The vision of unrestricted cloud adoption, once heralded as the pinnacle of digital transformation, is now encountering significant obstacles. This shift is primarily driven by mounting geopolitical risks, increasingly stringent regulatory mandates, and the unavoidable realization that uncompromising data control is essential for sensitive workloads—a necessity amplified by the accelerating AI revolution.
European organizations, in particular, are demanding solutions that offer secure, resilient, and sovereign cloud alternatives. The challenge they face is that global hyperscalers often struggle to satisfy the comprehensive data, operational, and jurisdictional sovereignty requirements stipulated by European frameworks.
The regulatory landscape is clear: The European Union (EU) requires sovereign clouds delivered by in-country or EU-wide Service Providers.
A Strategic Leap Forward, Not a Retreat
The pathway to compliance and resilience is not a reversal to outdated legacy IT infrastructure. Instead, we believe it necessitates a decisive leap toward a modern, integrated cloud platform engineered to support private, hybrid, and public cloud environments cohesively.
At Broadcom, we are demonstrating a significant commitment to Europe’s digital autonomy through focused investment in our EU partner ecosystem. By collaborating closely with European Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), we are facilitating the construction of a powerful suite of sovereign cloud solutions, all powered by VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF).
VMware Cloud Foundation: The Cornerstone of Control
We know that VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) is crucial to meeting the sovereignty mandate by providing:
Ultimate Control: Customers retain the prerogative to keep critical workloads on-premises, thereby guaranteeing that data remains within national borders and fully under their organization’s control.
Unbeatable Value: VCF delivers a robust sovereign cloud solution at highly competitive economic terms, making control both feasible and cost-effective.
VCF enables our European partners to effectively manage infrastructure, retain customer data control, support their clients’ digital futures, and maintain perfect alignment with evolving European regulatory frameworks.
Dual Routes to Market: Empowering the Ecosystem
Our approach is designed to enable the entire partner ecosystem to drive customer success:
Cloud Service Providers (CSPs): We enable CSPs to offer sovereign cloud services based on VCF.
Resellers and Professional Services Partners: Collaboration with EU Resellers is aimed at accelerating their ability to sell and deploy a modern, VCF-based private cloud for EU customers. As organizations plan the repatriation of workloads (bringing data back from public cloud), the VMware partner ecosystem simplifies this transition, providing the necessary tools to manage data retention, control, and sovereignty across any preferred IT environment.
VCF grants partners the necessary speed and agility of public clouds within a secure, on-premises environment. We can confidently say this modern private cloud platform delivers tangible results by:
Enabling Innovation: Freeing application teams to concentrate on development of new AI and cloud-native applications rather than infrastructure management.
Streamlining Complexity: Consolidating infrastructure to achieve operational efficiency.
Unifying Strategy: Bridging organizational and technological barriers for seamless execution.
We are proud to support our partners as they offer a truly European private cloud alternative. This solution champions data control, regulatory compliance, and technological independence, ensuring the continent’s technology ecosystem is equipped to thrive. For our Professional Services Partners, we enable them to build and scale practices that drive VCF adoption and deliver maximum client value.
Broadcom’s Commitment
We remain dedicated to providing the flexibility, control, and innovation required to help European organizations grow, compete, and navigate a rapidly changing, data-driven landscape. This commitment is delivered through our focused and strengthened partner ecosystem, encompassing Cloud Service Providers, Resellers, and Professional Services Providers.
Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised Okeanis Eco Tankers Corp. (“Okeanis”) on its successful offering of about 3.2m new shares of common stock, raising approximately US$115m.
Proceeds from the offering will be used as partial consideration for the acquisition of two newbuild Suezmax vessels currently under construction at Daehan Shipbuilding Co. in the Republic of Korea.
The transaction attracted strong investor demand, and the shares were issued at price above net asset value. Following issuance and settlement, the new shares will be able to be traded on the New York and Oslo Stock Exchanges.
Okeanis is an international tanker company active in the crude oil shipping sectors. It owns, charters out and manages a fleet of modern tanker vessels.
The WFW New York Maritime team that advised Okeanis was led by Capital Markets Partner Steven Hollander, supported by Partners Filana Silberberg and Will Vogel, Counsel Todd Johnson, Senior Associates Ioanna Pantelaki and Haris Kazantzis, and Associate Lucie Couillard Sosa.
Steven commented: “We’re delighted to have advised Okeanis on a transaction that represents another significant milestone in its strategic plans. Issuing shares above net asset value reflects strong market confidence in the company’s outlook, and we look forward to continuing to support them going forward.”
Iraklis Sbarounis, Chief Financial Officer of Okeanis, stated: “We are grateful for WFW’s support in successfully concluding this important transaction. Steve and his team worked tirelessly and effectively, within a short timeframe, and were instrumental in getting this through the finish line.”
