Following the requirements and qualifications of foreign bidders to participate in government procurement projects, this chapter will focus on the bidding preparations and risk analyses before moving forward in the projects. On-Site Investigations Due to factors such as Taiwan’s multivariate geological environment, it is possible that the actual conditions may differ significantly from the geological and underground data provided by the procuring entity in the tender documents ...
As registrants prepare for the upcoming proxy season,Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14I(the “Bulletin,” or “SLB 14I”), recently issued by the SEC Division of Corporation Finance (the “Division”), provides helpful interpretations by the Division’s staff and reveal a number of relevant changes in the way certain shareholder proposals will be evaluated ...
When is one a shareholder or member of a company? This issue was recently considered by the Supreme Court of Uganda in Matthew Rukikaire v Incafex Limited, which ruled that a person who has not fully paid up their shares may be considered a member and shareholder of a company with rights to full participation in the affairs of the company to the extent allowed by the types of shares they hold ...
International financial records recently stolen from two offshore services firms and 19 corporate registries maintained by governments were leaked to journalists and their details subsequently published around the world. But beyond the hype, however, we find no intelligent inferences of legal significance in the reporting. For example, the media draws attention to a United States Cabinet member's offshore financial transactions but does not allege that his shipping stake was illegal ...
The term “dawn raid” refers to an unanticipated visit to commercial premises by a regulatory authority. Examples of this could include a squad of policemen entering a warehouse, a team from a financial-services regulator checking trading records at a bank, or an official from the UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation entering your office to check the work permits of all employees present there (an increasingly common practice) ...
ANGOLA: Introduction of transfer pricing unitA transfer pricing unit, set up as an administrative technical structure forming part of the Large Taxpayers Directorate of the General Tax Administration, was launched on 25 September 2017 and will be responsible for monitoring compliance with Angola’s transfer pricing regime introduced by Presidential Decree No.147/13 of 1 October 2013 ...
An Important Israeli Court Decision for Dual-Listed Companies: The Liability for Breaches of Reporting Obligations by Dual-Listed Companies Is Governed by the Securities Laws of the Foreign Trading Jurisdiction. In 2017 the Tel Aviv District Court (Economic Division, Judge Kabub) issued a decision in Cohen v. Tower Semiconductor Ltd. et al., C.A ...
Latin America’s current economic growth levels are among the world’s highest, and the region is preparing its regulations to meet new economic challenges. As such, the fostering of foreign trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) is important to increase GDP growth, create job opportunities, and improve logistics and production ...
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP announced today the publication of its New York Commercial Division Practice Guide. This new publication is part of Bloomberg BNA’s Litigation Practice Portfolio Series, and an excerpt is available to download at: http://on.bna.com/H1KM30gCY7v ...
Most of holidays and national mourning that are covered by Article 46 of the Labor Code of the Republic of Panama are in November, December and January. In fact, they are considered as such, November 3, 5, 10 and 28; December 8 and 25; and on January 1 and 9 ...
From ISV Insights In the last 50 years, software has transformed our society. And like with any innovation, companies have been zealous trying to protect their software by seeking patents. Since 2012, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has averaged issuing about 300,000 patents a year, and a majority of the issued patents are software related ...
Section 66 of the South African Public Finance Management Act, 1999 (“PFMA”) places certain restrictions on the powers of national and provincial public entities, government departments and constitutional institutions (“public institutions”) in regard to specified transactions, namely borrowing, the issue of guarantees, indemnities and security, and entering into transactions that bind or may bind that public institution or the revenue fund to any other so-called future f
The Trump Administration has followed up on the President’s speech in Miami regarding U.S. policy toward Cuba by announcing new restrictions on trade with Cuba that became effective at the end of 2017. At the heart of the new policy is a “Cuba Restricted List” in which the State Department names 180 Cuban entities with which new commercial relations are to be prohibited ...
How retailers can harness technology to beat e-commerce at its own game. “It's official: Singapore malls are dead, as occupancy reaches its lowest level in 10 years,” screams one headline. “At some suburban malls, retailers confront the sound of silence,” another chimes in. As e-commerce takes hold, shoppers are eschewing brick and mortar in favour of the convenience of point and click ...
Last month, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published its "Regulatory Sandbox – Lessons Learned Report". In the Report, the FCA evaluated the progress of the UK financial regulatory sandbox during its first year of operation and tentatively concluded that the initiative has so far been a success ...
The issue of offensive trade marks has been in the news quite a bit of late. Now, the European trade mark authorities have considered whether Brexit, the term used to describe the UK’s departure from the European Union, is a trade mark that might offend. It might seem like an unlikely trade mark, but clearly some people think that Brexit works as an indicator of commercial origin ...
In this article, we look at two recent trade mark opposition decisions. These remind us of the many issues that need to be considered when comparing trade marks. They also highlight the growing importance of Chinese brands.The first involves a case that was before the European Union IP Office (“EUIPO”). In this case, the Taiwanese company Wawei filed an EU trade mark application for Wawei for food and drink in classes 29, 30 and 32 ...
There’s an interesting trade mark dispute under way about UGG. It touches on a range of IP issues – geographical indications, generic terms, country-of-origin brands and Chinese manufacture.Many readers will know that UGG is a sheepskin boot originating from Australia. UGG has apparently been around since the1930s, when it was created to deal with the cold winters in Australia (the Blue Hills region of New South Wales apparently can get cold) ...
1. PATENT ENFORCEMENT 1.1 Before what tribunals can a patent be enforced against an infringer? Is there a choice between tribunals and what would influence a claimant’s choice? Patents are enforced against an infringer either through a civil action before the Regional Trial Court (“RTC”) or an administrative action before the Bureau of Legal Affairs (“BLA”) of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (“IPOPHL”) ...
Last week, the House Republicans unveiled their highly anticipated plan for tax reform. Although clients should not rush into planning based on the House plan, it is important to be aware of potential changes in the tax code. In particular, business owners and individual high net worth clients should be prepared for the adverse and beneficial aspects of the proposed plan because the plan is intended to be effective for tax years beginning January 1, 2018 ...
Pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, the Security Exchange Commission’s (Commission’s) 2015 pay ratio rule (Final Rule) required public companies to disclose the annual total compensation of the median employee (excluding the CEO), the annual CEO compensation and the ratio of those amounts ...
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”) provided a safe harbor to shield website owners, ISP’s, and other online service providers from certain claims for copyright infringement based on user generated content. This safe harbor has been very successful ...
Earlier this year, right in a last minute attempt to win undecided voters for one of the political parties, the leaving members of parliament enacted a new tax law. While fundamental changes to the Austrian Tenancy Law had been vividly discussed between the socialist and the conservative parties in recent years, the new law on the abolition of stamp duty falls completely short of what could have been achieved ...
Afridi & Angell has recently successfully assisted two individuals in becoming forgotten. Put another way, we were able to convince the Dubai Financial Services Authority (the DFSA) that the names of the individuals should be removed from public documents available on the DFSA website. These included published regulatory actions (in the form of enforceable undertakings) and DFSA media releases ...
