Another victim of the economic boom in Hong Kong is the Cine-Art Cinema which was officially closed in November 2006. The cinema was the only venue on Hong Kong Island that programmed independent, arthouse films. The only other arthouse cinema is Broadway Cinemateque in Kowloon. Due to rising property prices and a declining audience for several years, Cine-Art had no choice but to close ...
On 17 November 2006, the Beijing First Intermediate Court rejected the copyright infringement claim made by seven music companies, namely Sony BMG, Warner, EMI, Universal, Gold Label, Go East and Cinepoly, against NASDAQ-listed Baidu.com. The music companies which owned the copyright, alleged that the MP3 search service of Baidu.com allowed users to freely download 137 songs and sought an injunction as well as damages in the amount of RMB1,690,000 ...
The war between new DVD technologies, Blu-ray and HD DVD are reminiscent of the battle between the VHS and Betamax videocassette formats. Who will be the winner in this war is yet to be seen as these formats are now becoming available in retail outlets. Supported by Sony, Blu-ray is the next generation optical disc which was developed to store large amounts of data and to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high definition (HD) video ...
Intellectual Property is important. Although never at the forefront of our thinking (IP Lawyers aside) the role of patents, trade marks and copyright in shaping the business and leisure aspects of our lives is immense ...
On 26 October 2006, the Antitrust Court issued a decision, from a defense of competition perspective, in connection with the legality of the behaviors between Voissnet S.A. ('Voissnet') and Compañía de Telecomunicaciones de Chile S.A. ('CTC-CHILE'). Voissnet, a company that provides telecommunication services consisting of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), accused CTC-CHILE of performing acts against free competition ...
Pursuant to the Act on Supervision of Financial Market, the National Bank of Slovakia has issued this Measure, which defines the content, format, terms, form, method, procedure and place of submitting the reports of the allotment funds, which issue allotment fund certificates in the Slovak Republic, by asset management companies and branches of foreign asset management companies for statistical purposes. This Measure is published in the Bulletin of the National Bank of Slovakia (Issue No ...
He may be a knight, one of the most successful music artists and a noted viniculturalist, but Sir Cliff Richard is not resting on his laurels. Add legal reform campaigner to this list as the Peter Pan of Pop leads the quest to change UK copyright law.Copyright can be deceptively simple on the face of it, but scratch the surface and you reveal the complexity of co-existing legal rights. Take Sir Cliff's 1959 best selling single 'Living Doll' ...
Side letters are a common phenomenon encountered by hedge fund managers today. These letters are often used to secure better fees for key investors and to give preferential or improved access to information about underlying investments and liquidity. They also provide what are commonly referred to as most favoured nation provisions, meaning that if the fund offers better terms to another investor, the early-stage investors will also be able to take those new or better terms ...
In September 2006, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) released the Consultation Conclusions on the draft guidelines on marketing materials for listed structured products (Guidelines). The Guidelines, to be published under section 399 of the SFO, will replace the current guidelines, which take the form of a letter to warrant issuers. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong will continue to require compliance with the revised Guidelines as a condition to the listing of structured products ...
As expected, the latest set of EU regulations regarding collective investment schemes - the undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities (Ucits III) - has opened up an exciting new spectrum of product possibilities for the investment funds industry in Europe. Since December 2004 there has been a new range of creative product offerings being authorised by the Irish financial regulator under the Ucits III banner ...
Pursuant to the Act on Supervision of Financial Market, the National Bank of Slovakia has issued this Measure, which defines the content, format, terms, form, method, procedure and place of submitting the reports for statistical purposes by a pension asset management company for the pension asset management company itself and for individual pension funds established and managed by it, and by a supplementary pension company for the supplementary pension company itself and for individual pension f
Pursuant to the Act on Supervision of Financial Market, the National Bank of Slovakia has issued this Measure, which defines the content, format, terms, form, manner, procedure and place of submitting the reports to the National Bank of Slovakia by factoring companies, instalment financing companies and leasing companies for statistical purposes. This Measure is published in the Bulletin of the National Bank of Slovakia (Issue No ...
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic announced the adoption of the Treaty on Accession of the Czech Republic, Republic of Estonia, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Latvia, Republic of Lithuania, Republic of Hungary, Republic of Malta, Republic of Poland, Republic of Slovenia and Slovak Republic to the Double Tax Treaty in case of adjustment of profit of associated companies, dated 23 July 1990 as amended by the Treaty of 21 December 1995 and the
Pursuant to the Act on Old-Age Pension Savings, the National Bank of Slovakia issued this Decree stipulating the requirements for the content of an annual and halfyear report on asset management in a pension fund, and annual and half-year report on equity management in a pension asset management company, as well as the content and structure of daily information about each transaction with pension fund assets ...
Pursuant to the Act on Supplementary Pension Savings, the National Bank of Slovakia issued this Decree stipulating the requirements for the content of an annual and halfyear report on asset management in supplementary pension fund and annual and half-year report on equity management of supplementary pension company ...
Pursuant to the Act on Banks, the National Bank of Slovakia issued this Measure defining the content, format, terms, form, method, procedure and place of submitting reports to the National Bank of Slovakia for statistical purposes. This Measure has been published in the Bulletin of the National Bank of Slovakia (Issue No ...
On 24 August 2006, the China Securities Regulatory Commission ("CSRC"), People's Bank of China ("PBOC") and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange ("SAFE") jointly issued new regulations, the "Measures for the Administration of Investment in Domestic Securities by Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors" (the "New QFII Rules") that govern the regime allowing qualifying foreign institutions approved by the CSRC as Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors ("QFIIs") to invest in China A sh
This article was first published in Invest Romania, October 2006 issue. 1 Common customs policy The enlargement of the European Union automatically triggered the enlargement of the scope and applicability of the common commercial policy promoted by the member states towards the new member states ...
In the recent past, the State Supervision of Financial Organizations (the "SSFO") has published its guidelines on its official website regarding the possibility of providing financial services in the territory of Hungary by credit institutions/financial enterprises with a registered seat in a Member State of the European Union in the form of cross-border services through agencies by means of the Hungarian Bank Act ...
The House of Lords has clarified what makes a message sent by means of a public electronic communications network "grossly offensive" and therefore capable of amounting to a crime under the Communications Act 2003 ("Act") ...
The recently introduced Pension Protection Act 2006 makes two important changes to the definition of the term "plan assets" for the purposes of ERISA. The new legislation continues to provide that the assets of a fund or other entity will not constitute "plan assets" and will therefore not be subject to the fiduciary obligations under ERISA if less than 25% of the value of each class of equity in the entity is held by "benefit plan investors" ...
By January 2007 all EU members are supposed to adopt MiFID, including its implementation measures published in June 2006. Firms carrying out investment services will then have to comply with it by November 2007. MiFID should greatly facilitate EU cross-border activities since passported firms will no longer be subject to prudential regulation in each country where they provide services but only by their home country ...
In the recent Feedback Statement (FS06/2) from the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) to its Discussion Paper entitled "Hedge funds: A discussion of risk and regulatory engagement", the FSA identified the use of side letters as an area of concern where a market failure may be present, thus potentially requiring regulatory intervention by the FSA ...
