The Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) will compel non-UK businesses and their UK agents or representatives to register if they are engaged in ‘political influencing activity’. Failure to register would be a criminal offence potentially leading to a fine or imprisonment. The FIRS is included in draft legislation – the National Security Bill - which, if adopted, is foreseen to come into effect in Q1 2023 ...
Trine Vabog is affiliated with the TMT team in Oslo. Trine is among Norway’s leading IT lawyers and works with complex ICT procurements and ICT contracts from both the customer as well as the provider side. She has a deep understanding and expertise within the ICT area, considerable experience as a project manager and negotiation manager for ICT acquisitions and advises parties within both public and private sectors ...
January 2022 began with the announcement that businesses and corporations will be subject to Corporate Tax (CT) from 1 June 2023. While the UAE Ministry of Finance helpfully provided information on the basic tenets of CT, including a comprehensive white paper, the CT Law governing CT was published on 9 December 2022 providing clarity. However, there are still a number of areas that will be further clarified through the implementing regulations ...
Over the past few weeks, the European Union has issued somewhat of a landmark act which is aimed at addressing the topical issue surrounding the lack of women in top-level corporate positions ...
The past two years have seen significant growth in the number of mergers and acquisitions nationwide with many agriculture and farming business owners choosing to liquefy their assets and move on. At the same time, employers have had to cope with numerous challenges that have made the task of hiring and preparing I-9s for new employees more difficult. Some employers (unlawfully) stopped preparing I-9s for new hires altogether ...
The Norwegian Bar Association’s law committees are appointed by the association’s executive board. The committees consist of members with particular expertise within the selected field. The committees follow legislation developments closely and advise within their special field of expertise. With a focus on the rule of law and quality in legislation the Bar Association’s law committees deliver around 80 statements every year ...
The SEC Division of Examinations issued a Risk Alert on December 5, 2022 detailing observations from examinations of investment advisers and broker-dealers related to compliance with Regulation S-ID ...
On December 13th, 2022, Decree No. 84 was published in the Official Gazette approving the Regulations governing mediation, conciliation, and arbitration in consumer matters, which will enter into force six months after publication, that is, on June 23rd, 2023. The issuance of this regulation is framed in the recent entry into force of the Pro-Consumer Law that seeks to encourage consumer protection ...
On 31 May 2022, Sub-Decree 102 on Transitional Fines for Violation of the Law on the Management of Commercial Gambling (“Sub-Decree 102”) was issued by the Royal Government of Cambodia (“RGC”) pursuant to Article 92 of the Commercial Gambling Law ...
Kudun and Partners represented Altitude Development Co., Ltd., one of Thailand’s leading real estate development, in the offering of newly issued shares to Lotus Global Investment, a foreign PE fund, representing 12.49 percent of its total issued share capital, with a transaction value of THB 500 million (approximately USD 13.8 million). This transaction is an important milestone prior to the client’s initial public offering in the Stock Exchange of Thailand ...
Companies face the loss of a major tax break on research and experimental ("R&E") costs for 2022, absent Congressional action. Since 1954, Internal Revenue Code section 174 has allowed taxpayers to immediately deduct R&E costs. Effective January 1, 2022, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 ("TCJA") amended section 174 to eliminate the deduction of R&E costs. Instead, costs for R&E activities in the U.S ...
With office attendance down and face to face events less frequent, the ability to meet and network with industry peers has been somewhat stymied in recent years. This is particularly true for the in-house lawyer community who, having worked through a period of sustained legislative, societal, economic and regulatory change, have arguably been one of the groups to have suffered the most from the inability hear how other IHLs across the industry have managed these challenges ...
The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) [1] entered into force on 1 November 2022. A business that considers the platform it uses will likely be designated as a ‘gatekeeper’ and that the platform’s rules/behaviour are unfair can take certain steps now [2]. Q1 2023 to Q2 2023 - Engage with the platform to change its rules/behaviour ...
Here’s the Scenario: After months of working with a new developer client (and providing hours of unreimbursed value engineering) and hard negotiations over the cost plus GMP contract (fighting over indemnity/escalation/savings/liquidated damage clauses), you have a deal. You pop a cork with all involved since the developer has said this is one of many future projects. Your very patient subcontractors have held their prices ...
Meta continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons in the data protection field as this week the Irish data regulator, the DPC fined the tech company €265 million ($275 million) for infringements of Articles 25(1) and 25(2) GDPR. It is nothing new that Meta pushes data protection boundaries ...
As the Procurement Bill has made its way through Parliament, there has been much talk of giving 'smaller companies a bigger slice of the procurement pie'. It remains to be seen if, and to what extent, the relevant proposed amendments to the Bill are retained in the final version of the legislation. However, what is striking is the significant challenges many SMEs would continue to face in the event of a breach (or suspected breach) of the procurement rules ...
Looking back on 2022, what were some of the major events/trends that impacted the work you did as an offshore law firm? Do you see these impacts being felt going into 2023? Anthony McKenzie (AM): 2021 was a blockbuster year for many offshore law firms in Asia. Booming deal flow saw revenues and profits surge. In order to service their clients, law firms increased their headcount. Fast forward to 2022 and beyond and the economic outlook is very different ...
On 1 January 2023, the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004 will be amended by the: (1) BVI Business Companies (Amendment) Act, 2022; and (2) the BVI Business Companies (Amendment) Regulations, 2022 (together the “Amendments”). The Amendments will impact all companies incorporated or registered in the BVI (“Companies”) ...
December 9, 2022 By: Thomas O’Connell and Natalie Bryans A Starbucks store in La Quinta, California was recently successful in defending itself against allegations that the store engaged in unlawful union-busting tactics ...
Dr Ingrid Fenech participated in the Society Education Annual Conference on Aspects of Maltese Company Law held on 29th November, where she delved into the recent amendments to the Companies Act introducing the notion of cell companies carrying on or engaged in shipping or aviation business ...
Guernsey listed funds In addition, Guernsey has for some time been the domicile of choice for non-UK companies listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange (“LSE”) and the Alternative Investment Market (“AIM”) ...
As applications for Module 3 Core Participant (CP) status drew to a close on 5 December 2022, the Inquiry team have announced two key dates, as we continue to monitor progress of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry. No timescales have been given as to when applicants will be informed of the outcome of their CP applications, with the only information provided being that the Inquiry Chair (Baroness Heather Hallett) will be reviewing and determining in 'due course' ...