The U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon, issued a 28-day temporary restraining order (TRO) in an unusual weekend session just before the “Presidential Proclamation on Suspension of Entry of Immigrants Who Will Financially Burden the United States Healthcare System” was to go into effect on November 3, 2019. Judge Michael H. Simon agreed to “freeze things the way they are” so a determination can be made on the merits of the case ...
Amid the noise, vitriol and spectacle, the real debate that we need to have about climate change has been drowned out. In the past few weeks, I have followed with much interest a Swedish child activist’s barely concealed yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly, Greta Thunberg, famous for her tirades on climate change, did not win the award, despite her widely watched zero-emission Atlantic crossing in a hydro- and solar-powered yacht to address the UN General Assembly ...
After sending cryptocurrency enforcement letters in the summer of 2019, the IRS recently issued Revenue Ruling 2019-24 and an accompanying frequently asked questions (FAQs) with additional guidance on the taxation of cryptocurrency. The Revenue Ruling addresses the tax treatment of cryptocurrency "hard forks", where one version of the currency is split from its original ledger and a new version of the currency is created with a new ledger ...
Almost at the same time as the much-noticed and controversially discussed Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (see Update IP No. 12: Agreement on the Reform of the Digital Copyright Law) and barely noticed by the public, another European Directive on copyright law was adopted ...
In 2013, Virginia Ginni Rometty - CEO of IBM, said “I would like you to think of big data as the next natural resource that can be to our era what steam, electricity and oil were for the Industrial Age." Probably, you have read or heard: Data is the new oil! Data is the new bacon! Data is the new currency! These analogies have become very popular because data is now considered one of the most important commodities ...
The Indonesian Business Competition Supervision Commission (Komisi Pengawas Persaingan Usaha – “KPPU”) recently introduced a new regulation on merger filings, KPPU Regulation No. 3 of 2019 on Assessments of Mergers or Consolidations of Business Entities or Acquisitions of Shares in Companies which might Result in Monopolistic Practices and/or Unfair Business Competition (“New Regulation”) ...
The Government of Indonesia finally issued Government Regulation No. 71 of 2019 on Organization of Electronic Systems and Transactions ("GR 71/2019") on 4 October 2019, gaining momentum as the country sees the rise of ‘Unicorns’ and President Joko Widodo boasting about the country’s digital economy. GR 71/2019 replaces Government Regulation No. 82 of 2012 with the same title and came into force on 10 October 2019. GR 71/2019 has 11 chapters and an extensive scope ...
On May 19, 2016, the concept of a “Bankruptcy,” as the legal term was defined, ceased to exist under Panamanian law. Law 12 of 2016 (the “Insolvency Law”) entered into force on that date and introduced new proceedings into our legal system. These proceedings are referred to as Reorganization and Liquidation ...
Existing law, the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA), among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities and authorizes persons to conduct specified commercial cannabis activities, as defined, in the state. The objectives of the new law are as follows: To provide tax equity to the cannabis industry ...
According to the recent insurance broker's Transactional Risk Insurance Claims Study1, the number of W&I claims have increased by 293% between 2016 and 2018 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (the EMEA-region). One explanation is of course the triple increase W&I policies issued over the same period. The W&I market have become more mature than what it was just some few years back ...
On Sept. 30, IBM won dismissal of a federal False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam suit, Cimino v. IBM, No. 13-cv-00907 (APM), 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168059 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 2019). In the suit, Relator Paul A. Cimino alleged IBM, assisted by Deloitte LLP, fabricated audit findings regarding Internal Revenue Service (IRS) usage of IBM-licensed software to coerce IRS into renewing its software enterprise license ...
The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) has ruled, upon submission by the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof, OGH), with the decision of 3 October 2019 (Case C-18/18), that hosting providers, in this case Facebook, may be required by a court to seek and erase content which is identical or, under certain circumstances, equivalent to information previously found to be unlawful ...
The European Union (EU) has removed the UAE from the EU’s blacklist of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. The EU Blacklist The EU maintains a blacklist of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. The EU has published criteria on tax transparency, fair taxation and implementation of anti-BEPS measures that EU Member States undertake to promote ...
A previous in Brief dated 7 July 2019 discussed UAE Cabinet Resolution 31 of 2019 Concerning Economic Substance Regulations (the UAE Economic Substance Regulations or the Regulations). The UAE Economic Substance Regulations designated the UAE Ministry of Finance as the Competent Authority ...
CHEAT SHEET Investment. Implementing a mentorship program between a corporation and a law firm does not require significant monetary investment, rather a considerable time investment. Diversify activities. After identifying and understanding the needs and profiles of participants, create activities that include trainings, CLEs, social events, and facility and firm visits. Benefits ...
Yesterday, in a closely-followed case, the Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal brought by the Domino’s pizza chain, which sought to overturn the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision that entities selling online must make their websites and apps accessible to people with disabilities ...
On October 1, 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that pre-ticked boxes do not constitute a valid consent by web users prior to storing cookies on their devices (Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. and Planet49 GmbH; Case C-673/17). The decision follows a challenge by the German Federation of the Consumer Organisations against the use of a pre-ticked checkbox which had, by default, consented to cookies on behalf of the user ...
Activists and government leaders are sounding the death knell for our planet unless something is done about climate change. But while sustainability is important, sustainability reporting may not be the answer. In a headline-hogging speech at the UN last month, 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg berated politicians and business people for doing too little to arrest climate change, ruining the globe for future generations. High-profile scandals back up her claim ...
On 3 October 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) published its groundbreaking ruling in case C-18/18 establishing that the EU enables national courts to order information societies such as Facebook to remove defamatory information. This also encompasses equivalent versions of previously declared illegal information. In doing so, the ECJ effectively held that EU law does not preclude injunctions issued by national courts from producing worldwide effects ...
