In the second part in this series, we take a look at the possible changes that could be made to improve the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR) and the Agency Worker Regulations 2010. Working Time Regulations - 48-hour week The WTR derive from the EU Council’s Directive on working time (1993) and the Council Directive on the protection of young people (1994) ...
Cyber criminals, the twenty-first century equivalent to the highwaymen of yesteryear, don’t offer charities the stark alternative of “their money or their life”, but instead their money or their data, the lifeblood of many charities. Ransomware attacks present a critical risk of their services grinding to a halt for weeks if not months – even if data is restored - as well as swingeing fines for personal data breaches in multiple jurisdictions ...
Goldman Sachs can’t make profits in the FinTech sector, as reported recently in the Financial Times newspaper. Competition must be tough. Where is competition coming from? A source, still arguably on the edges, is BigTech, who are using FinTech essentials (digital technology and big data) to become a player in the financial services market ...
The Online Safety Bill is to be amended to include an offence for officers or senior managers of key tech companies who fail to comply with duties to protect children online. As currently drafted, the offence will apply to senior managers and officers (or those purporting to fulfil such functions) of "user-to-user services" (better known as social media sites, but they could include many online businesses, including forums, online gaming sites and cloud storage providers) ...
Matters of cross-border company mobility are addressed at European Union level by means of Directive (EU) 2017/1132 (the “2017 Directive”) which provides for cross-border mergers and domestic divisions of public limited liability companies ...
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (“DORA”) is part of the Digital finance package adopted in 2020 by the EU Commission to further enable and support the potential of digital finance in terms of innovation and competition, while mitigating the risks arising from it. DORA enters into force on 16 January 2023 ...
On 19 October 2022, the Council of the EU announced that political agreement (the ‘Political Agreement’) had been reached with the EU Parliament on the review of the Regulation on European long-term investment funds (the ‘ELTIF Regulation’) ...
Overview On 4 November 2022, the Ministry of Commerce of Cambodia issued two new regulations, namely, Prakas 226 on the Formalities and Procedures of Inspection and Investigation under the Law on Competition (“Prakas 226”) and Prakas 227 on the Conditions and Procedures of Negotiated Settlement under the Law on Competition (“Prakas 227”) ...
This briefing sets out the key requirements of PIPA and the steps that your organisation can take to prepare for its implementation. PIPA coming into force PIPA was enacted in 2016 to regulate the use of personal information in Bermuda by individuals, companies, public authorities and other organisations ...
The Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) recently launched “Ethics: Enduring or Evolving?”, the second installment of the FINEX Ethics Committee's book project focused on ethical challenges and issues of ethics in business. It includes an article on “Digital Ethics and the Philippine Law” by SyCipLaw Senior Partner and TMT expert Rose Marie M. King-Dominguez. In the article, Ms ...
Operating expenses (“OpEx”) and common area maintenance fees (“CAM”) are two important items in any commercial lease, but they are often overlooked after the decision is made on how to split up these fees. Typically, operating expenses are calculated and allocated based on a gross, modified gross, or triple net basis, with the tenant being responsible for a percentage of CAM based on the percentage of the total property they occupy ...
We have recently seen reports about the unbelievable amount of pressure on the NHS, including inaccessibility to GPs; a high degree of emergency admissions; and bed-blocking within hospitals where vulnerable patients cannot be discharged safely. These factors have exacerbated the pressure on our healthcare system to almost unprecedented levels. Medical technologies or MedTech could be the way forward to ease some of the pressure ...
Much has been written about this Bill and the potential impact that it could have on UK law. Most of this has been directed towards the potential negative consequences, including how numerous protections provided to employees by EU law might be removed. If you are not already aware, the Bill, if passed in its original form, means that all law that is derived from the UKs membership of the EU will cease to have legal effect on 31 December 2023 – the sunset date ...
A recent Employment Tribunal (tribunal) decision provides employers with peace of mind when deciding to implement workplace policies that emerge in response to previously unforeseen workplace risks. We examine Shields v Alliance Healthcare Management Services (Alliance), a case successfully defended by Shoosmiths, and outline the key steps that employers can take to confidently implement reactionary workplace policies ...
With the well-known challenges of the last ten months or so, market conditions deteriorated substantially over 2022 and the venture capital (VC) market became a far more challenging one in which to agree a valuation and raise money. While those challenges are not over, from speaking to VC clients and others, there's a cautious optimism that as 2023 progresses the market will slowly improve ...
Many government agencies set goals for their construction projects to be awarded to disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE). The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) DBE certification program sets antidiscrimination regulations that states can implement for federal funding. The Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity (COBID) is the certifying authority of DBEs (on behalf of the DOT) in Oregon ...
On January 11, 2023 the SEC Division of Investment Management issued an additional Marketing Rule FAQ. The newly issued FAQ addresses gross and net performance requirements applicable to private fund case studies, single investments and/or groups of investments, i.e. extracted performance. Specifically, the Question provides as follows: Q. When an adviser displays the gross performance of one investment (e.g ...
Roger Royse Q&A: ESG, PE and IPO Prospects for Agtech in 2023 December 28, 2022 Haynes and Boone, LLP Partner Roger Royse was featured in an AgFunderNews Q&A about environmental, social & governance (ESG), private equity, and initial public offering prospects for agtech in 2023. Below is an excerpt: AFN: Tell us a few really noteworthy investment trends you saw in 2022 ...
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that the marketing of an NFT of a Johan Cruyff goal was misleading. The one-of-a-kind non-fungible token (NFT), entitled “In a Way, Immortal”, depicts Cruyff’s flying kick for Barcelona against rivals Atlético Madrid which was dubbed “The Phantom Goal” and earned Cruyff the nickname the "flying Dutchman". The NFT was auctioned and eventually sold for a reported €550.000 at Sotheby's ...
Ukraine is an EU candidate: Can we soon file patent applications for Ukraine at the European Patent Office? The European Council granted Ukraine EU candidate status on 23 June 2022. Will patents granted by the European Patent Office soon also apply in Ukraine? Not immediately, because on the one hand the candidate status legally creates neither rights nor obligations ...
It is a sad fact that the current economic crisis is causing many employers to consider cost saving measures like redundancies. But it can be difficult to know what amounts to a redundancy situation. We consider the legal definition and how it applies. What the law says Redundancy is a mechanism used by employers when a company needs to reduce the number of its employees. It is one of the five potentially fair reasons for which an employer can dismiss an employee ...
For those that have been able to enjoy a break over the festive period, welcome back. If your dinner table discussions were like mine and involved catching-up with friends and various branches of the family tree, it no doubt involved the inevitable question of “how’s work going?” ...
All registered charities with an annual income over £10,000 and all CIOs - charitable incorporated organisations - are required to complete and file online with the Charity Commission an Annual Return in a prescribed form within ten months of their financial year end. Just before Christmas, the Commission confirmed details of new and revised questions in the Annual Return ...
Lost for many in the avalanche of news about the midterms, voters in five states went to the polls last month to vote on proposals allowing adult-use cannabis, often referred to as recreational cannabis. We won't bury the lede: two states, Maryland and Missouri, voted to allow adult-use cannabis, while three others — Arkansas and the Dakotas — voted down the proposals ...
As we enter the new year, we also welcome the implementation of the British Virgin Islands ("BVI") Business Companies Act (the "Act") amendments which came into force on 1 January 2023. The amendments update several parts of the Act and continues to conform with best practice and international standards ...
