RISK FACTORS The principal and emerging risks facing our business are included below. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business. EXTERNAL RISKS Regulatory changes regarding the collection and use of personal data by us or compromises of our data privacy controls and other unauthorised access to our databases, could adversely affect our business and operations. In the course of our business, we process personal data from customers, end users, employees and other sources. Certain business areas rely extensively upon content that includes personal data from public records, governmental authorities, publicly available information and media, and other information companies, including competitors. Changes in data privacy legislation, regulation, and/or enforcement could impact our ability to collect and use personal data, potentially affecting the availability and effectiveness of our products. Failure or perceived failure, by us, our customers or suppliers, to comply with requirements for proper collection, use, sharing, storage, transfer and other processing of personal data may damage our reputation, divert time and effort of management and other resources, increase cost of operations, and expose us to risk of loss, fines and penalties, litigation, and increased regulation. See “Item 8: Financial Information – Legal Proceedings”. Our intellectual property rights may not be adequately protected under current laws in some jurisdictions, which may adversely affect our business or financial performance and our ability to grow. Our products and services include and utilise intellectual property and we rely on our commercial agreements as well as trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret and other intellectual property laws to establish and protect our proprietary rights in this intellectual property. Such intellectual property laws are subject to national legislative initiatives, cross-border initiatives such as those from the European Commission and increased judicial scrutiny in several jurisdictions in which we operate that could weaken such protections. There is a risk that our proprietary rights and copyright protections could be infringed or circumvented, including by companies leveraging technology tools and artificial intelligence (“AI”), which may impact demand for and pricing of our products and services. ​ Current and future geopolitical, economic and market conditions, and dislocations beyond our control may adversely affect demand for our products and services. ​ Demand for our products and services, and our ability to operate internationally, may be adversely impacted by geopolitical, economic and market conditions beyond our control. These include acts of war and civil unrest; political conflicts and tensions; international sanctions; economic cycles; the impact of the effect of changes in inflation and interest rates in major economies; trading relations between the United States, Europe, China and other major economies; as well as levels of government and private funding for our markets. ​ Failing to maintain research integrity in our scientific, technical and medical primary research products, as well as changes in the payment model for these products or alternative publication channels for our content, could adversely affect our business or financial performance. ​ Maintaining quality and integrity in primary scientific research is core to our Scientific, Technical & Medical (“STM”) business. There is a risk that we may not detect some erroneous or fraudulent research papers that are submitted to our journals. In addition, payment models in scientific research publishing are evolving, with ‘pay-to-publish’ (commonly referred to as Open Access) becoming a larger share relative to ‘pay-to-read’. Rapid changes in customer choice, regulation, or technologies in this area could impact the revenue mix and growth in primary publishing. 8 Table of Contents STRATEGIC RISKS We operate in a highly competitive and dynamic environment that is subject to rapid change and cannot assure you that there will be continued demand for our products and services. Our businesses are dependent on the continued demand by our customers for our products and services and the value placed on them. We operate in highly competitive and dynamic markets, and the means of delivery, customer demand for, and the products and services themselves, continue to change in response to technological innovations, such as the use of AI, legislative and regulatory changes, the entrance of new competitors, and other factors. Failure to anticipate and quickly adapt to these changes, or to deliver enhanced value to our customers, could impact demand for our products and services and consequently adversely affect our revenue or the long-term returns from our investment in higher value-add information-based analytics and decision tools. We may not realise all of the future anticipated benefits of acquisitions. We supplement our organic development with selected acquisitions. If we are unable to generate the anticipated benefits such as revenue growth, accelerated product development or cost savings associated with these acquisitions, it could adversely affect return on invested capital and financial condition or lead to an impairment of goodwill or intangibles. OPERATIONAL RISKS Compromises of our cybersecurity systems and other unauthorised access to our databases, could adversely affect our business and operations. Our businesses maintain and use online databases and platforms delivering our products and services, which we rely on, and provide data to third parties, including customers and service providers. These databases and information are a target for compromise and face a risk of unauthorised access and use by unauthorised parties including through cyber, ransomware, malware, phishing and other social engineering attacks on us or our third-party service providers. Our cybersecurity measures, and the measures used by our third-party service providers, may not detect or prevent all attempts to compromise our systems, which may jeopardise the security or integrity of the data we maintain or may disrupt our systems. Failures of our cybersecurity measures could result in unauthorised access to our systems, misappropriation of our or our users’ data, deletion or modification of stored information or other interruption to our business operations. As techniques used to obtain unauthorised access to or to sabotage systems change frequently (including automated tools such as generative-AI assisted) and may not be known until launched against us or our third-party service providers we may be unable to anticipate or implement adequate measures to protect against these attacks and our service providers and customers may likewise be unable to do so. Compromises of our or our third-party service providers’ systems could