What happens if UK takes legal action over post-Brexit fishing row with France?
The French government has stepped back from a threat to impose disruptive port checks on lorries and boats after the UK threatened to take legal action in a row over post-Brexit fishing licences.
Key talks between the two sides will take place later this week aimed at resolving the disagreement, but the risk of further escalation remains.
Sky News examines what is behind the row between the UK and France and what measures London could take if the impasse rumbles on.
What is the dispute about?
Under the terms of the Brexit trade deal, which came into force on 1 January, EU access to UK waters and UK access to EU waters is now managed through a licensing system for fishing vessels.
The current row erupted after the UK authorities refused to give licences to some French fishing vessels to operate in UK waters because they believed they did not meet the requirements.
According to the French government, the UK has only issued half the fishing licences that Paris believes it is entitled to.
Environment Secretary George Eustice told Sky News last week that the UK has issued post-Brexit licences to 1,700 vessels, including 750 French fishing boats, which amounts to 98% of applicants.
But the row deepened when the Cornelis Gert Jan scallop trawler was detained by French authorities last Thursday near the port of Le Havre.
The owners of the British vessel denied French claims that it did not have the correct licence to fish in French waters and said the Cornelis was being used as a “pawn” in the wider UK-France fishing dispute.
France initially said that if the UK did not grant more licences for its fishing vessels it would, from Tuesday, block its ports, carry out security checks on British vessels, reinforce controls of lorries to and from the UK, reinforce customs and hygiene controls, and raise tariffs.
However, Paris has stepped back from introducing these measures.
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France postpones sanctions over fishing row
Downing Street says talks will take place with France on Wednesday about the situation, as well as other “issues important to the UK-EU relationship, including the Northern Ireland Protocol”.
What are dispute resolution measures?
It is against this backdrop that the UK has threatened to take legal action.
The prospect was raised by Prime Minister Boris Johnson last week and repeated by the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss in a Sky News interview on Monday.
The foreign secretary set a 48-hour deadline for the fishing dispute to be resolved, although it’s not clear if that deadline still stands in light of recent moves from Paris.
If legal action were to be taken, this would involve the UK triggering the dispute resolution measures contained in the Brexit trade deal, officially known as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
The measures are designed to be used when one side feels that the other is in breach of the TCA.
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PM ‘worried’ that treaty may have been broken on fishing
Initially, this would mean a 30-day period of consultation between the two sides which can be extended if both parties agree.
The aim of this first step is to resolve any disagreement through dialogue.
But if a solution cannot be found, the complainant can progress things further and ask for an independent arbitration tribunal to be set up.
This would be made up of three members: one nominated by the UK, one put forward by the EU and a jointly-agreed chair.
The tribunal would then rule within 130 days of being set up, although an interim report would be issued earlier.
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Minister: French reaction ‘unacceptable’
One side can ask for this timeline to be sped up, which would see it cut in half.
Tribunal rulings are legally binding and if a side is found to have breached the agreement they have 30 days to set out how they will comply.
Sam Lowe, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform think-tank, said of the process: “In terms of the legal mechanisms we are very much talking about a process here that could drag on for a while.”
What happens if one side does not comply?
The other party can ask for compensation or suspend certain obligations contained in the agreement in areas like trade, aviation, road transport and fisheries.
The tribunal can be asked to rule on whether the suspension is appropriate, while the suspension should be rescinded if the other side then decides to follow its ruling.
There are also specific steps that one side can take in relation to fishing.
What measures can be taken on fishing?
One side could decide to entirely suspend access to its waters and scrap the preferential tariff agreement that applies to fishery products.
Again, an arbitration tribunal could end up getting involved, with it ruling if the measure is a proportionate response.
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Brexit: Fishermen frustrated by fishing row
The UK, or indeed France, could choose to go further and apply tariffs on fisheries and non-fisheries products or even suspend elements of the TCA relating to trade and road transport.
Either side can also decide to bin the agreement on fisheries with a notice period of nine months.
What would the impact be on UK-EU relations long-term?
According to Sam Lowe: “If the UK feels the diplomatic route has been exhausted, proceeding with dispute resolution within the confines of the TCA is the proper way to go about things.
“At least in the TCA there are rules, processes to be followed; much better than spilling out into an unconstrained trade war with both the EU and UK free to do whatever they want.”
However, he warned that a simmering dispute could have a wider impact, adding: “These disputes do have political ramifications: they chip away at the good will necessary to reach a compromise on other outstanding issues such as Northern Ireland.”
