Members of the Zimbabwe ruling party’s decision making body told Bloomberg in April 2014 that Zimbabwe is considering the reintroduction of the Zimbabwe dollar as it struggles to meet its monthly wage bill. In May Zimbabwe’s Treasury postponed the pay dates for its 230 000 public workers the second time in two consecutive months, after having awarded civil servants a 23% increase in April to honour a 2013 election promise made by President Robert Mugabe and the Zanu PF ...
On June 9, 2014, Mr. Moshe Asher, the General Director of the Israeli Tax Authority, announced at the CPA Association Conference that the Israel Tax Authority (the "ITA") will be launching a new voluntary disclosure program enabling taxpayers to report their concealed capital in Israel and abroad (the "new campaign") ...
As part of the June 4, 2014 Budget Speech, the Quebec Government announced an immediate 20% reduction in the rates of some business tax credits. The mining exploration tax incentives in Quebec did not escape this reduction. Flow-through share regimeThe flow-through share regime currently allows investors to deduct in the calculation of their income an amount equal to 100% of the subscription price ...
Many entities choose to incorporate in Delaware as a result of the abundance of case law on corporate matters and the willingness and ability of the Delaware legislature to adapt to changing times. The ATPdecision is a recent example of the Delaware courts and legislature in considering corporate governance changes in response to stockholder litigation.ATP DecisionIn ATP Tour, Inc. v. Deutscher Tennis Bund, No. 534, 2013 (Del ...
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that competitors may bring private suits alleging unfair competition under the Lanham Act based on misleading and deceptive food and beverage labels that are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), overruling a Ninth Circuit decision ...
This Need to Know Express is part of a series of newsletters which each answers one or several questions in a practical and concrete way. These bulletins have been or will be published over the next few weeks. In addition, a consolidated version of all the Need to Know Express newsletters published on this topic will be available upon request. These various newsletters, as well as others published on the subject of governance, are or will be available on our website (Lavery ...
Shepherd and Wedderburn is particularly pleased to welcome the introduction to the Scottish Parliament of a Bill that will allow businesses and individuals to create effective contracts and finalise agreements and other documents more speedily, having played a central role in its conception, and its content ...
CONTENTS Proposed General Anti-treaty Shopping Rule : Private Investment Funds Will Need to Play it SafeRegistration Requirements of Venture Capital and Private Equity Fund Managers in Canada : A Favourable Regulatory FrameworkBill 1 : New Requiremetns for Public Calls for Tenders LAVERY: A LEADER IN MONTREAL IN THE PRIVATE EQUITY, VENTURE CAPITAL AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT INDUSTRYCreating and setting up private equity and venture capital funds are complex initiati
On 29 May 2014, INTELEKTIV 2014, an international conference on intellectual property was held in Zagreb. The event gathered leading intellectual property experts from Croatia and Europe to discuss their challenges in dealing with the protection of IP rights in business. Public officers, customs officers, state attorneys and SEE enforcement protection officers assembled to create an open platform for open dialogue ...
The Lower House of the Parliament of the Czech Republic is considering in the first reading the Supplementary Agreement amending the Social Security Agreement between the Czech Republic and the USA. As soon as it takes force and effect, the Social Security Agreement between the Czech Republic and the USA will also cover health insurance ...
As a firm with deep roots in Western Canada we can assist you in navigating the laws and regulations to establish, acquire or invest in a business operating in the region. Western Canada is among the most robust economic areas of the country with extensive resource activity in energy, mining and forestry. This guide has been prepared by Lawson Lundell as a concise resource outlining certain key relevant laws and regulations that companies should consider when doing business in Canada ...
Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”), a prominent proxy adviser, has issued a report urging Target Corporation’s shareholders to oust seven of the company’s directors for “failure to provide sufficient risk oversight” on cybersecurity. The ISS report is the latest blow to the beleaguered company, which was the victim of a data breach that resulted in the compromise of 40 million credit and debit card numbers ...
As noted in our alert dated May 12, 2014, the National Association of Manufacturers, et al. requested on May 5, 2014 an emergency stay of the conflict minerals rule (the “Rule”) or at a minimum, a delay of the June 2, 2014 filing deadline for Form SD. On May 14, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the “Court of Appeals”) denied the request to stay the Rule or the filing deadline ...
Introduction This is the first in a series of articles on venture capital companies, a tax-favoured investment vehicle regulated by section 12J of the Income Tax Act, 1962 (“ITA 1962”). The venture capital company (“VCC”) scheme, introduced in 2009, is a tax-based scheme designed to encourage individual and corporate investors to invest in a range of smaller, higher-risk trading companies by investing through the VCCs ...
There was a fascinating article on the late Wally Olins (brand guru and co-founder of the firm Wolff Olins) in The Economist recently. The piece brings home just how much Olins’s thinking has shaped trade mark law and practice over recent years. Here are just a few examples: ‘G.K. Chesterton got it half right: when people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing. They believe in brands ...
Most employers are aware that a travel allowance may be granted to an employee where it is anticipated that the employee will be required to undertake business travel by virtue of the duties of his/her employment and that a travel allowance should not be merely used as a mechanism to reduce an employee’s employees’ tax (“PAYE”) liability ...
VAT vendors who make taxable supplies of goods or services are obliged to issue tax invoices to the recipients of such supplies within 21 days of having made such a supply. A valid tax invoice is of utmost importance because without such a document a vendor, being the recipient of a supply, is not entitled to claim any input tax deductions in respect of goods or services acquired in the course or furtherance of making taxable supplies ...
It has a long been a principle of company law that the debts of a company are not the debts of its shareholders. It may be a surprise to some that this principle does not apply to certain tax debts thanks to section 181 of the Tax Administration Act No.28 of 2011 (“section 181”). This section allows shareholders to be held jointly or individually liable for the tax debts of their company. At first glance it seems unfair to punish those who do not manage the day-to-day running of a company ...
On May 7, the Fourth Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, 131 S. Ct. 2296 (2011), did not apply in the context of a criminal prosecution for a violation of Rule 10b-5. See Prousalis v. Moore, No. 13-6814, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 8584 (May 7, 2014) ...
Under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (the “FCPA”), it is unlawful for companies to bribe or make corrupt payments to officials of foreign governments or of any “instrumentality” thereof. However, what entities are included as instrumentalities of a foreign government is not defined in the FCPA and there has been intense disagreement over the breadth of the term ...
Many taxpayers are generally aware that there is a prescription provision contained in our tax law. However it is not always understood that the prescription provisions apply only if certain statutory requirements are met. In this regard it is not uncommon for SARS to assess taxpayers beyond the prescription period of three years ...