adversely affect our financial performance, damage our reputation and expose us to risk of loss, fines and penalties, litigation and increased regulation. See “Item 8: Financial Information – Legal Proceedings”. Changes in economic cycles, trading relations, communicable disease epidemics, severe weather events, natural disasters, terrorism, and lack of venues may impact our ability to organise events. Face-to-face events are susceptible to economic cycles, changes in trading relations, communicable diseases, severe weather events and other natural disasters, terrorism and availability of venues. Each or any of these may impact our ability to hold face-to-face events, and exhibitors’ and visitors’ desire and ability to travel in person to events. These factors each have the potential to reduce revenues, increase the costs of organising events and adversely affect cash flows and reputation. Our business may be adversely affected by the failure of third parties to whom we have outsourced business activities. Our organisational and operational structures depend on suppliers including outsourced and offshored functions, as well as cloud service, software, and large language model providers. Poor performance, failure or breach of third parties to whom we have contracted could adversely affect our business performance, reputation and financial condition. 9 Table of Contents We source content to enable information solutions for our professional customers. The disruption or loss of data sources, either because of regulations, or because data suppliers decide not to supply them, may impose limits on our collection and use of certain kinds of information and our ability to communicate, offer or make such information available or useful to our customers. A significant failure or interruption of our electronic delivery platforms, networks, distribution systems or infrastructure could adversely affect our business and operations. Our businesses are dependent on electronic platforms and networks, including our own and third-party data centres, cloud providers, network systems and the internet, for delivery of our products and services. These could be adversely affected if our electronic delivery platforms, networks, power sources or supporting infrastructure experience a significant failure or interruption. We may be unable to implement and execute our strategic and business plans if we cannot recruit and retain skilled employees and management. The implementation and execution of our strategies and business plans depend on our ability to recruit, motivate, develop, and retain a diverse population of skilled employees and management. We compete globally and across business sectors for diverse, talented management and skilled individuals, particularly those with technology and data analytics capabilities. An inability to recruit, motivate or retain key employees with the right overall mix of skills in the Group could adversely affect our business performance. FINANCIAL RISKS Changes in tax laws or uncertainty over their application and interpretation may adversely affect our reported results. Our businesses operate globally, and our profits are subject to taxation in many different jurisdictions and at differing tax rates. Tax laws and tax rates that currently apply to our businesses may be amended by the relevant authorities or interpreted differently by them, and these changes could adversely affect our reported results. Fluctuations in exchange rates may affect our reported results. The RELX PLC consolidated financial statements are expressed in pounds sterling and are subject to movements in exchange rates on the translation of the financial information of businesses whose operational currencies are other than sterling. The United States is our most important market and, accordingly, significant fluctuations in the US dollar exchange rate could significantly affect our reported results. We also earn revenues and incur costs in a range of other currencies, including the euro and the yen, and significant fluctuations in these exchange rates could also significantly impact our reported results. ​ Market conditions and credit ratings may affect the availability and cost of funding. Macroeconomic, political and market conditions may adversely affect the availability and terms of short- and long-term funding, volatility of interest rates, the credit quality of our counterparties, currency exchange rates and inflation. The majority of our outstanding debt instruments are, and any of our future debt instruments may be, publicly rated by independent rating agencies. Our borrowing costs and access to capital may be adversely affected if the credit ratings assigned to our debt are downgraded. Changes in the market values of defined benefit pension scheme assets and in the assumptions used to value defined benefit pension scheme obligations may adversely affect our business or financial performance. We primarily operate defined contribution pension schemes around the world, but also have legacy defined benefit pension schemes in the United Kingdom and the United States. The US defined benefit pension scheme closed to future accruals in 2019. The UK defined benefit pension scheme has been closed to new hires since 2010 and will close to future benefit accruals in 2027. The assets and obligations associated with these pension schemes are sensitive to changes in the market values of the scheme’s investments and the market-related assumptions used to value scheme liabilities. Adverse changes to asset values, discount rates, longevity assumptions or inflation could increase funding requirements. ​ 10 Table of Contents REPUTATIONAL RISKS Breaches of generally accepted ethical business standards or applicable statutes could adversely affect our reputation and financial condition. As a global provider of professional information solutions we, our employees, major suppliers and partners are expected to adhere to high standards of integrity and ethical conduct, including those related to anti-bribery and anti-corruption, data protection, use of AI, fraud, sanctions, competition and principled business conduct. A breach of generally accepted ethical business standards or applicable laws could adversely affect our business performance, reputation, and financial condition. REGULATORY RISKS Our business, operations and reputation could be adversely affected by a failure to comply with FTC consent orders. Our business, operations and reputation could be adversely affected by a failure to comply with FTC consent orders entered into in 2006 and 2008, regarding our compliance with US federal laws governing consumer information and security-related issues, including certain fraudulent data access incidents. Failure to comply with these orders could result in civil penalties and adversely affect our business, operations and reputation. ​ ​ 11 Table of Contents