On 18 December 2020, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a public consultation paper (Consultation) on proposed amendments to the Code on Pooled Retirement Funds (PRF Code). The proposals are part of the SFC’s holistic review of the PRF Code following the revision of the Code on Unit Trusts and Mutual Funds (UT Code) which was implemented in 2019 ...
To boost the economy post-Brexit the government is committed to establishing up to 10 freeports across the UK. In our latest freeport bitesize article, we look at some of the planning implications of which bidders and bid participants should be aware. Back in August 2019 the UK Government announced plans to create ten new freeports that would be free of “unnecessary checks and paperwork, and include customs and tax benefits” ...
This article forms part of our ‘New How: Perspectives’ report: ‘Can real estate help solve the productivity puzzle?. To access this free report, please click on the download link to the right of this page. You’d think we had it all: beautiful open plan office spaces, meeting rooms with floor to ceiling glass walls, digital collaboration platforms, virtual meetings… ...
In a scenario that has played out across the country for nearly a year now, a group of restaurants based in Ohio were ordered by government authorities to close their on-site dining operations to abate the spread of the coronavirus. However, when the restaurants sought insurance coverage for their loss of business income, their insurer, Zurich American Insurance Company, denied coverage. Last week, the U.S ...
On January 1, 2020, Congress overrode President Trump’s veto to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 6395 – 116th Congress (2019-20)), which includes the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (the “AML Act”). The AML Act revises the Bank Secrecy Act to bolster the government’s power to identify and regulate suspicious banking activity ...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued to Congress its annual bid protest report. As discussed below, this year's report is noteworthy for multiple reasons, including that it shows that protesters received some form of relief from the procuring agency in more than half of the protests filed with the GAO in FY 2020, and the GAO's use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) increased by 210% in FY 2020 ...
In response to ongoing pleas for guidance, the Department of Labor (DOL) has published an informal outline expressing its views on how retirement plan administrators should be addressing missing or unresponsive participants. Through contrasting lists of "red flags" and "best practices," the publication reveals the DOL's expectations of plan administrators and provides helpful guideposts for them to follow ...
The Biden administration implemented a regulatory rule freeze affecting all federal agency rules that had not gone into effect as of Jan. 20, 2021. At its core, the regulatory rule freeze requires all pending final rules to be delayed at least 60 days in order for the Biden administration to review and opine on the necessity and scope of affected rules. During this delay period, the administration may review, revise, and possibly rescind federal administrative rules ...
The requirement for businesses to publish gender pay gap reports was cancelled in 2020 as a result of COVID-19. Gender pay reporting is, however, back on the agenda for 2021 so is there anything new that you need to know? In short, yes. There has been a lot of commentary over the last nine months about the impact of Covid-19, and particularly furlough, on gender pay statistics (see our previous article here https://www.shoosmiths.co ...
The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has effectively brought an end to state aid and a new regime of subsidy control has come into effect ...
The majority of people with a mobile phone or access to the internet have received unsolicited emails or calls from telemarketers (cold marketing). While the practice of cold marketing is decades-old, the recent awareness in data protection and privacy has affected this concept in recent times, particularly in relation to access to the data of consumers ...
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has just released its annual statistical overview[1] of False Claims Act (FCA) and other fraud actions for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY2020)[2], and the numbers tell a mixed story. The total of just over $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments represents a decline of more than one-quarter in recoveries from FY2019,[3] likely reflecting workforce, logistical, and judicial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
There were big changes in 2020 in the world of restructuring and insolvency legislation with the introduction of two new restructuring tools: the Moratorium and the Restructuring Plan, as well as the reintroduction of Crown preference. However, due to the government-imposed moratorium while the pandemic runs its course, we have seen hardly any real effects of those reforms ...
This is the first in our series of articles in which we will look at how Brexit and the EU-UK trade deal impacts research and development. In July 2020, the Government published its Research and Development Roadmap, which sets out the UK’s ambitious long-term objectives for investment in science and research to deliver economic growth and societal benefits across the UK ...
At the beginning of the pandemic, businesses had to rapidly adopt new ways of working and enable staff to work from home as much as possible. Nine months on, the threats posed by the virus remain, and ways of working have changed beyond recognition. We consider below the longer term impact of COVID-19 on flexible working, and the extent to which employees are willing (or not) to return to their ‘normal’ place of work ...
As we all know by now, the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a mob of President Trump’s supporters on Wednesday January 6, 2021. A great deal of the mob, as well as police officers who appeared to stand aside as rioters streamed inside, were captured on video and replayed repeatedly over the news. This includes two Canadian nurses who allegedly travelled to Washington D.C. to participate in an anti-lockdown event which preceded the Capitol Hill riot ...
On 12 January 2021, David Mathias, Tim Willis, Sam Grange and Matthew Stimson from our Planning & Environmental team hosted a webinar to discuss the main changes introduced to the existing ‘Standard Method’ used for assessing housing need in England and Wales ...
In the state of Ohio, a light-duty job offer is a strategic way to either bring an injured worker back to the workforce or bar temporary total compensation, should the injured worker reject a valid offer. Either way, it can aid employers in eliminating, minimizing, and/or stopping temporary total disability compensation from being paid in a claim ...
This article forms part of our ‘New How: Perspectives’ report: ‘Home Working not the Panacea’. To access this free report, please click on the download link to the right of this page. Home. Noun. Meaning: “The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” Not any longer. Home is now also where many of us work ...
The United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an order that will take effect on January 26, 2021, requiring all arriving international airline passengers to provide proof of a negative COVID test taken within three days of the flight’s foreign departure. For those who have had it, the CDC will require proof of recovery ...
The year 2020 will have been difficult for the vast majority of industries, and in particular for the arts, entertainment and recreation industry. The video game industry, however, is growing in leaps and bounds. For example, Nintendo and PlayStation have each set record sales for their games released in 2020, including Animal Crossing:New Horizons and The Last of UsPart II. Over the past few decades, the number of video game players has never stopped increasing ...
The year 2020 was turbulent in many ways: the worldwide pandemic slowed down a number of reforms and caused challenges for various industries. Now it is time to look back and remind ourselves of the changes that took place in the field of employment law over the past year. It is also time to glance at the reforms awaiting us in 2021, a year hopefully brighter than its predecessor ...
On Dec. 22, the Ohio Senate passed the Employment Law Uniformity Act – HB 352. Governor Mike DeWine signed the bill into law on Jan. 12, 2021. The bill is the culmination of 20 years of work by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce to address expansion of Ohio’s anti-discrimination statute resulting from Ohio Supreme Court decisions that interpreted Ohio Revised Code Section 4112 expansively ...
2020 was a year of unprecedented circumstances and change, and more change is coming in 2021—this time, in the form of significant modifications to the nationwide permitting program. On September 15, 2020, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) published a notice of proposed rulemaking to reissue and modify nationwide permits (NWPs), ahead of the usual five-year reauthorization schedule for the current 2017 NWPs ...
