The Scottish financial sector has always punched above its weight due, in large part, to its appetite for innovation and sharp business acumen, which it has successfully exported around the globe. The successful early establishment in Scotland of current account banking and the investment trust speak to this, along with the undisputed influence of the Scottish diaspora, which established many of the great financial institutions from Paris to Hong Kong ...
Blockchain is a distributed ledger of data entries. The entries are processed and managed by a series of different computers, or ‘nodes’, which can be running on different servers. Every computer connected to the system keeps a copy of this ledger, meaning that different parties can view and manage the same information in real time. It also makes it exceptionally safe and secure. The energy sector has been relatively slow to adopt blockchain technology ...
On November 5, 2018, the amendments recently adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) to update and simplify certain disclosure requirements will become effective ...
The role of the Millennial lawyers and the recent incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in law firms are current trending topics. As a 27-year old associate of a law firm based in Guatemala City, every time I read about AI and that global law firms are incorporating AI to their practice, I ask myself, will I be replaced by it (or IT) ...
The Veterans Administration (VA) maintains the Vendor Information Pages (VIP) database of Veteran-owned small businesses (VOSB) and service-disabled Veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB). This database is available at www.vip.vetbiz.va.gov. The VIP database is managed by VA’s Center for Veterans Enterprise (CVE) who determines whether an offeror is eligible to be listed on the database ...
Under Government Regulation Number 57 and Indonesian Competition Authority (KPPU) Guidelines Number 02 , the criteria for determining whether a foreign merger (the definition includes a share acquisition) conducted outside Indonesia is reportable under the current Indonesian merger control rule (please note that the current merger control rule are the following: The Asset and/or revenue thresholds The value thresholds for a reportable transaction are: a ...
With investors such as the Scottish Investment Bank, the soon-to-be-launched Scottish National Investment Bank and the Epidarex Life Sciences Fund all increasingly paying attention to the life sciences sector against the backdrop of an increasingly competitive life sciences market in Scotland, now is a great time to consider whether your business is ready for investment, and how it could be standing out in order to attract investors ...
The Abu Dhabi Global Market (the ADGM) recently announced the launch of a commercial license specifically catered towards tech start-ups that allows entrepreneurs to obtain an operational license in the ADGM and access to a Professional Services Support Program aimed at allowing entrepreneurs entry to a community of businesses, financial services and professional advisors ...
At the beginning of September, the Israeli Innovation Authority, a division of the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry and the successor to the Office of Chief Scientist “IIA”, issued new rules “New Rules”. The “New Rules” regarded the licensing of know-how developed and obtained by Israeli companies that received grants from the IIA “Funded Companies”, to multinational corporations ...
Under newly enacted Section 1400Z of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”), beginning on December 22, 2017, taxpayers may defer, and in some cases partially eliminate, capital gains by making certain investments in “qualified opportunity zones.” A qualified opportunity zone is a “population census tract” in a state designated low-income community ...
Many South Africans, I suspect, find Brexit both boring and incomprehensible. All that endless talk of customs unions, free trade agreements, hard borders, borders in the Irish Sea..!But one really interesting thing that has emerged from the endless news stories is just how important intellectual property (“IP”) is in all of this ...
Patent landscaping: the road to success Patent landscaping analysis, or patent mapping, involves the electronic search and analysis of the vast amount of available online published patent data in order to extract meaningful and valuable technical, business and legal information ...
Who’s interested in Primark? Is it simply those South Africans who can afford to travel to the UK, only to find that, thanks to the weakness of the rand, the only shop they can afford is ... Primark? The recent Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) decision in the matterTruworths Ltd v Primark Holdingspertaining to well-known trade marks is of significance ...
Punitive proposed amendment to South Africa’s transfer pricing provisions Transfer pricing is a self-assessment mechanism that aims to ensure that taxpayers identify all potential cross-border transactions, operations, schemes, agreements or understandings that have been entered into between connected persons (referred to as “potentially affected transactions”), to ensure that all such potentially affected transactions have been concluded and implemented on an arm&rsqu
The Companies Amendment Bill, 2018 (the "Bill") was released for public comment by the Minister of Trade and Industry on 21 September 2018. The Bill, if introduced in its current form, proposes a number of changes to the Companies Act, 2008. This snapshot review deals with only our “big five” amendments. 1 ...
WTF®: a trade mark perspective on millennial gibberish bySamera Naidoo ICYMI, Proctor & Gamble ("P&G") recently applied to register a whole lot of text/SMS talk abbreviations as trade marks. It caused a real storm and the mainstream press absolutely loved it! FOMOalert! DWAI, I’ll bring you up to speed...what happened here was that P&G applied to register some really unlikely trade marks including WTF, LOL, FML, NBD ...
Gov. Jerry Brown signed California Senate Bill 826 into law, which requires publicly held companies whose principal executive offices are located in California to have a minimum of one woman on their boards of directors by the end of 2019. Thereafter, women’s representation will have to increase based on the law, with what will be codified as Section 301 ...
As seen in Bank Director Strategic planning is one of the most important roles of a financial institution’s board of directors. Since the 2008 financial crisis, financial institution boards have dealt with the emergence of fintechs as a primary consideration in developing their strategic plans ...
France has taken steps to set up a dedicated frame for cryptocurrency transactions aiming at conciliating legal certainty, market integrity and innovation. Capitalizing on best market practices, a recent bill defines an optional visa regime for ICOs, while a report commissioned by the French government sets forth principles of minimum regulations. Taxwise, the French Administrative Supreme Court has just ruled in favour of investors in Bitcoins ...
A key quality for a successful attorney, leader of an organization, claims professional or human resource professional requires effective negotiation skills to resolve conflict and disputes. Negotiating over 1,000 such disputes as an attorney and mediator has been a tremendous education on how to successfully resolve disputes and conflict ...
Not all matters will be appropriate for mediation. There are situations in which mediation is likely to fail: When parties let their egos control. When there is a misunderstanding of the facts. When there is a misunderstanding of the law. There is no incentive for settlement. When parties do not respect the process ...
Help your Mediator to help you and your client The relationship between the mediator and the parties must be clearly defined and be based in trust. Before a mediator is selected to host mediation, the parties should agree on what type of mediation they would like to engage in and who is the best mediator for that goal ...
Define the terms of fair Approaching mediation or negotiations requires that the parties agree on what criteria to use to determine what is a fair agreement. Determining these criteria before engaging in negotiations will help parties to articulate the basis for their positions. It can also help to ease tensions and rationalize the process. The criteria must be objective, legitimate and practical. Complicated formulas or unreasonable positions will complicate the discussion ...
Work with the People to Solve the Problem When approaching mediation, parties need to work together to tackle the problem, not each other. The goal is to be soft on the people and hard on the problem. Failing to interact with the other party sensitively, can be catastrophic to building or maintaining a working relationship. Knowing the other side personally helps to build cordiality. Find ways to meet them informally before the negotiation, arrive early to chat or linger afterwards ...
Stay focused on the interest, not on your position. Define the problem; you decide on your position. For every interest there usually exist several possible satisfying solutions to adequately address those interests. Remember that behind opposed positions lie shared and often compatible interests ...