Are the dispute resolution mechanisms different when it comes to Northern Ireland?
Yes.
The UK and EU are currently locked in talks over potential changes to the protocol, which is designed to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The protocol is part of the withdrawal agreement between the two sides and is separate from the TCA.
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Do we need a new Northern Ireland Protocol?
If these talks break down or do not prove fruitful, either side has the option of activating Article 16 of the protocol.
This states that if the protocol is causing “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist”, or leading to a “diversion of trade” then either the UK or EU can introduce “appropriate safeguard measures” to tackle the problems.
Brussels at one stage proposed using Article 16 to stop COVID vaccine exports from the EU moving to Great Britain from Northern Ireland, but stepped back from this after a backlash.
Opponents of the protocol in Northern Ireland have been calling on the UK government to invoke Article 16 to stop checks and controls on goods.
The home secretary has denied the government is watering down its response to child grooming gangs after it was accused of dropping plans for local inquiries.
Yvette Cooper announced at the beginning of the year that “victim-centred, locally-led inquiries” would take place in five areas after the issue caught the attention of tech billionaire Elon Musk.
But this week, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips did not provide an update on the reviews and instead said local authorities would be able to access a £5m fund to support any work they wanted to carry out.
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Her statement led to accusations that the government was diluting the importance of the local inquiries by giving councils the choice over how to spend the money.
Asked by Anna Jones on Sky News whether the government was “watering down” its response, Ms Cooper said: “No, completely the opposite.
“What we’re doing is increasing the action we’re taking on this vile crime.”
The home secretary pointed to the rapid audit that is being carried out by Baroness Louise Casey, which will bring together the data gathered so far on grooming gangs and consider the lessons that should be learned at a national level.
She added: “Most important of all, what we’re doing is we’re increasing the police investigations, because these are dangerous perpetrators and again, they should be behind bars.”
Elon Musk has been critical of Labour’s response to grooming gangs and has called for a national inquiry.
Demands for a national inquiry into the scandal – in which girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped across a number of towns and cities in England over a decade ago – grew louder this year after Mr Musk accused Labour of failing to act on the issue on his social media platform X.
The government refused to hold a national inquiry, citing the work carried out by Professor Alexis Jay, who led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse that looked into abuse by organised groups following multiple convictions of sexual offences against children across the UK between 2010-2014.
However, it did commit to holding local inquiries in five areas backed by £5m in funding and advised by Tom Crowther KC.
‘Political mess’
But ministers are facing a backlash following Ms Phillips’ statement in the Commons on Tuesday – made an hour before parliament rose for Easter recess – in which she said the government would take a “flexible approach” by allowing five councils to launch victims’ panels or locally led audits.
Labour MPs angry with government decision grooming gangs
With about an hour until the House of Commons rose for Easter recess, the government announced it was taking a more “flexible” approach to the local grooming gang inquiries.
Safeguarding minister Jess Philips argued this was based on experience from certain affected areas, and that the government is funding new police investigations to re-open historic cases.
Sky News presenter and former chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Philips called the move “utterly shameful” and claimed it was a political decision.
One Labour MP told Sky News: “Some people are very angry. I despair. I don’t disagree with many of our decisions but we just play to Reform – someone somewhere needs sacking.”
The government insists party political misinformation is fanning the flames of frustration in Labour, and that they not watering down the inquiries – on the contrary, they say are increasing the action being taken – , but while many Labour MPs have one eye on Reform in the rearview mirror, any accusations of being soft on grooming gangs only provides political ammunition to their adversaries.
One Labour MP told Sky News the issue had turned into a “political mess” and that they were being called “grooming sympathisers”.
On the update from Ms Phillips on Tuesday, they said it might have been the “right thing to do” but that it was “horrible politically”.
“We are all getting so much abuse. It’s just political naivety in the extreme.”
Read more:
Grooming gangs: What we know from the data
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Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said yesterday that she was “absolutely astonished that Labour has dropped what it said it would do in January”.
“They are clearly uncomfortable with having inquiries that are looking into this issue,”she said.
“They said that they’ll have a pot of money for councils to bid in, but why would a council bid for money to investigate itself?
“We need something that is national. We need a statutory inquiry so we can compel witnesses, and I’m going to make sure that we force another vote.”
