The UK’s new prime minister, Boris Johnson, will take office on 24 July 2019, just over three months before the UK is due to leave the EU, on 31 October 2019. When the UK voted to leave the EU in June 2016, few predicted that Brexit would not yet be achieved over three years later. But repeated failure to gain UK parliamentary approval of the draft withdrawal agreement terms negotiated by then-Prime Minister Theresa May…

The municipalities of Amsterdam and Haarlemmermeer (home to Schiphol Amsterdam Airport) have announced a temporary halt of the realization of new data centers in their region. According to these municipalities, data centers take up too much space and consume too much energy. Amsterdam and Schiphol are logical locations for data centers for various reasons (e.g., access to important internet connection points). There are currently 34 data centers in Amsterdam. Until now, several zoning plans –…

Introduction Starting 1 July 2019, the scope of the Dutch Heating Supply Act (Warmtewet) (the Act) will be revised. The revision will have significant consequences for landlords of residential units or business space (including office and retail) who supply heat to their tenants. As of July 1, landlords will be exempted from the Act.[1] This blog post explains the current obligations of landlords pursuant to the Act and the consequences of the Revised Act…

Introduction Modern technologies and personal data are increasingly important for real estate businesses. Robotics, Wi-Fi tracking, augmented and virtual reality, sensor technology, and the Internet of Things (e.g., a physical smart object in an internet-based structure) are some of the technologies being used. Through such modern technologies, a landlord has access to a large amount of data with respect to the owned property. Collecting, sorting, and analyzing such data can provide the landlord with new…

As reported in our November 2018 GT Amsterdam Law blog post, use of an office building without a minimum energy label C (an energy index of 1.3 or better) will be prohibited as of 1 January 2023. In view of this prohibition in the Dutch Buildings Decree, the ROZ (Dutch Real Estate Council) has established a new sustainability/green lease provision for the ROZ model Office Space 2015. The new model clause allows the landlord…

On May 2, 2019, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published A Framework for OFAC Compliance Commitments, which details more than 10 pages of long-standing OFAC practices on corporate economic sanctions compliance programs. With this publication, companies operating internationally are now on notice that compliance program elements that used to be simply “best practices” guidance will now be expected by OFAC. With the recent strengthening of certain sanctions regimes…