Conference programme

The panel will cover the steps employers should take to manage psychological risk including risks arising from the workplace environment, bullying and sexual harassment and what regulators around the globe are doing to enforce breaches. This will include a mock regulator interview and highlight some of the questions and issues being investigated by regulators. This panel will also cover recent developments in psychosocial legal duties and ESG reporting and outline interesting cases from different jurisdictions where employers have been prosecuted for a failure to properly manage psychological risk.

What it takes to build a healthy, resilient environment in a modern law firm. Stuck between traditional perceptions of lawyers, often outrageous client expectations and the Gen Z need for a more balanced life, the leaders of today's law firms are facing quite a dilemma. In our session a professional psychologist will speak with law firm leaders from several regions of Europe to find out what their secret to success is and what others can take away from their experiences.

The construction industry typically consumes a substantial portion of a nation’s wealth, and governments tend to impose a variety of requirements on contractors to achieve goals that are deemed socially or environmentally important. Such restrictions may seek to promote environmental sustainability or use of local labour, or they may seek to provide employment and benefits to socially disadvantaged groups. In democratic states, these requirements are likely to reflect the priorities of voters, but they can add significantly to costs of construction. Government social goals also often run into practical limitations when prescribed goals prove difficult or uneconomical to achieve. This session will examine a variety of government goals imposed on construction projects and will discuss how contract parties must deal with obstacles to implementing them. The session will also discuss how to safeguard human rights on large infrastructure and other construction projects.

About 15% of the global population lives with some form of disability. Many jurisdictions provide, to a certain extent, a legal obligation for employers to accommodate employees with disabilities. But what does it take to create a truly diverse and inclusive workplace when it comes to accommodating employees with mental health conditions and employees being neurodivergent? Are the legal requirements sufficient and adequate in achieving this goal? How are the corporates addressing this issue in their ESG agenda? And what are the benefits for the employer of a more diverse and inclusive workplace in regard to these groups of employees?

Over the past decades, to a greater or lesser extent, countries all over the world have been dealing with political swings from far left to far right, one way and another. Latin America is not an exception, but perhaps different from more developed countries, Latin American emerging economies tend to suffer more disruption from these political changes. This panel will analyse some of the main recent political changes in the region, and what impact such changes have had, or are expected to have, in direct foreign investment and in doing business in the region.

A panel on the challenges of applying existing rules to technology.

The collapse of a crypto hedge fund 3 Arrows Capital in 2022 lead to a domino effect of collapses and eventually to a downfall of Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX. These events have forced regulators – and insolvency practitioners – to acknowledge that cryptocurrencies are affecting the global financial markets perhaps more than we had realised.
In order to be a cryptocurrency-savvy insolvency practitioner, what do we need to understand about these digital financial assets? What unique challenges have cryptocurrency insolvencies thrown for insolvency practitioners worldwide and can traditional insolvency principles be applied? This panel gets together experts and experienced practitioners to discuss peculiarities and lessons learned of cryptocurrency insolvencies.

This session will look at the current trends in insurance markets, focusing on how digitization is impacting the way the insurance industry manages risk and services clients. This joint session of the IBA’s Insurance Committee and its International Commerce & Distribution Committee will examine how ongoing developments in areas such as big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and insurtech are impacting product design, underwriting, distribution and claims in a variety of product lines. Our panel will bring together both industry representatives and lawyers in private practice for an insightful discussion of these technologies and trends and how law and regulation are responding.

This panel will discuss the latest updates of the tax environment of international athletes, entertainers and explore the extent of which the existing rules may apply to new digital performers:

• Update on attitude of tax authorities and courts on tax residence of international athletes and entertainers, on international image rights structuring, and on various exemption regimes.
• Revisit the scope of entertainers and athletes for tax treaty purposes (through article 17 OECD MTC) mainly in light of new activities on digital activities carried on by e-gamers, influencers and celebrities for instance.
• Revisit the rules of sourcing and allocation between States with performance rendered in different States (international tournaments) with a special focus on e-games and digital activities for tax treaty purposes.

A number of studies point out that senior level women lawyers leave their firm, but not many such studies explain very well the reason why it happens and how we can prevent it. One of the reasons could be challenges of women lawyers in business development. This panel will introduce the concept of equity procurement, and relevant issues such as its pros and cons, as well as how it works at law firms, in collaboration with the Women Lawyers‘ Committee. One of the roles of the IBA is serving as a platform for business development (or procurement), and it is essential for the IBA and the D&I Council to seek more diverse and inclusive solutions to the issue.

Judges have to uphold the rule of law in times of national crisis, including war. A nation will be judged on how it treats its enemies. Trials of captured troops for war crimes and trials of absentee commanders must be fair and credible to stand the test of time. What are the procedures and standards that should be put in place so that judges are confident they are upholding the rule of law?

