Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive ('CSDD' Or 'CS3D') Published

The Directive on Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (the 'Directive') was published in the Official Journal of the European Union last Friday, 5 July. Therefore, the Directive will enter into force on 25 July, from which date the two-year period for transposition into the national law of the Member States will begin.

When transposing the Directive, Member States must refrain from introducing provisions that diverge in pejus from the due diligence requirements of the Directive; instead, Member States are allowed to adopt more stringent provisions (Art. 4).

As is well known, the Directive came at the end of a long tug-of-war between the EU institutions - the Commission, the Council, and the Parliament - mainly due to the opposition of some Member States, which resulted in a progressive weakening of the obligations and responsibilities deriving from the Directive approved just before the recent European elections.