The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has just released its annual statistical overview[1] of False Claims Act (FCA) and other fraud actions for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY2020)[2], and the numbers tell a mixed story. The total of just over $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments represents a decline of more than one-quarter in recoveries from FY2019,[3] likely reflecting workforce, logistical, and judicial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic ...
David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher, argued that we cannot be certain the sun will rise tomorrow. Over the past nine-months David Hume has never seemed more right. It has been a tough period, professionally and personally for people from all walks of life, and for businesses from nearly every sector. But, while there has been adversity, there have been many rays of sunlight and causes for optimism ...
This article looks at trends, including the response to COVID-19, which we expect to impact the mid-market in 2021. Last year we gave COVID-19 a quick mention in our ‘look at the year ahead’. Nobody foresaw the impact it would have. As the market enters a new year, there remains the uncertainty that we’ve grown familiar with ...
The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement has effectively brought an end to state aid and a new regime of subsidy control has come into effect ...
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) recently published a consultation on implementing a ban on the appointment of corporate directors. The proposed ban on appointing corporate directors to the board of UK companies is not new – the statutory provision for this is contained in the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (SBEEA) – but this particular provision has not yet been brought into force ...
The majority of people with a mobile phone or access to the internet have received unsolicited emails or calls from telemarketers (cold marketing). While the practice of cold marketing is decades-old, the recent awareness in data protection and privacy has affected this concept in recent times, particularly in relation to access to the data of consumers ...
On 12 January 2021, David Mathias, Tim Willis, Sam Grange and Matthew Stimson from our Planning & Environmental team hosted a webinar to discuss the main changes introduced to the existing ‘Standard Method’ used for assessing housing need in England and Wales ...
In the state of Ohio, a light-duty job offer is a strategic way to either bring an injured worker back to the workforce or bar temporary total compensation, should the injured worker reject a valid offer. Either way, it can aid employers in eliminating, minimizing, and/or stopping temporary total disability compensation from being paid in a claim ...
The Supreme Court has handed down its much anticipated decision relating to the coverage of business interruption insurance claims made following the COVID-19 pandemic. A key question was whether the Supreme Court ruling would finally provide the clarity that the expedited test case sought to achieve for both policyholders and insurers. The good news for all is that the Supreme Court has indeed provided much more clarity in relation to most issues ...
BackgroundSection 466(1)(a) of the Companies Act 2016 (“CA 2016”) provides that a company is deemed unable to pay its debts if it is indebted in a sum exceeding an amount prescribed and neglects to pay the sums stipulated in the notice of demand within 21 days of being served with the said notice.Through the issuance of the Prescription of Amount of Indebtedness of Company published on 26 January 2017 (“2017 Threshold Order”), this amount was fixed at RM10,000 ...
Key issues The EU Insolvency Regulation has ceased to apply to the UK The English court acquires new grounds for jurisdiction under the EU EXIT Regulations Insolvency proceedings opened in an EU Member State may be recognised by the UK courts based on the UNCITRAL Model Law Cross-border insolvencies between the EU and the UK will likely become more time consuming, complex and expensive Recognition of UK scheme of arrangements is subject to the Hague Choice of Court Convention or t
The year 2020 was turbulent in many ways: the worldwide pandemic slowed down a number of reforms and caused challenges for various industries. Now it is time to look back and remind ourselves of the changes that took place in the field of employment law over the past year. It is also time to glance at the reforms awaiting us in 2021, a year hopefully brighter than its predecessor ...
The United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued an order that will take effect on January 26, 2021, requiring all arriving international airline passengers to provide proof of a negative COVID test taken within three days of the flight’s foreign departure. For those who have had it, the CDC will require proof of recovery ...
Although the start of 2020 also shook up the M&A world, the market recovered especially in the second half of the year. At Van Doorne, the M&A specialists experienced this in the number of transactions: 32 of them. This puts the firm in 8th place in the Mergermarket Benelux League Table, based on the number of deals. In 2020, in Europe almost $850 billion was spent on a total of 6,658 transactions. This is an increase of 5.6% compared to 2019 ...
In Changfeng Shipping Holdings Limited v Sinoriches Enterprises Co., Limited HCCT 59/2019; [2020] HKCFI 2703, the Hong Kong Court of First Instance laid down the principles applicable to service out of the jurisdiction of examination orders on officers of corporate judgment debtors pursuant to Order 48 rule 1 and Order 11 rule 9(4) of the Rules of the High Court (Cap. 4A) (RHC) ...
This is a summary of the Annual Report. Click here to access the full guide. The 2020 proxy season shareholder proposals were already submitted before the COVID-19 shadow loomed large over the season; however, such shadow likely impacted how shareholders voted on the proposals themselves, impacted business throughout 2020, and continues to jolt 2021 and the forthcoming 2021 proxy season ...
On Dec. 22, the Ohio Senate passed the Employment Law Uniformity Act – HB 352. Governor Mike DeWine signed the bill into law on Jan. 12, 2021. The bill is the culmination of 20 years of work by the Ohio Chamber of Commerce to address expansion of Ohio’s anti-discrimination statute resulting from Ohio Supreme Court decisions that interpreted Ohio Revised Code Section 4112 expansively ...
To boost the economy post-Brexit the government is committed to establishing up to 10 freeports across the UK and published a bidding prospectus at the end of last year. In our bitesize articles we provide a high-level overview of some of the key considerations if you are planning to participate in a bid and/or are considering the potential benefits of locating (or relocating) all or part of your business within a freeport (when established) ...
The Court of Protection is a specialist Court, focussing solely on supporting vulnerable individuals. This past year has acutely highlighted the needs of those most vulnerable in our society and their dependency on others to help manage their affairs. The Court has had to adjust its practices in order to ensure that help and solutions are found for those lacking capacity with minimal delay ...
2020 was a year of unprecedented circumstances and change, and more change is coming in 2021—this time, in the form of significant modifications to the nationwide permitting program. On September 15, 2020, the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) published a notice of proposed rulemaking to reissue and modify nationwide permits (NWPs), ahead of the usual five-year reauthorization schedule for the current 2017 NWPs ...
Are you concerned about the impact of Brexit on your IP lifecycle? We’ve prepared the following guidance as the introduction to our new Brexit and IP five-part info series where we detail the impacts of Brexit on the various stages of the IP lifecycle. 1 ...
How does one resolve a dispute involving thousands of individual items where it is impractical to deal separately with each one? A recent decision in the Technology and Construction Court provides some guidance - but raises further questions. The case is Standard Life Assurance Limited v Gleeds (UK)(a firm) and Others (December 2020, TCC). Standard Life had engaged Costain as its main contractor for the development of a large residential and retail development in Berkshire ...
On November 27, 2020, mainland China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“HKSAR”) signed the Supplemental Arrangement Concerning Mutual Enforcement of Arbitral Awards between the Mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the “Supplemental Arrangement”) ...
In light of the spread of the global Covid-19 pandemic and the discovery of a new mutation of the virus, the Israeli government has decided that as of December 23, 2020, the entry of foreigners into Israel will be banned. Further to this decision, the Population and Immigration Authority published guidelines regarding exceptional cases in which foreigners will be allowed to enter the country despite the ban ...
