A federal court has denied Target Corporation’s motion to dismiss class action claims brought against it by issuing banks. The banks are seeking recovery of losses they allegedly incurred as a result of Target’s data breach in December 2013 ...
On December 2, 2014, the Yukon Supreme Court struck down the Yukon government’s Peel watershed regional land use plan because of the government’s failure to follow the process for developing that plan under final agreements (modern treaties) with the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, Tr’ondek Hwech’in and Vuntut Gwichin First Nations ...
Back in 2007 and 2008, the Swiss Parliament was debating changes to Swiss corporate law. On 1 January 2014, the CompO was put into force, temporarily governing the subject matter of the Minder initiative. Now, the Swiss Federal Council released the Pre-Draft which would, however, not only integrate most of the provisions of the CompO into the Swiss corporate law, but in addition to several fundamental changes to certain features of Swiss corporate law strengthen corporate governance ...
MUNICIPAL TAXES: IS IT POSSIBLE TO REDUCE THE BILL? Audrey-Julie DallaireThe tax pressure stemming from municipal taxes certainly constitutes an irritant for businesses. It was recently described as “unjustified” and “unfair for SMEs” by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), which made the following observation:[TRANSLATION] “(…) in 2013, for real-estate assets of equal value, Quebec SME owners pay on average 2 ...
Bosnia & Herzegovina enacted a new Law on Public Procurement on 28 November 2014. This new legislation aims to improve current public procurement rules through key changes which will increase the level of transparency in Bosnian procurement and through more precise definitions for groups of suppliers, among other changes ...
It has long been known that Greenland possesses vast amounts of mineral resources. But due to climate changes, resulting in a rapid meltdown of ice caps in the Arctic regions, it is now getting easier to discover and exploit the mineral resources. The costs of exploring and exploiting minerals continue to decrease, and many experts believe that Greenland will become the next frontier within the mining industry ...
Also men are now allowed to book a room on the "Bella Donna" floor - the design of hotel floors for women only is discriminatory. This was established by the Danish Eastern High Court by judgment of 25 April 2014. In this case, one of the largest hotels in the country had established a floor for women only. This floor had a number of additional amenities not to be found on the other floors, including special toilet ware, flowers, and a particularly efficient hand shower ...
The City Court of Aarhus has established that two former employees' updating of their personal LinkedIn profiles while being subject to a non-competition clause was a breach of the clause. The case involved two employees who had given notice of termination in order to take up employment in a competing company ...
A summary dismissal of a salaried employee who was seven minutes late for work was justified according to the judgment of 27 May 2014 delivered by the City Court of Glostrup. The case involved an employee appointed as deputy manager in a supermarket who repeatedly showed up late for work - typically only a few minutes. It had been emphasised on various occasions to the employee that he had to show up for work on time - but without result ...
The Parliament of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law on Employment of Foreigners (the “Law”) on 25 November 2014. The Law will come into force on the eighth day following its publication in the “Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia”, i.e. on 4 December 2014The Law regulates the employment of foreigners in the Republic of Serbia in a different manner than compared with the currently applicable Law on the Conditions for Employment of Foreign Citizens ...
In a stunning employment verdict, a California jury awarded $185 million in punitive damages and $873,000 in compensatory damages to a former AutoZone store manager who claimed the auto-parts retailer mistreated her based on her gender, demoted her after learning she was pregnant, and ultimately terminated her from employment based on her decision to challenge her demotion ...
Businesses and consumers who suffer loss because of the anti-competitive behaviour of others may sue for damages. Some businesses have mounted major actions to claim damages in various courts to recover losses due to cartels, abuses of dominance and other breaches of competition law. The European Union is trying to encourage such actions so as to deter anti-competitive behaviour but also to facilitate the payment of compensation as a way of restoring the competitive balance to the economy ...
