This week's edition of Financial Services weekly highlights includes: the FCA’s confirmation of regulatory fees and levies for 2025/26 in policy statement PS25/8, new ESMA guidance aimed at tackling misleading sustainability claims in retail communications, the introduction of the Reporting Cryptoasset Service Providers (Due Diligence and Reporting Requirements) Regulations 2025, and IAIS’ publication of high-level principles for implementing the Insurance Capital Standard; plus dates for your diary over the coming week.

This Practice Note tracks divergence between European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EU) 648/2012 (EU EMIR) and Assimilated Regulation (EU) 648/2012 (UK EMIR). How to use this Practice Note This Practice Note can be used as a navigation aid when studying the provisions of Assimilated Regulation (EU) 648/2012 (UK EMIR), by providing a comparison with the corresponding provisions of Regulation (EU) 648/2012 (EU EMIR) regime. Set out below are links to all the Articles and Annexes in UK EMIR and EU EMIR respectively. Each part below provides information on: • the relevant Articles and Annexes as they currently stand, including: ◦ the most recent changes made, the date they were made, and details of the implementing/amending/repealing legislation ◦ proposed reforms to certain Articles • a brief summary of the points of divergence (ie how the relevant Article or Annex has evolved in the UK and/or the EU since 31 December 2020, being the end of the Brexit transition period) The degree of variance between the regimes is signposted as follows: Indicator Definition(s)   indicates

Scope of this Practice Note This Practice Note focuses on the approach of EU authorities and regulators (ie, the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Securities and Markets Act (ESMA)). It also provides some background to the meaning of cryptoassets and the unique challenges that cryptoassets pose to regulators. For information about the approach taken by UK authorities and regulators, see Practice Note: UK regulation of cryptoassets. For more information about the approach taken by supranational bodies, see Practice Note: Supranational approach to the regulation of cryptoassets. This Practice Note should also be read in conjunction with Practice Note: Web 3.0, digital assets and cryptoassets—essentials which discusses: • What are cryptoassets? • Common terms associated with cryptoassets • Development of cryptoassets • Characteristics of cryptoassets • Considerations for businesses looking at cryptoasset technology • Cryptoassets, the smart contract and ICOs • Disputes involving cryptoassets • Regulation of cryptoassets • Cryptoassets as regulated investments What are cryptoassets? One of the hurdles in relation to understanding non-traditional currencies and assets lies in the inconsistent use of

Piercing the corporate veil describes the exceptional judicial step of disregarding a company’s separate legal personality to treat the acts or liabilities of the company as those of its controllers (typically shareholders or directors). It is not a statutory term in UK or Irish company law, but a case law‑based, descriptive expression used across multiple contexts, most often in insolvency, enforcement and fraud litigation.In England and Wales and Northern Ireland, following cases such as *Prest v Petrodel Resources Ltd*, courts will only pierce the veil in very narrow circumstances, usually where a company is used as a façade or sham to evade existing legal obligations or to perpetrate fraud. Similar principles apply in Scotland and Ireland, where courts also stress that incorporation and limited liability will be upheld unless there is abuse of the corporate structure.Piercing the corporate veil is distinct from other routes to personal liability (for example, wrongful trading, misfeasance, guarantees or statutory director liability). For practitioners, it is typically argued as a last resort, with a high evidential threshold and significant uncertainty as to outcome.

An occupational hazard is a risk of injury, illness or other harm that arises from the nature of a worker’s job or working environment, rather than from random or unrelated causes. In legal practice, the term is used in health and safety, employment, personal injury and industrial disease claims to describe foreseeable work-related risks that an employer must identify, assess and, so far as reasonably practicable, control.“Occupational hazard” is a descriptive expression rather than a defined statutory term, but it underpins employers’ common law and statutory duties across the UK and Ireland, including duties to provide a safe system of work, safe plant and equipment, and adequate training and supervision. It is central to concepts such as “foreseeability”, “reasonably practicable” precautions and vicarious liability.Typical examples include exposure to hazardous substances, repetitive strain, noise, manual handling, workplace violence and psychosocial risks such as stress. Usage is broadly consistent across England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, although precise obligations and terminology derive from differing health and safety and employment legislation and case law in each jurisdiction.

Common name of the conclusions adopted by the Advocate General in the context of cases lodged before the Court of Justice of the EU—not before the General Court—and on which EU judgments are often based on.