I've spent half my career helping business and real estate owners solve their problems - or at least that is what I thought I was doing as a commercial litigator. I've grown increasingly convinced, though, that most commercial cases do not belong in court. Courts are public, slow, and generally not equipped to deal with business, real estate, or land use questions. Courts don't care about fluctuations in market prices, construction seasons, or building cycles ...
Mamo TCV Advocates managing partner, Michael Psaila and partner Edmond Zammit Laferla attended the World Services Group’s European Regional Forum in Stockholm, which was hosted by Swedish member firm, Delphi and took place between 1st and 3rd June 2022. The World Services Group is a leading global network of independent law firms from over 150 jurisdictions with over 23,000 professionals globally ...
Arbitration provisions are becoming more common in construction contracts, but a recent court decision reveals that enforcing these provisions requires more than just placing them in a contract. Contractors, especially those seeking to arbitrate claims involving multiple property owners or an entire homeowner or condominium association, must sufficiently establish that enough of the property owners agreed to arbitrate their claims. Mattamy Florida LLC .v ...
1. Introduction After a long consultation period, the European Commission recently published the new Block Exemption Regulation for Vertical Agreements (Regulation (EU) 2022/720 "VBER"). The regulation will enter into force on 1 June 2022. New Guidelines on vertical restraints ("Guidelines") will accompany the new VBER. Both replace the previous set of rules from 2010 ...
To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, if you fail to prepare, prepare to fail – and that certainly applies to selling a business or company. You might still sell it, but you will almost certainly sell it for less. Selling a business may be the most important decision a business owner may take and it is never too early to bring in quality advisors to assist with the sale process (and potentially to help find potential buyers) ...
Running a business can be an extremely rewarding experience, but it is not without its challenges. While pandemic-related restrictions have eased, rising energy costs and inflationary pressures continue to cause concern for UK businesses. Further, the personal impact that dealing with periods of distress can have on directors should not be overlooked ...
February’s Supreme Court ruling in Bloomberg confirmed that those under criminal investigation have a right, enforceable in the civil courts, to prevent publication of their identity until the moment they are charged. In this short article Gordon Downie, Partner in our regulation and markets team, considers some questions about the implications of Bloomberg, in particular for regulatory investigations ...
Prescription (Scotland) Act 2018 Prescription is the rule of law in Scotland that extinguishes certain rights and obligations after a period of time. This includes a right to recover damages for breach of contract. In Scotland, a contractual claim prescribes after five years; therefore formal proceedings, either court or arbitration, must be raised and served in order to stop the five-year period running. On 1 June 2022, important changes to prescription become law in Scotland ...
Captive power generation in the Indian solar sector is, literally, a hotbed of policy and regulatory contradiction. While the Electricity Act, 2003 (“Act”) incentivises captive power generation, losing lucrative industrial and commercial customers to captive power consumption is a deeply unpopular outcome for our financially beleaguered state power distribution and transmission companies which rely on high industrial tariffs paid by such customers ...
JOINT NOTIFICATION 0837 ISSUED BY THE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND THE MINISTRY OF POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS, dated 1 April 2022 On 1 April 2022, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOC”) and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued Joint Notification 0837 setting out requirements for locally registered companies to use a level 2 national domain name “.com.kh” and e-mail address with level 2 national domain name “.com.kh” ...
Whilst every year throughout June we celebrate Pride Month, this is an extra special year; the 50 year anniversary of the first ever Pride event in the UK. #PROUD@Shoosmiths Every June Pride Month is celebrated across the world to honour the 1969 Stonewall Riots ...
Distributed ledger technology (DLT) has revolutionized transaction of data, assets, and value, including the proliferation of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. In order to leverage this emerging and revolutionary technology, state governments across the United States are looking to clarify how DLT use cases, specifically blockchains and their various sub-use cases, are treated under state law. With the adoption of HB 177.05, Ohio has joined the fray ...
A key feature of Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (“UCITS” fund) is the Key Investor Information Document (“KIID”), which provides the retail investor with simplified information from the prospectus. UCITS also qualify as Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance Products (“PRIIPS”) ...
Following the abolition of the requirement to pay personal income tax on capital gains from cryptocurrency and digital asset trading on authorized digital asset exchanges in March 2022, the Thai Government has further eased tax rules by suspending the requirement to pay 7% value-added tax (“VAT”) on income derived from cryptocurrency and digital token trading until the end of 2023 ...
The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) published exposure drafts of two International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) ...
A summary of the key takeaways from a recent webinar on reducing scope 3 waste-related emissions. Shoosmiths is delighted to be sponsoring United Nation Global Compact Network (UNGC) UK’s series of webinars on ‘Reducing Scope 3 Emissions’ ...
Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act On May 06, 2022, Republic Act (RA) No. 11765, or the Financial Products and Services Consumer Protection Act, was signed into law ...
On 24 May 2022, the Port Authority of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (“MOTC”) under the State Administration Council (“SAC”) of Myanmar issued an invitation for bids to be submitted to conduct a feasibility study for the construction of a new international port terminal (“Project”) in Mawlamyine district of Mon State on the western coast of Myanmar’s southeastern peninsula ...
Lauren Bowkett is a Principal Associate in the Financial Crime Team at Shoosmiths. Her expertise is in white collar crime and Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) related matters, with specific knowledge in the restraint and seizure of cryptoassets ...
The latest episode of News from Poland is devoted to implementation by Polish companies of sanctions imposed on Russia for its attack on Ukraine. This topic is discussed by Anna Olejniczak-Michalska from the firm’s Private Client practice and Łukasz Lasek from the firm’s Dispute Resolution & Arbitration practice. On April 16, 2022, the Act on Special Solutions to Counteract Support for the Invasion of Ukraine and to Protect National Security entered into force ...
Following the launch of a real estate investment trust with buy-back condition (the “REIT buy-back”), which we extensively covered in our last article, “Overview of REITs with buy-back conditions: The new mechanisms to help real estate owners survive in the midst of Covid-19”, aiming to alleviate the woes that business operators, particularly the hospitality sector, have endured during the Covid-19 era, on May 10, 2022, according to information revealed by the Director of
