Implementation of Prakas on minimum registered capital of banking and financial institutions,Circular № B7-016-117 C.L, dated 16 June 2016This Circular, issued on 16 June 2016, aims at implementing Prakas №B7-016-117 on Minimum Registered Capital of Banking and Financial Institutions (“BFIs”), dated 22 March 2016 (“Prakas №B7-016-117”), in relation to procedures for increasing the minimum registered capital requirements of BFIs ...
As per Notification No. 039 issued by the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) on 21 July 2016, a working group consisting of representatives from both the General Department of Taxation (GDT) and the Phnom Penh Municipality will begin to collect data from all enterprises in Phnom Penh from August 2016 onwards. Representatives of the working group will physically visit all enterprises in Phnom Penh for the purpose of: 1. Gathering the enterprise’s statistics; 2 ...
Media outlets have recently been reporting on the possibility that Nikola Tesla Airport will acquire Sava Centar (SC), with the purpose of turning it into its company headquarters. This acquisition would be followed by an investment of over EUR 30 million in the next three years for the building's reconstruction and adaptation ...
In our blog post from July 25, 2016 we highlighted the provincial government’s introduction (effective August 2, 2016) of the new 15% property transfer tax (the “Foreign Entity Tax“) on foreign buyers of residential property in the Greater Vancouver Regional District (“Metro Vancouver“). The Foreign Entity Tax has been introduced by way of an amendment to the Property Transfer Tax Act (British Columbia) (the “Act“) ...
On June 25th, 2016, Law No. 20,930 that establishes the environmental conservation right was published in the Official Gazzette. The purpose of this law is to create a mechanism to simplify and promote the participation of private parties in the conservation of the environment, as a complement to the work done by the State in these matters. This right has its origin in Comparative Law ...
Latest news reports from the airline industry show that the European Commission has ended their investigation into the ownership structure of "Air Serbia", reaching a conclusion that Serbia indeed holds management rights over its national air carrier. Furthermore, having in mind their minority stake in Air Serbia, Etihad Airways has thus been enabled to operate according to EU standards in Serbia ...
Two recent high-profile cases involving popular songs have placed the spotlight on copyright issues. In the first of these, in California, a Los Angeles jury has decided that Led Zeppelin’s 1971 rock classic Stairway to Heaven did not infringe the copyright in a 1967 song called Spirit by the band Taurus. The case centred on the opening chord sequence in Stairway to Heaven, which the jury concluded was not “intrinsically similar” to the sequence in Spirit ...
A recent European trade mark decision highlights how risky it can be to simply register the word version of a trade mark that is used in a stylised form. The case also highlights an issue that may be worthwhile considering when creating a trade mark – simpler may be cheaper. The decision in question involved a European registration for the trade mark Aunt Bessie’s in ordinary script for a range of foodstuffs ...
Last June 8, Carlos J. Leitão, the Minister responsible for Government Administration and Ongoing Program Review and Chair of the Conseil du trésor, tabled Bill 108, An Act to facilitate oversight of public bodies' contracts and to establish the Autorité des marchés publics ...
The Environmental Evaluation Service (SEIA) has published the “Guide for Determination of the Ecological Flow for Hydropower Plants”.The objective of the Guide is to establish uniform criteria for determining the environmental flow regime in hydropower plant projects that are evaluated by the SEIA. The Guide incorporates the use of hydrological criteria, valuation of ecosystem services and anthropic uses, while also taking into account the particular project’s specific characteristics ...
Amendments to Russian Civil Code on different types of interest under Articles 317.1 and 395Dear Sir or Madam,We would like to inform you that on July 5, 2016 the President of the Russian Federation signed Federal Law dated 03.07.2016 No. 315 “On Amendments to Part I of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” (hereinafter referred to as the “Law”), which comes into force from August 01, 2016 ...
Extension of Deadline for Online Company Re-Registration, Notification № 2338 (Ministry of Commerce) 01 July 2016According to Prakas 300, dated 29 December 2015, all companies, branches, and representative offices registered in Cambodia wererequired to complete a re-registration process through the Ministry of Commerce’s online registration portal which was launched in January 2016.The deadline for completing the re-registration process was previously extended from March to 30 June 2016 ...
Patricia Gannon, Senior Partner, and Rastko Petaković, Partner, together with Associates Veton Qoku and Nevena Tomić Lučić, attended the Balkan Legal Forum ( BLF) 2016 – a conference organised by the IBA European Regional Forum and the Legal Development Foundation ...
Banking and FinanceMEMBERSHIP OF FAST AND CENTRAL SHARED SWITCH SYSTEMS, Prakas № B14-016-147 Pror Kor, dated 19 May 2016This Prakas, effective from 19 May 2016, requires banking and financial institutions to become members of FAST and Central Shared Switch systems. It aims at encouraging an easy, quick, effective, secure and reliable retail payment in order to foster the development of banking and financial sectors and the national economy ...
Clients with European Union (“EU”) trade marks, registered designs and EP patents may be wondering what will happen to their IP protection in the United Kingdom (“UK”) now that the nation has voted to leave the EU.The good news is that EU IP rights extending to the UK will not be affected in the short-term. The European Patent Office is not an EU institution, so the leave vote will have no effect on EP patents ...
What is BEPS?Much has been said in both professional and commercial circles on the imminent introduction in Hong Kong of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) regime for the automatic exchange of tax information between participating jurisdictions. There is, however, a much lesser awareness of the commitments undertaken by the Government to the new Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) standard to combat base erosion and profits shifting (BEPS) ...
A whistleblower is a person who raises the alarm or reports wrongdoing within their organisation. The Swedish Government is now proposing new legislation with the purpose of enhancing the protection of whistleblowers, to come into effect on January 1, 2017. Rebecka Thörn and Josefine Wir summarise the main points of the proposed legislation and give some advice on how your company can handle alarms raised by employees ...
“The degree of consumer care is becoming more heightened as the novelty of the Internet evaporates and online commerce becomes commonplace.” This quote, which comes from a United States (“US”) decision, is quoted in the South African Supreme Court of Appeal’s (“SCA’s”) judgment in the so-called “Clearvu case” – Cochrane Steel Products (Pty) Ltd v M-Systems Group (Pty) Ltd and Another (unreported case no. 227/2015, 27 May 2016) ...
A South African court has found that, for the purposes of fair dealing in copyright law, hyperlinks are a sufficient way of acknowledging source and ownership. The recent decision in the case of Moneyweb (Pty) Limited v Media 24 Limited and Another (unreported case no. 31575/2013, 5 May 2016) attracted a great deal of publicity. This is possibly because the two main parties are media companies ...
On 20 June 2016, the South African National Treasury published draft Carbon Offsets Regulations (“draft regulations”), intended as a component of the proposed carbon tax. The draft regulations mark the next step in the process of bringing the carbon tax into operation by early 2017 ...
A court has ruled that the South African Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) does not have the authority to consider and rule on adverts placed by entities that aren’t members of the organisation. Regular readers will know that the ASA is frequently used as a forum for dealing with what are essentially trade mark or passing-off disputes. This is because the ASA Code contains provisions that prohibit advertising that causes consumer confusion or involves slavish copying ...