Last week, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced the latest in a series of “gun-jumping” enforcement actions over the past several years. DOJ’s settlement with two particleboard manufacturers, arising from alleged improper pre-merger coordination, includes $3.8 million in civil penalties, as well as disgorgement of $1.2 million in profits ...
Offsite drilling is becoming increasing prevalent in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. Consequently, many in the industry were closely following a dispute between two neighboring operators in the Eagle Ford Shale area in which one operator opposed a neighboring operator’s plans to use offsite drilling. On October 29, 2014, the San Antonio Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiff lease owner, Lightning Oil Co ...
A crucial task for law firms is creating agreements that safeguard clients´ interests bycomplying with local law while not being governed by it Latin American markets such as Brazil, Panama, Colombia and Peru are providing law firms with significant opportunities for cross-border work, particularly in energy, oil and gas exploration, infrastructure, financial services and consumer products, according to Hunton & Williams’ Fernando C. Alonso, chairman of the firm’s Latin American Practice Group ...
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) on September 24, 2014 seeking comments on improving safety for operations related to helicopters, helidecks and aviation fuel systems on fixed offshore facilities. Comments on the ANPR are due November 24, 2014. The ANPR was issued just days after BSEE and the U.S ...
Based on a recent decision in West Virginia’s 3rd Judicial Circuit, which includes Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie counties, the use of litigation in the form of partition suits may be more problematic than it otherwise has been for oil and gas operators attempting to acquire property interests to create efficient drilling units for their planned wells. The Court’s decision (described below) denied a mineral interest owner’s request to partition by sale under W. Va. Code § 37-4-1 et seq ...
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has conducted India’s first dawn raid. The CCI raided offices of UK-based construction equipment maker JCB, earlier today, in connection with a case of abuse of a dominant position. The Indian Competition Act (Act) accords power to the Director General (DG) to conduct such raids after obtaining a warrant from the chief metropolitan magistrate ...
The Draft Report of the Competition Policy Review released yesterday aims to set the pathway for resuscitating productivity growth in Australia, shining a light on areas of the economy in need of reform. It focuses on what is needed to promote productivity enhancing choice, diversity and innovation and focussing on areas such as health, planning laws, power and road transport. The Draft Report recommends changes to key competition laws that apply to all Australian businesses ...
According to the recent amendments of the Labour Law (“Official Gazette of RS” no. 75/2014) (the “Law”) payslips are now an enforceable document. The Law has authorised the relevant Minister to further prescribe content to be contained on a payslip, by adopting the Rulebook on Payslip content (“Official Gazette of RS” no. 90/2014) ...
On August 26, 2014, Judge Robert D. Drain of the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York issued a bench ruling in In re MPM Silicones, LLC, Case No. 14-22503 (RDD), on several aspects of the plan of reorganization filed by debtor Momentive Performance Materials, Inc., a specialty chemicals manufacturing company, and its affiliated debtors ...
In recent years, the Dominican Republic has enacted reforms affecting virtually every industry and every significant Dominican statute with one principal goal in mind: to enhance the rule of law for the benefit of Dominicans and investors - foreign and domestic alike ...
The Law 1450 of 2011 by means of which it was issued the National Development Plan for the period 2011-2014 provided in its article 112 the creation of a Single Registry of Marketers of Minerals ("RUCOM" by its acronyms in Spanish), which is managed by the National Mining Agency ("ANM" by its acronyms in Spanish) in order to control the marketing of minerals in Colombia ...
Two top officials of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division have spoken publicly in the last week about corporate compliance programs. Brent Snyder, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for criminal enforcement entitled his remarks to the International Chamber of Commerce in New York as “Compliance is a Culture, Not Just a Policy ...
On August 15, 2014, the Eleventh Circuit entered a Memorandum Opinion in the Wortley v. Chrispus Venture Capital, LLC case (In re Global Energies, LLC, “Global”)1 unwinding a section 363 sale order entered in 2010 by the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida based on a finding of bad faith in the filing of an involuntary bankruptcy case in 2010 ...
