Corporate Update October 2026 - On The Horizon

The Irish Government has published the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2026, establishing a comprehensive framework for supervising and enforcing the EU AI Act in Ireland. This legislation creates the AI Office of Ireland as an independent statutory body to coordinate AI regulation, introduces a distributed oversight model involving multiple sectoral authorities, and provides detailed procedures for adjudication and administrative sanctions. The Bill addresses critical questions about how Ireland

Ireland has introduced significant amendments to its beneficial ownership registers in 2026, implementing the Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD6) framework. These reforms fundamentally restructure access rights to the Central Register of Beneficial Ownership of Trusts and Corporate Entities, moving away from unrestricted public access toward a tiered system that balances transparency with privacy rights while maintaining accessibility for legitimate anti-money laundering purposes.

The Omnibus 1 Directive (EU) 2026/470 (Omnibus 1 Directive) was published in the Official Journal on 26 February. This new Directive, which amends the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)...

The European Union has published revised sustainability reporting standards and introduced a voluntary framework that fundamentally changes how companies approach CSRD compliance. These reforms reduce reporting complexity through fewer datapoints and introduce value chain caps that limit information requests from smaller businesses. Understanding these changes is critical for both mandatory reporters and voluntary participants as implementation deadlines approach in 2026 and 2027.

Our corporate team were happy to advise AMCS on their latest acquisition as the business continues to grow their international footprint and scale.

This legislative update examines Ireland's Autumn 2026 legislative agenda, including reforms to director address disclosure and cooperative societies law, while analyzing key governance trends from the UK proxy season and the European Commission's corporate law harmonization priorities. The analysis explores shareholder activism, board diversity expectations, and the EU's ambitious "EU Inc." framework aimed at creating unified company law across Member States.

The Northern Ireland Assembly is advancing the Charities (Amendment) Bill, which introduces significant regulatory changes for charities operating in the jurisdiction. The legislation grants the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland expanded enforcement powers, overhauls accounting and reporting frameworks based on charity size, and clarifies the status of cross-border charitable organizations.

The Dublin office of leading international law firm, Maples and Calder, recently advised Cantor Fitzgerald on its agreement to acquire Merrion Capital Group.

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After months of intense negotiations, the European Parliament (the “Parliament”) and the Council of the European Union (the “Council”) have agreed new laws that substantially revise and simplify the EU’s corporate sustainability rulebook. Final approval of the package has been obtained and the amended “omnibus” directive (Directive (EU) 2026/470) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 26 February 2026.