There has been a growing expectation that in order to fill the COVID sized hole in the Treasury's finances focus and ultimately action would be brought to bear on pension tax relief across defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes. However, "Tax Day" has seen cuts to higher rate tax relief fail to materialise ...
(Antelope Valley Groundwater Cases, JCCP No. 4408 (3/16/21))[1] After twenty-two years, the protracted proceedings in the Antelope Valley groundwater adjudication resulted in a settlement and court-approved "physical solution." A physical solution equitably allocates available water under California's laws governing water rights. The physical solution in Antelope Valley limited pumping to balance the overdrafted aquifer with the available native safe yield ...
Recently, we have seen a flurry of congressional and executive activity on the issue of nondiscrimination in banking. In October 2020, Senators Warren and Booker, along with other Democratic senators, introduced the Fair Access to Financial Services Act of 2020. This bill seeks to prevent discrimination in banking based on “race, color, religion, national origin, and sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity) ...
In February 2020, just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (Subchapter V) took effect.[1] Subchapter V amends Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code to allow certain individuals and businesses with debts of less than $2,725,625 to file a streamlined Chapter 11 case with the goal to make small business bankruptcies faster and cheaper ...
It has been said that, sooner or later, everything old is new again. In the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) sweeping the globe in 2020, a heretofore largely overlooked and even less understood nineteenth century legal term has come to the forefront of American jurisprudence: force majeure ...
Over the past month, the SEC has signaled the primacy of ESG in its mission for 2021 and beyond. Seemingly daily, there have been updates regarding ESG initiatives, whether from the Division of Enforcement or the Division of Corporation Finance. This week, it was the Division of Investment Management’s turn ...
Republic Act No. 11523, also known as “An Act Ensuring Philippine Financial Industry Resiliency Against the COVID-19 Pandemic” (FIST Act)1, which seeks to assist banks and financial institutions (FIs) in dealing with the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, took effect on February 18, 2021 upon its publication in the Official Gazette and in a newspaper of general circulation ...
Colombia updated its free trade zones regime to increase the competitivity of this investment opportunity. Among others, it now allows three new activities for free trade zones, introduces the creation of a concertation committee to discuss key topics between the Government and the private sector, and it simplified procedures to declare a free trade zone. Decree 278 of 2021 was introduced as a tool towards innovation in the free trade zone regime ...
This digest is a curated list of Bradley content regarding the coronavirus. In an effort to provide our clients with the easiest way to find information that may be beneficial in responding to the impact of COVID-19, we have provided links to our most recent blog posts, news alerts, webinar recordings and more. Additionally, this digest will now be deployed on a weekly basis in an effort to reduce the number of emails our clients receive ...
The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program is one that attracts its fair share of attention, not all of it good, and too much of it from organizations named with that part of the alphabet — SEC and DOJ — that can strike fear in the heart of a business person. And Texas is often the center of the investigators’ focus ...
Competition & Antitrust Resolution No. 237/2021 of the Secretariat of Commerce: New prices information regime for companies (SIPRE) By Agustín Waisman and Mercedes Pando Through Resolution No ...
On 14 March 2021, the law of 5 March 2021 on certain rules for the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 2019/1150 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on promoting fairness and transparency for business users of online intermediation services (the “P2B Regulation”) (hereinafter the “Law”) entered into force ...
On March 11th, 2021, the National Consumer Service (hereinafter “ SERNAC ”) published a new interpretative circular which sets rules for the notification of breaches regarding financial portability and other monitoring data (the “ Circular ”). The Circular revokes SERNAC's Exempt Resolution No ...
The Court of Protection and Serious Injury Teams at Shoosmiths held a joint seminar ‘From Litigation to Deputyship’ on 11 March 2021. A recording of the webinar can be found below. The day comprised sessions on the litigation process, how to maximise settlement then looked in detail at the Case Manager’s role before moving on to sessions around how the deputyship team support clients and key areas of consideration when acting as a professional deputy ...
On 10 March 2021, we held the first webinar in our series on regional perspectives in international arbitration ...
Courts nationwide have struggled for years with the question of when a subjective opinion is false under the False Claims Act. The Supreme Court’s decision to deny review of two cases involving health-care providers that had allegedly submitted false claims for payment based on subjective clinical judgment still leaves us without a uniform, national answer, says Nicholas A. Danella. The U.S ...
As we mentioned last week, the signals coming from the SEC on ESG matters are increasing in volume and significance. On March 15, acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee added two more data points. The first concerned the Division of Corporate Finance’s disclosure program ...
In one of the latest and most high-profile decisions from across the country relating to commercial tenants’ rent obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected an attempt by The Gap, Inc. (“Gap”) to excuse payment of such obligations due to the pandemic and related government restrictions ...
On 11 March 2021, the Information Regulator published an invitation to apply for prior authorisation, together with a Guidance Note, on the application for prior authorisation and the form to be used by responsible parties in obtaining such prior authorisation. The invitation to apply for prior authorisation encourages responsible parties to submit their applications as soon as possible ...
Deciding what happens to employees in a TUPE transfer where there is more than one transferee is never straightforward. However, developments in this area continue to add complexity to the situation, adding cost and uncertainty to employers. Recent developments In the recent case of McTear Contracts Ltd v Bennett & ors the EAT looked at a situation where there were two transferees in the context of a service provision change ...
Asset tokenisation is poised to tear down the high barriers to luxury investments. Imagine you are a whisky aficionado. Having witnessed rare Scotch trounce many investments over the past 10 years, you are eager to jump on the bandwagon. It is, after all, a complementary way to fund an expensive hobby; according to industry watcher Rare Whisky 101’s Rare Whisky Icon 100 Index, UK auction prices of 100 iconic collectors’ bottles have almost quadrupled since 2012 ...
Introduction: On February 7, 2021, the State Council Anti-monopoly Commission (the “Commission”) promulgated the Anti-Monopoly Guidelines for the Platform Economy (the “Guidelines”), following only three months after the State Administration for Market Regulation (“SAMR”) issued an exposure draft of the same on November 10, 2020 (the “Exposure Draft”), which unveiled a more rigorous approach to anti-monopoly regulation ...
Behind every video game, there is intellectual property (IP) which is worth protecting to optimize monetisation of the game. As discussed in Studios and designers: Are you sure that you own the intellectual property rights to your video games, the first step for studios and designers is to make sure that they own all IP rights on the video game ...
Corporate & Commercial Recognition of UK Insolvency Proceedings in Malta Post-BrexitSimon Pullicino comments on the impact of Brexit with respect to cross-border insolvency and the implications for the recognition and enforcement of UK proceedings in Malta and vice-versa ...
The SEC Division of Examinations issued a Risk Alert on Feb. 26, 2021, providing the Division’s observations made during examinations of investment advisers, broker-dealers and transfer agents regarding digital asset securities. For purposes of the Division, digital asset securities are those digital assets that are securities ...