Here’s hoping and hopping. A whistle-stop tour of how pre-nuptial agreements are treated in different jurisdictions, and a discussion of to what extent they have entered the mainstream. Do they represent sensible planning for what life may hold, or they are a tool for the rich to avoid making proper financial provision to a less well-off spouse? Expect a lively panel discussion!

When it comes to digital assets, tracking and recovery is challenging, both from an investigative and enforcement perspective, given the speed at which digital assets can be transferred and a lack of novum of international private law in this area. In response to these challenges, this panel will discuss how civil asset recovery practitioners can work harmoniously with law enforcement agencies to make recoveries, and the benefits of an international model law to assist in the tracking and recovery of digital assets. This discussion comes at a critical time following a multitude of significant cryptocurrency scandals across several jurisdictions globally, not least the FTX scandal.

The blueprint for a global legal education and the drivers for change report, both compiled by the IBA's Future of Legal Services Commission, are the latest evidence of the need to develop and change law school curricula to reflect the knowledge bases and skillsets required for modern practice. This session will take a deep dive into how law schools can take up this challenge and effectively refresh their curricula, for the needs of modern practice, at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Equally, it will explore key questions about the purpose of legal education and the expectations of students and employers.

Legislation tackling modern slavery is clearly spreading around the world, placing varying obligations on companies over a certain threshold (and individuals within companies) to report, disclose, mitigate, and remediate risks and instances of modern slavery in local and complex domestic and global supply and value chains. This legislation targets medium to large companies as they are often the producer of goods and services tainted by human rights violations, with penalties for breaches and failure to notify. This session will examine the current and predicted future of modern slavery legislation, the obligations it places on multinational organizations, the technological solutions available to companies and their legal advisors to comply with such obligations and jurisdictional and cultural differences in the implementation and the enforcement of such obligations. In particular, this session will demonstrate how AI solutions will revolutionize both the visualization of  human rights violations and drafting of contracts to assist  in- house, corporate, human rights, employment and criminal lawyers and their clients in complying with these new statutory duties- noting that this technology can apply to other legal/ social issues like environmental ones.  

Points to be covered include:
1.    Current statistics on modern slavery across regions

• revisiting the numbers e.g. number of potential modern slavery victims in England and Wales hits record high and report on Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage 
• revisiting where the risks lie – the Global Slavery Index Report 2023: Resources | Walk Free [walkfree.org]

2.    Update on the maturation of existing modern slavery laws and advocacy: California Transparency Act 2008, UK Modern Slavery Act 2015, Australia Modern Slavery Act 2015, France 2017, Brazil’s Lista Suja (‘Dirty List’).

3.    Consideration of newer modern slavery laws (both passed and proposed) eg. Canada (with  far reaching powers, and criminal liability), Netherlands, Switzerland Conflict Minerals and Child Labour Due Diligence Ordinance, Norwegian Transparency Act 2022, Germany - Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, Spain draft bill, EU Directive, and consideration of laws in Asia/Africa/South America.

4.    Modern slavery risk in M & A transactions
 

An interactive session focused on all those important post-deal issues for closely held businesses, both from the perspective of sellers in anticipating issues and from buyers in achieving value. Topics covered may include:

• post-deal integration: legal, commercial, operational, planning and implementation;
• transitional services, assessing the scope, ensuring there is a clear understanding of what is needed, costing and resourcing, pitfalls and risks;
• incentivising key people, the move from founder to employee, how to keep or indeed transition roles for key people; and
• remedial actions such as picking up on due diligence action items

Immigration has long been a simmering issue in France, as well as many other countries, such as Spain, Italy, the UK and the USA to name a few. As in the past, immigrants - whether economic migrants or asylum seekers - have mostly been people of limited financial resources, and today many of them arrive in their hoped-for destination in extreme poverty. As governmental support and assistance to immigrants has weakened in recent years in many countries in the face of shrill political appeals to xenophobia and racism, the private sector has had to step in.

Autonomous vehicles and passenger drones are coming to us soon, and expected to forever change the way we commute, travel, and even entertain. Various legal issues will be triggered, including data privacy, consumer protection, and AI regulation. The panel will discuss the challenges and the benefits from legal and practical perspectives.

In this session the traditional method for the production of expert evidence in international arbitration will be scrutinised, namely to consider the advantages and disadvantages of resorting to a tribunal appointed expert. 

Lack of support for a lawyer's wellbeing can have detrimental consequences for the individual concerned and the clients which they serve. In this session we look at the many circumstances which can undermine wellbeing; hybrid and remote working models, mental and other health issues, burnout, lack of resources, remuneration schemes that focus on billing targets, etc. We develop thinking on the impact of wellbeing issues on lawyers, law firms, and in respect of the services delivered to clients, and we also consider privacy and other issues which must be considered when deciding on the next steps. We also consider how ethical and professional values are supported by the development of wellbeing strategies within law firms.