In today's email, we've got:

• UK regulators getting their legs cut down from underneath them

• the real names of London's skyscrapers

• law firms moving offices

EDITOR'S RAMBLE 🗣

Hey team - Halloween's over so I guess it's the countdown to Christmas now? (54 days until the big day!).

How early can you start counting down to Christmas?

Reply with your controversial Christmas thoughts - I want to hear them.

- Idin

FEATURED REPORT 📰

🏙 Deregulation for the nation

Credit: Giphy

What's going on here?

Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, became Britain’s prime minister last week.

What does this mean?

Rishi Sunak’s appointment makes him the third prime minister in less than two months in what’s been a rollercoaster ride in British politics. He’s also the first person of colour and the first practising Hindu to become UK prime minister. Also to add to his records, at the age of 42, he’s the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years.

Political changes like this can majorly influence a nation’s economy and its businesses.

How does politics affect the economy?

It’s sometimes hard to see how politics has a direct impact on a country’s economy. But it’s a crucial ingredient in a healthy economy of a nation. Things like tax rates and and levels of government spending will differ between different political parties with different ideas.

Governments can also change rules and regulations which can make a country either more or less friendly for certain types of businesses. For example, if you deal with residents in the EU, you’ll have to follow the data protection laws in GDPR which are very strict. In theory, if that law was repealed (a very bad idea) it would lower the barriers for operating a business targeted at EU citizens.

A few other ways governments can impact the economy are:

• 💸 Tax policy: Government can create tax benefits to incentivise certain types of businesses (e.g. SEIS and EIS schemes in the UK that give tax breaks to those investing in innovative tech).

• 🧠 Intellectual property law: If these protections are stronger, then valuable companies doing new things (like software or pharmaceutical companies) would be more willing to come to your country.

• 🍎 Import and export tariffs: Charging a ‘tax’ on imported apples can be helpful for businesses in your country that sell apples domestically as they’ll look cheaper in comparison. This gets a bit tricky because if a company is making apple pie in your country, then they’d prefer you didn’t have a tax on imports so they could get cheaper apples from abroad. Anyway, you get the picture that laws affect businesses (why have I ended up talking about apples).

What’s an example of how Rishi Sunak’s appointment is affecting businesses?

One example is the controversial proposal that Sunak is currently going ahead with. It will give a new power to government ministers to overrule the decisions made by financial regulators like the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) if it is deemed in the “public interest".

This is controversial as it’s giving powers to individuals to undermine the decisions of reputable institutions that are created to protect the interest of the public. But this sort of ‘deregulation’ might attract companies to the UK who were otherwise not willing or unable to achieve regulatory approval (regulatory approvals in the UK are known for being super slow).

One minister has said the power would only be used as a last resort ‘safety valve’ when a regulatory decision has unintended consequences for other areas of public policy. Of course there are major risks, like corruption or inconsistency in decisions, when you hand such a power with huge financial consequences to individual politicians.

A BIT OF FUN 😄

The sky's the limit

City law firms are known for their fancy offices in massive skyscrapers. So many of London's iconic skyscrapers are given nicknames.

Try and guess the actual names of these skyscrapers.

1. The Gherkin

2. The Shard

3. The Cheesegrater

4. The Walkie Talkie

Scroll down to the bottom to see the answers. 👀

IN OTHER NEWS 🗞

• 🏠 Law firms are moving offices: Big law firms like Clifford Chance, Hill Dickinson LLP and Addleshaw Goddard are making plans to move offices. This is due to the change in how lawyers are working (more work-from-home) meaning that the firms are looking to occupy less space.

• 🐦 Elon Musk took control of Twitter: The world's richest man's takeover of Twitter for £38bn was marked with a tweet saying: "the bird is freed". This was a famous deal for the panel of three US law firms (each with incredibly long names) that worked with Musk to complete this: (1) Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, (2) Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and (3) Chipman Brown Cicero & Cole.

• 💡 Bulb was bought by Octopus: The failed energy company Bulb was being bailed out by the UK government before. The deal with Octopus makes it so the taxpayer are no longer footing the bill for the failed company. Octopus now takes on 1.5m customers and 650 staff from Bulb - which was once one of its biggest competitors. This deal (which was advised on by CMS and Linklaters) is an example of how an acquisition can help a company grow rapidly.

AROUND THE WEB 🌐

• 👀 Applications: If you're doing law firm applications right now, check out FlowHuddle - a support network for aspiring lawyers with co-working sessions, office hours and in-person meet-ups.

• 🛫 Fun: Waste time on this game that lets you guess the origin or destination for any flight!

• 🍁 Useless: A marijuana company in the US has been sued for not making customers high enough.

Credit: r/internetisbeautiful ; r/nottheonion/

Quiz Answers: 

1. The Gherkin = 30 St Mary Axe

2. The Shard = This is just called the Shard (I was very mean and this is a trick question)

3. The Cheesegrater = The Leadenhall Building

4. The Walkie-Talkie = The Fenchurch Building