The High Court found that BHP knew or should have known that “internal drainage of the dam was inadequate to prevent saturation” and was “directly and/or indirectly responsible for the activity of Samarco in owning and operating” the dam. BHP has already paid out billions of pounds in compensation as the result of the collapse and has signalled that it intends to appeal the decision.
The decision, unless successfully appealed by BHP, will progress a claim on behalf of 620,000 alleged victims, seeking up to £36 billion (approx. US$47.3bn) in compensation and proceed to trial.
Jacqueline Harris, an expert in commercial litigation, said: “Despite the disaster happening almost 9,000km away, the claimants were entitled to bring the action in the High Court in London because, at the time, BHP UK and BHP Australia operated as a dual listed company with one of those listings being on the London Stock Exchange.”
“The court’s role was to determine liability under Brazilian law, not English law. To allow them to do so, it heard from experts on Brazilian law. The English Court then determined the facts of the case and applied Brazilian law as they understood it from this expert evidence,” she said. “Although the case provides little by way of insight into the law of England and Wales, it is still a significant landmark in mass action litigation.”
BHP UK and BHP Australia were sued as the parent company of BHP Brasil Ltd. BHP Brasil owned 50% of Samarco, which owned and operated the Mariana dam. Samarco’s governance structure ensured that BHP’s “interests were always represented” and Samarco was “subservient to the will of BHP”, according to the court.
“BHP and Vale membership of the committees and sub-committees established by the Samarco Board ensured that BHP, through BHP Iron Ore and the Iron Ore Brazil team, were involved in the activities of Samarco at every level, from strategic decisions and dividend shares to detailed operational matters,” the court said in its decision.
BHP was also found to have assumed responsibility for “risk assessment, control, mitigation and management within the BHP Group and specifically within Samarco”, alongside exercising “control over Samarco’s activities, including its short and long-term strategy, investments, production, financial and technical risk assessment and management through the audit process, funding arrangements and the payment of dividends”.
Katie Hancock, an expert in environmental litigation, said “The case is a prime example of how a parent company’s listing in England could result in claims being brought against it for the actions of its subsidiaries.”
“There were concerns that size of this claim and the number of claimants may not be suitable for the English court system, but proponents of mass claims are expected to point to this case as a procedural success which may encourage new claims to be brought,” she said.
“The judgment is one of a number currently going through the courts which look to establish parent company liability for the actions of their subsidiaries.”
BHP was held to be directly and indirectly responsible for the polluting activity, being the storage of iron ore tailings. There were “obvious signs of contractive, saturated tailings and numerous incidents and seepage and cracking” prior to the collapse.
Harris said: “Although establishing control in the context of the Brazilian civil code, the judgment is significant in discussing the considerations it considered relevant to establishing that control. This included BHP’s involvement in operational management activities and the setting of corporate objectives for Samarco.”
“The claimant’s success in this action is a significant marker. It will undoubtedly encourage the further use of London as a forum in which to sue parent companies for the actions of their subsidiaries,” she said.
“Pending outcome of any appeal process, the result of the subsequent damages trial will be watched keenly to understand the extent of compensation the court is willing to award.”
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More than 650 workers face the prospect of redundancy after the scrap metals group Unimetals filed for compulsory liquidation.
The owners of Unimetals Recycling (UK) filed a winding-up petition for the business on Monday, after failing to find a buyer.
The scrap metals industry generates billions of pounds of revenue each year by recycling metals such as steel, aluminium and copper that can be made into new products. The switch to electric arc furnaces that melt down recycled steel has given added hope for the sector’s longer-term prospects.
Unimetals was founded in 2023 by Jamie Afnaim and Alec Sellem, two metals traders, according to UK company disclosures. On a social media profile Sellem described the group’s aim to buy up metals recycling and processing businesses, with a particular focus on critical minerals, and those needed for the transition away from fossil fuels.
The pair agreed in October 2024 to buy the UK sites from the Australian metals company Sims for £195m, but failed to turn it around. The assets included four metal shredders and three port facilities, among its 27 UK locations, with headquarters in Stratford-upon-Avon. However, Unimetals struggled earlier this year as the supply of excess scrap and steel was higher than demand, denting prices. Sims allowed it to delay a final payment, but Unimetals was unable to get the money together.
Under Sims’s ownership the business had lost £22m in the year to June 2023, the last for which it has published accounts. In recent weeks Unimetals filed three notices of intention to appoint administrators, before the winding-up petition.
A spokesperson for Unimetals said: “We have worked tirelessly to explore every possible option to secure new financing for Unimetals Recycling, with the aim of meeting our financial obligations and safeguarding the future of the business.
“This included an accelerated mergers and acquisitions process, supported by our advisers and undertaken in full collaboration with stakeholders, to identify potential buyers or investors.
