If there’s one thing that Southeast Asian jurisdictions have in common, it’s the rapid pace of regulatory developments. In this review of what we can expect in 2023, our correspondent ponders recent changes and how regulators across the region are gearing up for the challenges that lie ahead.

In this letter from Brussels, chief correspondent covering data privacy and security, Matthew Newman, explains why the enforcement of the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act is likely to be dominating MLex’s coverage in 2023. It will come down to what Big Tech companies are designated as gatekeepers and what they will need to do to comply with the legislation.

Big Tech can expect a big year of policy, litigation and legislation in the US — although it’s still unclear whether digital platforms will suffer any significant setbacks in 2023. According to MLex’s Washington-based chief antitrust correspondent for the US, the year ahead is most likely to reveal itself as a mixed bag for the tech giants.

In today’s podcast, MLex’s London-based Financial Services Chief Correspondent, Fiona Maxwell, outlines what she expects will be the most important areas of interest for her reporting in 2023: Shadow-banking, Basel 3.1 and the UK’s post-Brexit Financial Services Markets Bill. In this special, forward-looking edition of the program, Fiona walks us through the detail of her top three and explains why these regulatory issues matter.

MLex Chief Global Digital Risk Correspondent Mike Swift walks us through privacy and data-protection challenges that lie ahead for Big Tech in 2023. With a raft of state-based rules set to come into effect, and the Federal Trade Commission likely to maintain its focus on location data privacy, there will be plenty to keep MLex’s US data-privacy team very busy over coming months.

In today’s podcast, MLex Editor-in-Chief Lewis Crofts walks us through the complex regulatory landscape facing global technology companies — from app stores to self-preferencing. But there’s more than just legislative changes on the horizon, with several significant instances of enforcement expected to capture international headlines in 2023.

A new Brazilian law could help the victims of anticompetitive conduct to bring civil lawsuits against cartelists and be compensated for the damages they have suffered. Yet a key provision that would double the size of damages payable to the victims would only apply to new civil lawsuits — bad news for those with existing cases before the courts.

This week’s European Commission post-Brexit proposal to repatriate the EU’s clearing activity from the City of London’s three major clearinghouses was, as expected, a moderate affair. With an energy crisis underway and financial stability concerns now top of mind, the EU executive’s proposal was a remarkably conciliatory first step. But there’s a catch: it will now be up to EU governments and lawmakers to work out how tough they need the legislation to be.

Seven company board members from five companies in the US have recently been ousted by the US Department of Justice. The directors’ dramatic defenestration is linked to the DOJ’s decision to breathe new life into Section 8 of the Clayton Act, which prohibits interlocking directorates among competitors. The logic behind the law is that shared board members can lead to a dampening of competition or even to the illegal exchange of information among rivals. The DOJ’s decision to reawaken the dormant 1914 provision will prompt some particularly serious soul-searching among directors appointed by private equity firms.

Japan’s top antitrust official, Kazuyuki Furuya, has a lot on his plate. The chairman of the Japan Fair Trade Commission is grappling with the role his agency can play as inflation soars and the country’s population declines, amid concerns that large companies may be saddling smaller businesses with rising costs. To mark the publication of MLex’s special report, based on an extended interview with Furuya, our Tokyo correspondents weigh up the issues confronting Japan and the qualities the JFTC chief is bringing to the regulatory table.