FINMA launched the consultation on the partially revised AMLO-FINMA on 12 May; the window closes 9 June. The consultation text is in German, which means non-German-speaking compliance leads are already two steps behind. The three clauses at stake — beneficial-owner transparency proof, revised PEP documentation standards, and video-ID equivalence — have direct operational weight. We mapped the burden-shift logic earlier this week. Industry associations are consolidating responses now; if your compliance team has a position, it needs to reach your association this week, not the last week of May.

FINMA's formal welcome of the Federal Council's Banking Act dispatch, adopted on 22 April, is more interesting for its silences than its endorsements. The regulator specifically flags that the new gone-concern capital requirements and governance obligations will require implementing ordinances that are not yet drafted. That implementation gap is the live planning horizon for banks: the Botschaft sets the architecture, but the operational rules are still being written. We covered the three TBTF pillars in the Botschaft in detail on Monday — if you are in-house at a systemically relevant institution, the parliamentary timeline is the project plan.

Case C-797/23 (Meta Platforms Ireland), decided 12 May: the Court ruled that Member States may — and in certain circumstances must — entitle press publishers to fair compensation when platforms reuse snippets and previews of their content under Article 15 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive. The argument platform counsel had been quietly banking on — that the right was optional at Member State level — is now closed. For in-house teams at media and publishing groups with Swiss or EU operations: most licensing agreements with aggregators and social platforms drafted pre-CDSM transposition do not reflect this legal baseline. The Swiss URG equivalent in Article 37b URG is less settled, but a CJEU ruling this explicit will travel.

Baker McKenzie is rolling out Legora — a generative AI platform — across all six practice groups globally, in phases. Coming on the same day as today's piece on Anthropic's twelve legal practice plug-ins, it clarifies the competitive dynamic: large firms are moving simultaneously on bespoke AI infrastructure and plug-in ecosystems. The question for in-house teams is not which architecture wins — it is that your external counsel is now processing your matter data through AI systems that your engagement letters, almost certainly, do not address. A one-page addendum on AI data processing, model governance, and incident notification is overdue, not excessive.

K&L Gates is separating from Straits Law, its Singapore partner firm, ending a seven-year arrangement. Put this beside DLA Piper's verein dissolution — which we cover today — and Hunton Andrews Kurth's China exit (below), and the structural picture sharpens: international firms are unwinding the complex Asia arrangements built during the 2010s deal boom, and the unwinding is accelerating. If K&L Gates is on your Asia panel under a Straits Law instruction, clarify in writing before separation is complete: which entity holds the retainer, which holds the matter files, and whether a new engagement letter is required. The answer matters for privilege, data localisation, and billing — and the window is shorter than it looks.

Hunton Andrews Kurth has shuttered its China office, joining a list that has grown considerably since 2023. The combination of data-transfer restrictions, geopolitical exposure, and declining M&A deal flow has made the per-office economics untenable for firms without a critical mass of China-specific regulatory work. We cover the broader re-papering question in today's piece on Asia legal panel management. The practical note: Hunton's institutional relationships in Beijing do not transfer automatically to another of their offices. If they are on your Asia panel for financial services or regulatory matters, the transition rationale belongs in your legal operations file — not in a brief email exchange.

The UK government has failed to deliver the legislation it had promised to resolve the uncertainty created by the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in PACCAR, which held that funding agreements structured as damages-based agreements require regulation most funders do not hold. Agreements restructured post-PACCAR carry higher costs and less flexibility. For Swiss and EU companies running funded litigation in English courts: ask your funder now whether their current agreement structure is contingent on a legislative fix. If the answer is yes, or if they pause before answering, the conversation about alternative structures is already overdue.

Carta — the cap-table and fund-administration platform — has acquired Avantia, a UK alternative legal services provider, and rebranded as Carta Law. The combination concentrates a notable amount of sensitive data in one vendor: equity records, fund-administration logs, and now legal matter handling. For Swiss in-house teams at PE-backed companies, this warrants a conflict-of-interest analysis before any mandate — not as a formality, but because a vendor holding your cap table and providing your legal advice has a structural information advantage that standard conflict-waiver language was not written to address. The nDSG data-processing angle is also sharper when these two data categories sit under one roof.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has proposed a 29% increase in its annual levy to £111.5m, citing a more-than-50% rise in misconduct investigations since 2024. The investigation volume is the number worth tracking: either the SRA is running a more aggressive enforcement cycle, or the volume of complaints is genuinely rising, or both. For in-house teams with UK external counsel on their panel: an active SRA investigation is not automatically disqualifying, but it is a material fact your engagement letter currently gives you no right to know about. A short addendum requiring the firm to notify you of regulatory proceedings affecting the matter team is worth adding at your next panel review.

Case C-155/25 (Commission v Italy), decided 13 May: the Court found that Italy's practice of renewing successive fixed-term contracts for administrative, technical and auxiliary university staff without adequate conversion pathways violates the Framework Agreement on Fixed-Term Work (Directive 1999/70/EC). The ruling is Italy-specific in its facts, but the Commission's infringement logic — structural use of fixed-term arrangements to avoid permanency obligations — is transferable to any Member State where the practice is widespread. For Swiss multinationals with entities in Italy, Spain, Portugal or Greece: if your local HR teams are managing long-tenured fixed-term staff in support functions, the risk window for conversion claims just narrowed.

A BCG survey finds that 61% of CEOs believe their boards are driving AI deployment at a pace that outruns the organisation's readiness — and separately, that boards tend to overestimate AI capabilities. The governance implication is one that in-house counsel are managing in real time: when board pressure accelerates deployment faster than a DPIA cycle can support, the EU AI Act and the nDSG create individual accountability that will make the paper trail relevant. The answer to board pressure is not to run faster — it is to document, clearly and promptly, that the risk flags were raised and that the deployment decision was taken at board level with full information. That record is what survives an enforcement inquiry.