (or other form of carbon tax) seeks to address this issue by aiming to put a fair price on the carbon emitted during the production of certain carbon-intensive goods entering the UK.

New legislation introduces further sanctions powers and aims to tackle financial crime by revealing identities of overseas beneficial owners of UK property.

By Stuart Alford QC, Robert Price, Thomas Lane, and Harriet Slater

Following the UK government’s successive sanctions packages, which are the subject of recent Latham & Watkins Client Alerts,[1] the response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been extended to cover wider financial crime measures.

The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 (Act) received royal assent on 15 March 2022, introducing a new register of overseas entities (Register) holding UK property assets, alongside changes to the unexplained wealth order (UWO) and sanctions regimes. Reforms to the role of Companies House are expected to follow in subsequent legislation.