The Freshfields Podcast

The Court of Appeal’s decision to overturn the sanction of Petrofac’s restructuring plans marked a pivotal moment in restructuring law, with significant implications for how future restructurings will be approached in practice.

In the latest episode of our "No Worse Off" podcast series, restructuring team members Lindsay Hingston, Craig Montgomery and Caroline Platt, unpack this landmark decision, providing insights on out-of-the-money creditors, fair allocation of benefits, evidential requirements and the paramount role of robust negotiations.

Stay tuned for more insights into the world of restructuring and thank you for listening to "No Worse Off".

Keeping you up to date on executive compensation matters.

In this podcast series, the Freshfields People & Reward team discusses key topics in the executive reward space for publicly listed and private companies in 2025, including transatlantic considerations, ways to structure executive incentives and the developing trend for democratising equity arrangements.

In the fifth episode of this series, Employee Claims, partner David Mendel is joined by Harriet Gaillard, counsel in the London People & Reward team, to discuss the various legal claims that can be brought by employees and former employees under share plan and bonus arrangements. The episode discusses breach of contract, exercise of discretion, discrimination, unfair dismissal, TUPE transfers and restrictive covenants.

In our latest podcast episode of "No Worse Off," Freshfields partners Lindsay Hingston, Ken Baird, and Emma Gateaud, along with senior associate Emilio Salice, come together for an in-depth discussion as the Restructuring Plan (RP) turns five.

Drawing on their extensive experience, our speakers share valuable insights into the dynamic landscape of restructuring plans. They delve into the powerful cross-class cram down mechanism, the evolving use of new debt as a cramming class, and a realistic assessment of the rising litigation risk in contentious RP proceedings.

Stay tuned for more insights into the world of restructuring in 2025, and thank you for listening to "No Worse Off".

In episode four of the Eureka series, Former SEC Director of CorpFin and Freshfields partner Erik Gerding is joined by partners Leza Bieber, Heather Brookfield and Sarah Ghulamhussain who unpack the trends this Proxy Season, including:

In this episode of the Eureka series, partners and former senior SEC officials Melissa Hodgman and Erik Gerding share insider perspectives on what to expect from SEC enforcement, including:

The second Trump administration has made numerous announcements on trade and tariffs, but US tax policy is increasingly woven into the discussion on international trade. This includes the possibility of retaliatory US action against “discriminatory or extraterritorial taxes” imposed by other countries.

The US House Budget Reconciliation Bill, officially titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act", was recently passed by the House of Representatives and includes retaliatory US tax measures in response to “unfair foreign taxes” - with digital services taxes (DSTs) and the undertaxed profits rule (UTPR) of the Pillar 2 global minimum tax regime expressly identified as falling in this category.

In our latest podcast US tax expert Claude Stansbury, UK tax expert Emily Szasz and international trade expert Lorand Bartels join Josh Critchlow to discuss the latest on this intersection of US tax and trade policy, including:

Note: this podcast was recorded on 30 May 2025 and does not cover developments after this date.

Listen to the latest episode of our MedTech podcast featuring host Vinita Kailasanath and guest Alya Sulaiman, Chief Compliance and Privacy Officer at Datavant. Vinita and Alya discuss Alya’s unique career path, how AI and machine learning will impact the US’ regulatory landscape, deploying AI in healthcare, and MedTech innovations to watch.  

On 8 May 2025, the European Commission launched a public consultation to review the Merger Guidelines. In this episode, our host Jenn Mellott speaks with Daniele Calisti, Head of the Mergers Case Support and Policy Unit at DG Competition, who is leading the consultation process. They are joined by David Foster, Director at Frontier Economics, and fellow antitrust partner Thomas Janssens, to explore what changes may be coming – particularly around efficiencies and innovation.

While much of what the Commission sets out in the papers released alongside the consultation appears to formalise existing practice, some elements go further and are more novel (e.g., the effects on labour market, economic resilience, environmental sustainability, and broader societal impact of mergers). If the promises of the Draghi Report on innovation and growth in Europe are to be given some weight, the new guidelines should provide clear and explicit direction – particularly in articulating how they envisage a more open and flexible approach to parties demonstrating procompetitive efficiencies.

In the podcast, Daniele Calisti highlights two areas where the Commission is particularly keen to receive feedback—drawing on available economic evidence and real-world experience across industries—on how to assess efficiencies. The first is the idea that efficiencies may be more likely to arise when the merging firms’ activities are complementary. The second relates to the challenge of evaluating asymmetries between alleged harm and claimed efficiencies, including differences in how and when they materialise.

For more on the Commission’s evolving thinking you can read our recent blog: Time to catch up: EU reopens the rulebook on mergers and seeks feedback. Please feel free to reach out to your regular Freshfields contacts if you’d like to contribute to the consultation.

Tune in to the latest episode of our EUnpacked podcast series in which we try to untangle the famous or rather infamous ‘Omnibus I’ package unveiled by the European Commission on 26 February this year. The proposal aims to simplify ESG reporting and due diligence obligations, responding to new political and geopolitical imperatives pushing a simplification and burden-reduction drive to boost the EU’s competitiveness. Podcast host and Head of the Freshfields EU Regulatory & Public Affairs Team Natalie Pettinger Kearney is joined by Léa Bareil, ESG lead in the Brussels public affairs team together with Juliane Hilf and Vanessa Jakovich, both partners in the firm’s leading ESG regulatory practice.

In our latest podcast episode of "No Worse Off," Freshfields partners Emma Gateaud and Craig Montgomery are joined by two industry experts for an in-depth discussion on motor finance claims and consumer redress restructuring.

Drawing on our extensive experience in recent consumer redress restructurings, we consider the potential impact of the upcoming Supreme Court Judgment on motor finance commissions. Our guests, Sheraz Afzal (Chief Legal Risk & Compliance Officer at Quint Group Ltd) and Jamie Drummond-Smith (Independent director, adjudicator and creditor representative), share their frontline experience in these restructurings, offering valuable insights from recent cases in the consumer finance sector.

Stay tuned for more insights into the world of restructuring in 2025, and thank you for listening to "No Worse Off"