‘We will leave no stone unturned’
Ms Phillips later defended her decision, saying there was “far too much party political misinformation about the action that is being taken when everyone should be trying to support victims and survivors”.
“We are funding new police investigations to re-open historic cases, providing national support for locally led inquiries and action, and Louise Casey… is currently reviewing the nature, scale and ethnicity of grooming gangs offending across the country.
“We will not hesitate to go further, unlike the previous government, who showed no interest in this issue over 14 years and did nothing to progress the recommendations from the seven year national inquiry when they had the chance.
“We will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of justice for victims and will be unrelenting in our crackdown on sick predators and perpetrators who prey on vulnerable children.”
Non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission to exclude NFT marketplaces from regulation under federal securities laws.
The SEC needs to “clearly state that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea do not qualify as exchanges under federal securities laws,” OpenSea general counsel Adele Faure and deputy general counsel Laura Brookover said in an April 9 letter to Commissioner Hester Peirce, who leads the agency’s Crypto Task Force.
Faure and Brookover argued that NFT marketplaces don’t meet the legal definition of an exchange under US securities laws as they don’t execute transactions, act as intermediaries or bring together multiple sellers for the same asset.
“The Commission’s past enforcement agenda has created uncertainty. We therefore urge the Commission to remove this uncertainty and protect the ability of US technology companies to lead in this space,” Faure and Brookover wrote.
OpenSea’s legal team has asked the SEC to issue informal guidance on NFT Marketplaces. Source: SEC
“In preparing this guidance, the Crypto Task Force should specifically address the application of exchange regulations to marketplaces for non-fungible assets, similar to the recent staff statements on memecoins and stablecoins,” Faure and Brookover added.
Under a notice published on April 4, the SEC said stablecoins that meet specific criteria are considered “non-securities” and are exempt from transaction reporting requirements.
Meanwhile, the SEC’s division of corporation finance said in a Feb. 27 staff statement that memecoins are not securities under the federal securities laws but are more akin to collectibles.
NFT marketplaces don’t fit broker definition, says OpenSea
Faure and Brookover argued the Crypto Task Force should also exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from having to register as a broker, arguing they don’t give investment advice, execute transactions, or custody customer assets.
“We ask the SEC to clear the existing industry confusion on this issue by publishing informal guidance. In the longer term, we invite the Commission to exempt NFT marketplaces like OpenSea from proposed broker regulation,” they said.
Related: OpenSea pauses airdrop reward system after user backlash
Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto forged under former Chair Gary Gensler.
The regulator has dismissed a number of enforcement actions it previously launched against crypto firms and has dropped probes into crypto companies over alleged securities law violations, including one into OpenSea.
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Braden John Karony, the CEO of crypto firm SafeMoon, has cited the US Department of Justice’s directive to no longer pursue some crypto charges in an effort to get the case against him and his firm dismissed.
In an April 9 letter to New York federal court judge Eric Komitee, Karony’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, said the court should consider an April 7 memo from US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that disbanded the DOJ’s crypto unit.
“The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,” Blanche said in the memo, which added the DOJ “will no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets.”
Blanche also directed prosecutors not to charge violations of securities and commodities laws when the case would require the DOJ to determine if a digital asset is a security or commodity when charges such as wire fraud are available.
An excerpt of the letter Karony sent to Judge Komitee. Source: PACER
In the footnote of the letter, Karony’s counsel wrote an exemption to the DOJ’s new directive would be if the parties have an interest in defending that a crypto asset is a security, but added that “Karony does not have such an interest.”
The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission filed simultaneous charges of securities violations, wire fraud, and money laundering against Karony and other SafeMoon executives in November 2023.
The government alleged Karony, SafeMoon creator Kyle Nagy and chief technology officer Thomas Smith withdrew assets worth $200 million from the project and misappropriated investor funds.
Another attempt to nix the case
The letter is Karony’s latest attempt to get the case thrown out. In February, he asked that his trial, scheduled to begin on March 31, be delayed as he argued President Donald Trump’s proposed crypto policies could potentially affect the case.
Related: OKX pleads guilty, pays $505M to settle DOJ charges
Later in February, Smith changed his plea to guilty and said he took part in the alleged $200 million crypto fraud scheme. Nagy is at large and is believed to be in Russia.
SafeMoon filed for bankruptcy in December 2023, a month after it was hit with twin cases from the SEC and DOJ. It was also hacked in March 2023, with the hacker agreeing to return 80% of the funds.
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