“Regretfully, despite substantial interest and attempts at completing a deal, no transaction was concluded.”
The spokesperson acknowledged it would be a distressing time for employees. The group said it was “working urgently to agree on a clear plan and timeline for what happens next”.
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Alvarez & Marsal, a professional services firm, has been managing talks about the company’s future, according to Sky News.
Unimetals also has a hydrometallurgical facility in Kezad, near the port of Abu Dhabi.
According to the report by Pinsent Masons, published in partnership with the Financial Regulation Innovation Lab (FRIL), while industry retains some concerns about adopting cloud-based solutions, such as over whether their older systems can be successfully integrated into the cloud environment and over data security, these are “no longer seen as insurmountable blockers”.
The report explores attitudes, practices and regulation relevant to the use of cloud-based infrastructure and services in financial services – and how they compare to the challenges identified in a different study Pinsent Masons undertook with UK Finance back in 2016.
At that time, issues concerning the management of data, including around security, was identified as one of seven major hurdles to banks migrating to the cloud. However, while this year’s study, which entailed surveying and interviewing business leaders from organisations operating within the financial services sector, identified data security as one of number of “persistent data challenges”, just a third of survey respondents rated it an important or very important barrier to cloud adoption. In fact, more than 70% of those surveyed said enhanced security is one of the primary drivers for moving to the cloud.
“The focus [on data security] has shifted to the nuances of the cloud environment,” according to the Pinsent Masons/FRIL report. “This includes managing the network perimeter, the complexities of the shared responsibility model, where ownership ‘wasn’t always clearly mapped out’, and dealing with vendor terms that can be problematic, such as those that ‘won’t accept any liability for loss’ of client data.”
Other data issues that persist include around the quality of information institutions hold – which is highlighted in the report as a barrier to harnessing the full potential of AI – and around the data localisation requirements imposed by regulators around the world.
While the study found that there remain some ‘red lines’ for many financial services businesses over the types of functions they are willing to operate from the cloud, just a third of survey respondents said concerns about legacy systems coping with new cloud-based solutions are an important or very important barrier to cloud adoption today.
Other issues that have been perceived as major hurdles scored even lower on the importance scale, such as around regulatory compliance, vender lock-in, and the cost of migrating systems and data to the cloud.
Angus McFadyen of Pinsent Masons said: “As we’ve seen with numerous business critical cloud implementations, embedding the shared responsibility model into the organisation can be incredibly challenging – and with the increasing, but still limited, adoption of multi-cloud strategies for resilience purposes this is set to remain an issue for years to come.”
Mhairi Mival, also of Pinsent Masons, said: “The steady erosion of barriers to cloud adoption in financial services reflects a profound shift in industry priorities. What was once a landscape dominated by concerns over security, compliance, and operational risk is now giving way to confidence in cloud’s ability to deliver resilience, scalability, and regulatory alignment.”
Yvonne Dunn of Pinsent Masons added: “Risk aversion is, of course, a fundamental aspect of firms’ culture, shaped largely by the regulatory landscape in which they operate. This context has led to hesitation in adopting cloud services. Overcoming this hesitation requires engagement at the highest levels. The long-term cost of inaction and missed opportunities may ultimately outweigh the perceived short-term challenges of technological and cultural transformation.”
Building on the momentum of consumer boycotts against Target and other companies earlier this year, grassroots organizers want American consumers to use their economic power this Thanksgiving weekend to protest the Trump administration’s anti-immigration and anti-DEI crackdowns – and the big corporations that won’t oppose them.
The We Ain’t Buying It campaign – organized by many of the groups behind the No Kings protests – is asking Americans to stop shopping at Target, Home Depot and Amazon on Black Friday, one of the busiest retail days of the year, while also encouraging people to shop local and support community businesses.
“We are reclaiming our power. We are redirecting our spending. And we are resisting this rise to authoritarianism,” said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, one of the groups spearheading this action.
Organizers see We Ain’t Buying It as an economic pressure campaign that fits into the broader civil resistance against the president’s agenda. It joins other economic protests launched during the Trump era, including an ongoing boycott against Target for rolling back its DEI policies and an uptick in people cancelling their Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions after ABC’s suspension of late-show host Jimmy Kimmel.
Consumer activism, including boycotts, can bring meaningful attention to causes, experts said. But whether something like We Ain’t Buying It can prod governments or institutions to change positions depends on what organizers seek to achieve – and how sustained and visible the public pressure.
“They’re effective not so much because they actually reduce sales that much,” said Nien-hê Hsieh, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. “But it’s really about calling attention and putting the company in the spotlight.”
What is We Ain’t Buying It?
We Ain’t Buying It is targeting three companies, though organizers said they hope to send a message to all businesses willing to cower to the Trump administration.
