Wednesday, 28 October 2024.
Recently published jointly by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Alianza del Ecosistema Legal para la Sostenibilidad de América Latina, the report “Complimiento y Sostenibilidad” evaluates the main regulations of the European Union (EU) and their impacts on Latin America.
The report, after an extensive documentary review on ESG issues, analyzes the extraterritorial reach in perspective of sustainability due diligence, the requirements and advertising related to sustainable products.
This review specifically included the following regulations:
Directive 2013/34/EU on the consolidated and annual financial statements, and related reports of certain types of undertakings.
Regulation (EU) 2016/1011 on indices used as benchmarks in financial instruments and financial contracts or to measure the performance of investment funds.
Regulation (EU) 2017/821 laying down supply chain due diligence obligations for Union importers of tin, tantalum and tungsten, their ores, and gold originating from conflict-affected and high-risk areas.
Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 on sustainability‐related disclosures in the financial services sector.
Regulation (EU) 2019/876 as regards the leverage ratio, the net stable funding ratio, requirements for own funds and eligible liabilities, counterparty credit risk, market risk, exposures to central counterparties, exposures to collective investment undertakings, large exposures, reporting and disclosure requirements.
Regulation (EU) 2020/852 on the establishment of a framework to facilitate sustainable investment.
Regulation (EU) 2023/956 establishing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM).
Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on the making available on the Union market and the export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation.
Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries.
In addition to elaborating on the use of GRI standards, there are also chapters individualizing impact analyzes and prioritizations of all these regulations for some of the countries - Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico - depending on their economic characteristics, in addition to specific discussions and research on the level of knowledge of all this European legislation - “regulatory tsunami”, as mentioned at the end of the report - on the part of lawyers in Latin America.
And as part of the final conclusions, an interesting chapter called “Breaking down silos”, which highlights the need for better communication between teams of lawyers in the sustainability area and other legal areas of the law firms. As an example, the report cites the practical case of a client who ended up being sanctioned by the regulator, due to the implementation of “good actions”.
Regarding all this, click here for the recent article in Portuguese on the portal of the Brazilian law firm Mattos Filho or in Spanish by the Uruguayan law firm Guyer&Regules or the Chilean Carey.
And at the image below to navigate directly through the 180 pages of the report (in Spanish).
The Alianza del Ecosistema Legal para la Sostenibilidad de América Latina was founded with the main objective of analyzing legal and compliance implications for Latin American companies arising from international regulatory developments, with a focus on ESG Reporting, as well as with the purpose of bringing together lawyers and the region's legal ecosystem discuss sustainability, and raise awareness and promote the applicability of sustainability in their corporate advisory work.
It is current members are the law firms ALTA, Beccar Varela, Brigard Urrutia, Carey, Galiza, Guyer&Regules, Legance, Mattos Filho and Pástor, respectively from Costa Rica, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Uruguay, Italy, Brazil and Ecuador.
