In the latest in a series of legal challenges around internet keywords and particularly the Google AdWords system, the special adviser to the Court of Justice of the European Union, Advocate General Jaaskinen, has issued his opinion ...
With the continuous increase of Chinese investments throughout the entire world and, particularly, in Portugal, along with the inverse phenomenon, it is extremely important to acknowledge that Portugal has already entered into double tax treaties with China and Macau, which became important instruments to be considered by companies and individuals when moving forward with their international planning strategies ...
On January 25, 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) proposed new Rule 204(b)‑1 (the “Proposed Rule”) under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”), that would implement various provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) by creating a new Form PF for use by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (the “FSOC”) and other regulatory agencies in assessing systemic risks posed to the U.S ...
Website accessibility is a requirement of the Equality Act 201. The first of a two-part article explaining Equality Act 2010 to websites. In our last article, Website accessibility: Industry standards and best practice, we considered how the Equality Act 2010 would be implemented, and considered what the new BSI Standard for website accessibility might look like ...
Tax treatment of different acquisitions What are the differences in tax treatment between an acquisition of stock in a company and the acquisition of business assets and liabilities? The main difference from the acquirer’s perspective is that there is only a step-up in the tax basis on an asset purchase, while a stock acquisition as a general rule does not allow for a step-up on the basis of the target’s assets ...
Concents : * Technology Licences in the Event of Bankruptcy * New Quebec Business Corporations Regime * The Shareholder Agreement: the "Specifications" of the Private Corporation Shareholder Technology Licences in the Event of Bankruptcy Sive Burns [email protected] The owner of a technology protected by an intellectual property right (copyright or patent) or protected by secret (trade secret) may grant a licence to a licensee ...
The Federal government’s legislation to control spam and other ills of the electronic age with the oh-so-catchy title of An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and
1. How can the government’s attitude and approach to internet issues best be described? The attitude of the Belgian government can be described as positive and their approach is proactive. In 2003, the Belgian authorities announced the introduction of ‘egovernment’ ...
The European Parliament recently passed the Alternative Investment Funds Directive («AIFMD»). The AIFMD is focused on managers rather than investment funds and will implement broad regulatory measures on both fund managers located within the European Union («EU») and those established outside of the EU that provide asset management services to European alternative investment funds. The Swiss fund industry will have to closely examine the details of the AIFMD ...
Located on an island in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic is a growing destination for U.S. businesses seeking to establish or expand overseas operations. An economically and politically stable country organized as a representative democratic government, it is the Caribbean's largest democratic country. The Dominican Republic had an inflation rate during the past year of only 4 ...
On November 29, 2010, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. (“FINRA”) announced that FINRA Rule 5131 will take effect on May 27, 2011.1 FINRA Rule 5131 is intended to sustain public confidence in the initial public offering (“IPO”) process by regulating the allocation, pricing and trading of IPOs of equity securities (“New Issues”) ...
In the second of a two-part look at issues arising out of the tender process we consider what can happen when that process is poorly run. Part 1 of the series can be found at IT tendering: Leveraging the benefits. A typical tender process involves the customer analysing and documenting its requirements in a Request for Proposals (RFP) to which interested suppliers will prepare a response ...
In a recent article we looked at some of the employment risks for customers associated with cloud computing. Following on from Cloud computing: Employment law implications, we now consider how best to assess the other risks associated with cloud computing ...
On November 19, 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) proposed new rules and amendments to existing rules and Form ADV under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”), that would implement various amendments to the Advisers Act contained as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) ...
Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a split decision and failed to resolve whether copyrighted materials legally made abroad can be imported into the U.S. and sold without the express permission of the copyright owner. See Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Omega S.A., 562 U.S. __ (2010). In other words, it is still up to the nation’s circuit courts to decide whether the first sale doctrine extinguishes the rights of a copyright holder when the goods are made outside of the U.S ...
Effective as of July 21, 2011, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act”) repeals a key exemption from investment adviser registration currently relied upon by many private fund managers and replaces it with several much more limited exemptions from registration ...
Ministry of Commerce ("MOFCOM") simplifies the approval process for foreign investments in sales projects using the Internet or vending machines Since 2004, following MOFCOM's release of the "Measures for the Administration of Foreign Investment in the Commercial Sector" the distribution industry has been opened to foreign investment ...
IT projects: It’s a team game 28 September 2010 IT projects have a knack of over-running for significant periods, requiring ‘out-of-scope’ changes half way through, and consequently going over budget. Although any project will develop and evolve over time, such problems can be minimised through sensible project management methods. It is not uncommon for IT projects to last several months, if not years, from conception to completion ...
"When it comes to customs, time is money", the Director of Minter Ellison’s International Trade Group, Iain Sandford, told a major customs law meeting in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Mr Sandford was a guest of the World Customs Law Academy, the Brazilian Association of Customs Studies and the Inter-American Institute for Borders and Customs ...
Getting the Deal Through - e-Commerce 2011 Getting the Deal Through published a fully revised and updated seventh edition of e-Commerce, a volume in GTDT's series of annual reports published by Law Business Research. This publication provides international analysis in key areas of law and policy for corporate counsel, cross-border legal practitioners and business people ...
The recently enacted Securities and Investment Business Act, 2010 (“SIBA”) of the British Virgin Islands (“BVI”) will come into effect on 17 May 2010 ...
The People's Republic of China, a party to the Kyoto Protocol (2005), has been actively promulgating "greener" policies to improve China' environment and reduce carbon emissions. These green steps are creating potential new investment opportunities for foreign investors as China seeks to become more energy efficient ...
Social networks: Hype and its legal consequences published in: WirtschaftsBlatt,Author: Dr. Axel Anderl, LL.m., Mag. Martina Schmid Social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace or XING are an increasing popularity. It has never been so easy to operate social networking ...
Professional trade in securities under the case law of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court… Under the Swiss Federal Supreme Court’s prior case law, capital gains derived from the sale of assets – in particular real estate, securities, precious metals and foreign currencies – are subject to federal income tax if such activity, taken as a whole, qualifies as self-e
On June 28, 2010, the United States Supreme Court announced its decision on Bilski v. Kappos regarding what inventions are eligible for patent protection. The decision affirms that business methods are patentable, although the specific business methods at the center of the case are not. While stating that no single test governs the issue, the Court approved of the use of the “machine-or-transformation test” that the Federal Circuit had distilled from earlier Supreme Court cases ...