On the list is Amazon, which has already faced buying blackouts from groups like the People’s Union USA for donating to Trump’s inaugural fund and reaping major corporate tax cuts. Home Depot is also a target because Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reportedly singled out their properties for immigration arrests. Protesters have gathered outside Home Depot locations in US cities such as Charlotte and Chicago to push back against the immigration raids. (Home Depot spokesperson George Lane told the Guardian that the company “isn’t notified that immigration enforcement activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations”.)
Action is also directed at Target for its rollback of its DEI goals, something that has already inspired sustained consumer boycotts this year, especially by Black activists and consumers. In its third-quarter earnings, Target reported a 1.5% drop in net sales, and its stores recorded a 2.2% decline in foot traffic. In August, Target announced its CEO was stepping down, citing inflation, tariffs and the boycott for slipping sales. The company just had its first major layoffs in a decade.
Organizers plan to keep adding pressure. In addition to Black Voters Matter, groups such as Indivisible, 50501, Until Freedom and the Working Families party have not only helped organize the boycott, but have also been behind the larger civic movements against the second Trump administration. Brown said since the We Ain’t Buying It launch earlier this month, more than 80 other groups have signed on to participate, including labor unions.
“We’re hoping that the millions of people that participate in this will have a higher level of consciousness of that we have choice, that our money gives us choice,” Brown said. “That means that we have power and that we can make choices to demand better.”
The weekend boycott begins on Thanksgiving, when the motto is “Don’t spend a dime, spend time with your family,” Brown said. Organizers encourage people not to shop at all on Black Friday, unless it’s at small or local businesses. Shopping locally is also the goal for Saturday. Sunday is focused on mutual aid, and Cyber Monday will be a “cyber shutdown”, Brown said, meaning no online shopping.
“We have people who are deleting their apps,” Brown said. “We’re going to cancel subscriptions. We’re not buying anything.”
What is the goal of the boycott?
The We Ain’t Buying It organizers see this campaign as bigger than a boycott of these specific companies. The campaign is asking participants to reinvest back into their communities and pledge to be conscious consumers. They’ve released a toolkit for partners, and are encouraging people to post on social media.
Even if We Ain’t Buying It ends after Monday, organizers see this economic pressure as one of the many tools to deploy to counter the Trump administration and protect American democracy. “It’s actually a relay race.It’s a hand-off between different actions and different groups,” said Hunter Dunn, national press coordinator for 50501.
Dunn said that includes mass mobilizations, like the recent No Kings protest, as well as local organizing, mutual aid and consumer activism, such as boycotts.
“We need to push back against this administration and the billionaire elites backing it,” Dunn said. “This is just one piece of a larger puzzle.”
How effective are these kinds of consumer boycotts?
We Ain’t Buying It joins a tradition of Black Friday protests that have sought to raise awareness about everything from the climate crisis, to worker and labor rights, to overconsumption. These actions can raise the salience of these issues, especially among would-be shoppers who care about these causes.
“We’ve had Black Friday boycotts since Black Friday has been around,” said Emily E LB Twarog, associate professor at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“‘Don’t buy on Black Friday’ because of how workers are being treated in big box stores or around anti-sweatshop campaigns, and now in response to Trump and ICE. I think that they’re worthy of doing, I just don’t know how systemically effective they are.”
Experts say how successful these efforts are can be difficult to measure – and it can depend a lot on the organizers’ goals. If the aim is to cut into a company’s sales or force it to change its practices, that can be much harder to achieve, especially for digital or one-off protests. But if the goal is attention, consumer activism can be very valuable.
“Is it to raise awareness right about these things, so that people have a deeper understanding and maybe make some political decisions based on that knowledge?” Twarog said. “Then I think it’s highly effective because you’re able to share that information.”
Economic activism can help change the practices of governments and institutions, whether it’s the farm workers strikes of the 1960s, or the anti-apartheid boycotts against South Africa in the 1980s, or even the anti-sweatshop protests against Nike in the 1990s. But as Paul Sergius Koku, professor emeritus at Florida Atlantic University College of Business, said: “It has to be sustained over time, and you have to give reasons for people to buy into it.”
That requires spreading awareness and attention beyond eager activists to include a wide range of participants willing to sacrifice – even by just paying higher prices – for a cause. Plus, Koku said, companies don’t just sit back and take it; they could also do their own public relations or lower prices to counter the opposition.
Twarog said she expects that the economic impact of many of today’s consumer boycotts are likely regional or localized, possibly in communities most affected by Trump’s policies, such as hers, in Chicago, where ICE is conducting raids and the national guard is deployed. But retailers like Amazon and Target are huge companies that have faced pressure and backlash before. As Twarog put it: “Is it just the cost of doing business – withstanding these trends?”
