France and Germany have called for “speedy progress” of the negotiations on the European Commission’s various Omnibus simplification packages “to achieve legal certainty for companies and ensure proportionality, especially for SMEs, while safeguarding our political ambition and relevant standards”. In a joint economic statement, the EU’s largest economies said they “generally stress” the need to continue to move fast on regulatory simplification, given the “tense economic and geopolitical context”. The two countries welcomed the Commission’s recommendation on the definition of “small mid-cap enterprises”, and supported a “more ambitious” European small mid-caps category of 250-1,000 employees “to take better account of the specific characteristics of these companies and encourage their growth by further simplifying regulations for them”.
A Texas district judge has issued preliminary injunctions against the enforcement of state legislation targeting proxy advisers, following suits filed by Glass Lewis and ISS. Law SB 2237, which was due to come into effect today, would require proxy advisers to include a warning with their advice that it is “not made solely, and may not be, in the best financial interest of the shareholders” if it incorporates ESG or DEI considerations, “social credit or sustainability scores”, or membership of an organisation that “bases its evaluation or assessment of a company’s value on non-financial factors”. In July, both proxy advisers filed lawsuits against Texas attorney general Ken Paxton challenging the law and sought preliminary injunctions.
A spokesperson for ISS welcomed the ruling by US district judge Alan Albright. “We provide our clients with rigorous, fact-based analysis based on the client’s direction, so that they can make their own voting decisions. We remain committed to transparency, independence, and supporting investors in meeting their fiduciary duties,” they said.
Metzler Asset Management has become the first German fund manager to sign up to the Business Statement Supporting a Moratorium on Deep Sea Mining. Metzler joins 38 countries and a number of European peers including Storebrand, Ossiam and ASN Bank in endorsing the statement, which commits signatories not to finance activities relating to deep-sea mining. Daniel Sailer, head of Metzler AM’s sustainability office, said: “Given the fragility [of deep-sea ecosystems], we see it as our duty to permit any form of deep-sea mining only with the utmost caution and scientific backing. Since this is not currently guaranteed, we support the moratorium.”
European sustainable funds sold $2.3 billion in equity and bond holdings in companies captured by the European Securities and Markets Authority’s new fund-naming guidelines in the year to end-May, according to Barclays. Analysts at the bank found that, in the 12 months before implementation of the rules, exposure to firms tagged by MSCI as being in breach of the minimum exclusion criteria decreased by $1.8 billion for equity funds and $500 million for fixed income funds. Some edge cases remained in funds in scope of the rules, the analysts said, such as three railroad companies with exposure to coal transport, where the rules are unclear whether the transportation of coal qualifies as “distribution”, a divestible activity. They also found inconsistent treatment of utilities, which are not required to report the exact metric under which they might be divested, and of companies in the process of structurally changing their operations.
Almost half of FTSE 100 companies restated climate and sustainability metrics in 2025, of which three-quarters related to greenhouse gas (GHG) metrics, according to Deloitte UK. While the total number of companies making restatements was the same as last year, the analysis found that six more companies made multiple changes this year, resulting in a total of 69 individual adjustments. Seventy-seven percent of restatements related to GHG emissions metrics, down from 89 percent last year. The remaining 23 percent covered topics including waste, water, DEI, and health and safety.
NGOs including Frank Bold, ShareAction and WWF have written to the European Parliament’s lead Omnibus negotiators calling for policymakers to retain the review clause in the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which requires the European Commission to assess whether financial institutions should be legally required to assess and mitigate their impacts on people and the planet. The signatories said removing the clause would “send the wrong signal” to financial institutions. “To exempt them indefinitely is to undermine the very premise of the directive: that all companies bear responsibility for their impacts on people and the planet,” the NGOs said. They added that this is even more important in light of the Commission’s Savings and Investment Union initiative. “By using the CSDDD as a tool for risk management rather than additional paperwork, and by aligning expectations for asset managers and companies, the Commission can reassure long-term asset owners that sustainability risks will be effectively managed as they allocate capital to innovation and transition,” they said.
A paper from the Dutch central bank has advised banks to take into account the location of a company’s production facilities when assessing their exposure to physical climate risk. Research conducted by the supervisor found that assessing physical risk exposure based on headquarter locations in cities such as Madrid, Milan and Paris resulted in significant underestimation of risks of coastal and river flooding. “Financial institutions investing in these regions would benefit from access to more granular information on the location of production facilities in the assessment of flood risk,” said researchers.