January 2, 2024 By: Braeden Mansouri and Alicia Guerra The California Legislature’s laser focus on addressing the state housing crisis did not subside during the 2023 legislative session. While legislators proposed over 150 housing bills, only a fraction of those bills were approved by both chambers. Still, Governor Gavin Newsom signed 56 housing bills into law ...
Guernsey: an ideal domicile for continuation funds Guernsey provides an ideal domicile for continuation funds, with proportionate, principle-based regulation, and a neutral tax environment, facilitating quick-to-market establishments and competitive ongoing costs ...
Frank C. Aase has more than 16 years of experience assisting companies facing financial challenges, providing support to banking and company clients. He is regularly appointed as a trustee in bankruptcy and serves as the leader of the Norwegian Bar Association’s legal committee for bankruptcy, composition, security rights, enforcement, and debt collection. Frank comes from Brækhus Advokatfirma, where he previously served as managing partner ...
Inflation and increasing interest rates continued to dominate headlines in financial markets in 2023. As central banks struggled to combat inflation and interest rates continued to increase, borrowers’ borrowing costs increased throughout the year. Increased borrowing costs caused some borrowers to default on their loans, requesting waivers and amendments or initiating a restructuring of their debt ...
Mergers – recent cases On 15 December 2023, Nordea’s acquisition of Danske Bank’s private customer portfolio was unconditionally cleared after a phase II investigation. The market for banking services holds great significance for Norwegian consumers, prompting a thorough examination of Nordea’s acquisition of Danske Bank’s private customer operations by the NCA ...
Norway fully integrated the provisions of PSD2 and the Payment Accounts Directive into its legal system with the entry into force of the new Financial Agreements Act on January 1, 2023. The Norwegian Central Bank made significant strides in its exploration of digital central bank currency, completing the fourth phase of its initiative. This phase focused on testing and validating technical solutions, with findings reported on December 18, 2023, indicating successful outcomes ...
****Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,**** We would like to update you on recent precedent-setting judgements by Russian courts in matters involving foreign businesses that decided to leave Russia. On 17 October 2023, the Arbitrazh court of Moscow city sustained the claim by Russian bank PJSC Sovkombank against Citibank N.A. (a US company) and its Russian subsidiary JSC KB Citibank concerning the joint recovery of US$24m in losses1. On 21 December 2023, an appeals court upheld the judgement ...
Beginning January 1, 2024, companies created or registered in the United States will have to report information about their ownership to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, pursuant to The Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA” or the “Act”). For more information, see our prior alert on this topic here ...
By: Daniel Silva, Sanjay Bhandari, and Manisha Malhotra The Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) emerged as a lifeline for small businesses grappling with the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lenders navigated a landscape of regulations that Congress quickly drafted in response to the pandemic. These regulations and obligations evolved, subtly yet materially, from the first and second rounds of PPP “draws ...
Embezzlement and fraud within nonprofit organizations has reached epidemic proportions. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiner’s (2020) Global Study which contains an analysis of 2,504 cases of occupational fraud that were investigated between January 2018 and September 2019, 70 percent of frauds occurred in nonprofit organizations ...
On 17 December 2023, the State Council of the People's Republic of China (the "PRC")[1]promulgated the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Non-Bank Payment Institutions (the "Regulations") ...
On November 17, 2023, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law Senate Bill 4516, amending General Obligation Law Section 5-336 (GOL 5-336). As set forth in our earlier alert from when the law was first enacted, Section 5-336 limited employers’ use of nondisclosure provisions in agreements releasing claims involving sexual harassment ...
The U.S. Department of State has released details on a proposed pilot program testing the agency’s ability to resume domestic visa renewals for certain nonimmigrant visa categories and to study the effect the program has on reducing visa wait times worldwide. The program will begin on January 29, 2024 and end on April 1, 2024 ...
Employment Tribunals have a duty to make reasonable adjustments where a participant is disadvantaged, for example due to disability, to ensure fairness in proceedings. We share our recent experiences of how the Tribunals apply this duty in practice ...
Both the Belgian legislator and government have played an active role in 2023 when it comes to pharma legislation, which has led to a number of changes in the legal framework. In this article, we look back and discuss five noteworthy developments in Belgian pharma law. 1 ...
In last year’s predictions, we surmised that the pensions industry at large had put “a busy and unpredictable 12 months” at the top of its wish list at the start of 2022. It seems like everyone enjoyed having that wish granted so much last year that they asked for more of the same in 2023 and well, we certainly got it! What started out as a steady year soon took a different turn ...
On 18 January 2019, the Supreme People's Court and the Department of Justice of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region jointly signed theArrangement on Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters between the Courts of the Mainland and of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region(the "New Arrangement"). In Hong Kong, the New Arrangement was meant to be implemented via local legislation ...
On December 15, 2023, the Financial Market Commission (“CMF”) published for public consultation a regulatory proposal that will complement the proposed implementation regulation (the “Original Proposal”) of Law No. 21,521 (“Fintech Law”) ...
A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE (AMENDMENT) ACT 2023 INTRODUCTION The Evidence Act (Amendment) Act 2023 (the Amended Act) was signed into Law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the 12th day of June 2023. The Amended Act was aimed at amending the provisions of the Evidence Act 2011 (the Principal Act) to be in conformity with global technological advancements in evidence taking and its applicability covers all judicial proceedings before Courts in Nigeria ...
Renewable energy projects affecting the environment, such as wind and solar projects, currently require multiple permits from different authorities, which may make the permitting processes rather burdensome and unpredictable. To tackle this, the government is looking to streamline and standardize the permitting process by developing a "one stop shop" in order to boost new investments in Finland and make the processes more predictable ...
