On 1 October 2019, Hong Kong and the PRC brought into force the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Assistance in Court-ordered Interim Measures in Aid of Arbitral Proceedings by the Courts of the Mainland and of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Arrangement). The Arrangement empowers the courts of both jurisdictions to award interim measures in support of arbitration seated in the other territory ...
In X v Jemmy Chien, HCCT 31/2019 the Plaintiff applied to set aside an arbitration award on the ground that there was no valid arbitration agreement between the Plaintiff and Defendant. The Plaintiff’s case was that the Defendant was not the true party to the Service Agreement containing the arbitration agreement, as he had signed it as agent for another (Chen) who was the principal and true party to the Service Agreement ...
West Kowloon Cultural District Authority v AIG Insurance Hong Kong Limited [2020] HKCFI 569, concerned a bond obtained by the contractor, Hsin Chong Construction Company Limited (Hsin Chong), from the Defendant, AIG Insurance Hong Kong Ltd (AIG), in favour of the Plaintiff, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (West Kowloon), as required under a construction contract ...
The COVID-19 pandemic with contact restrictions and travel bans also poses challenges for civil proceedings. In the future, the functionality in pandemic times could be the material factor for the choice between state courts and arbitral courts because flexibility and options for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic are varying. State court proceedings Despite the COVID-19 restrictions, court deadlines must still be met ...
The evening of April 22, Governor Wolf presented his detailed plan for reopening Pennsylvania beginning May 8, 2020. The reopening will be done in three phases: red, yellow, and green. The entire Commonwealth is currently under the red phase, which has the purpose of minimizing the spread of COVID-19 through social distancing, implementing safety protocols, and closing schools and businesses that have been deemed non-life sustaining ...
The stock market has had record declines and many businesses are shuttered, at least temporarily. Long-term prospects may still be positive but in the near-term the value of many entities has reduced. Are there transactions that privately-held businesses and their owners could implement that would allow them to achieve long-term goals that could benefit the business, the owner, and owner’s family? We believe that there are ...
Key Points: SF Major extends commercial eviction moratorium through May 17, 2020. Moratorium applies only to commercial tenants registered to do business in San Francisco meeting certain requirements. Moratorium applies to all attempts to recover possession due to non-payment. Moratorium covers security deposits ...
Professor Andrew Muscat, who heads the Corporate Law Department at the Firm, has published a series of articles in the Times of Malta dealing with the duties and liabilities of directors of a company experiencing financial difficulties. This subject is particularly relevant these days when several companies are finding themselves in a difficult position as a result of the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic ...
In response to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has passed several new laws to provide trillions of dollars of funding to affected businesses and individuals. But this also means there are new compliance considerations for entities receiving federal funds, especially as it relates to the False Claims Act’s “false certification” theory of liability ...
On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit departed from opinions issued by the Fourth and Ninth Circuits in ruling that violations of the FDCPA begin to run when the violation occurs. In Rotkiske v. Klemm, et al., plaintiff Rotkiske sued a law firm that, in 2009, had obtained a default judgment against him. The law firm moved to dismiss the FDCPA claim, alleging it was untimely ...
On July 4, 2017, amendments to the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (“WVCCPA”) took effect. One of those amendments requires a potential plaintiff to give a creditor or collector notice of alleged violations under the statute before the potential plaintiff can file a lawsuit against them. They then have 20 days to make an offer to cure the alleged violations, and the potential plaintiff has 20 days thereafter to decide whether to accept it ...
The 2015 amendments to the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (‘WVCCPA”) are not retroactive, according to a federal court in West Virginia. In O’Dell v. USAA Federal Savvngs Bank aka USAA, the court rejected a bank’s argument that the WVCCPA statute in effect at the time of trial applies. The court determined the WVCCPA amendments could not be applied to a scenario that predated their effectiveness ...
Earlier this month, a West Virginia federal court ruled a disclosure in a debt collection letter regarding potential tax implications for settling a debt did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) or the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act (“WVCCPA”). In Garrettson v. Sentry Credit, Inc. et al., a debt collector sent a collection letter to the plaintiff debtor, offering to settle the debt for less than the amount due ...
The so called “break-even point” is a relevant concept in business economy. Simply speaking, a company is in break-even point when the number of product units sold equals its Total Fixed Cost, divided by the respective Contribution Margin per Unit (i.e ...
According to section 3(1) of the Prevention and Control of Disease (Prohibition on Group Gathering) Regulation (Regulation) (Cap.599G), no group gathering of more than four persons may take place in any public place during a specified period, unless it falls within one of the exceptions set out in Schedule 1 to the Regulation. The specified period will last until 7 May 2020, but may be further extended depending on the rapid changes in the public health situation ...
As of 16 March, the day when the state of emergency was declared in Romania, the Government has adopted an impressive number of pieces of legislation aimed at preventing and limiting the spread of the new coronavirus, on one hand, and at reducing the negative impact on economy of the implemented solutions, on the other hand. To be specific, we are talking about 75 acts (primary and secondary legislation) adopted in the course of approximately 1 month ...
Panama, April 6, 2020. On Tuesday March 24th, 2020, the Executive Decree 251 of the same date was published in Official Gazette 28987-A which adopts tax measures to relief the economic effects of the National State of Emergency ...
Introduction In late 2019, the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development (ADDED) launched the Abu Dhabi Local Content (ADLC) Program in a trial phase. In April of 2020, the IDB announced implementation of the ADLC Program, which will apply to more than 1,244 governmental and semi-governmental tenders worth approximately AED 15 billion ...
The digital signature in Bolivia was created by the General Law on Telecommunications, Information and Communication Technologies No. 164, published on August 8, 2011, granting full legal and evidentiary validity to the legal act or business carried out using this technological tool. Supreme Decree No ...
The Plurinational State of Bolivia, within the framework of its governmental powers and in accordance with the Declaration of Sanitary Emergency and Quarantine established in recent days, has determined to strengthen the latest measures. The government has conviniently declared that the total quarantine, extends until April 30, 2020, maintaining the suspension of public and private activities ...
The prosperous and globalized world as we know it has been suddenly slammed. Henry Kissinger, in his article published in WSJ on April 4, states that the historic challenge for the current leaders will be to manage the crisis while building a new future. If they fail, the world would be set on fire. He also says that nations rely on their institutions to foresee and deal with calamities, to arrest their impact and to restore stability ...
