On 30 March 2011 the Government confirmed that the Bribery Act 2010 will come into force on 1 July 2011, the announcement being accompanied by the Government's finalised guidance on adequate procedures (see Government Guidance Report) along with non-statutory "quick start" guidance (see Quick Start Guide) ...
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued an opinion this week, In re DVI, Inc. Securities Litigation, that deepens the circuit split on issues related to the operation of the fraud-on-the-market theory at the class certification stage of a securities fraud case. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in the Halliburton case to address that circuit split, and is scheduled to hear oral argument on April 25 ...
In the latest in a series of legal challenges around internet keywords and particularly the Google AdWords system, the special adviser to the Court of Justice of the European Union, Advocate General Jaaskinen, has issued his opinion ...
In a unanimous opinion issued this week, Matrixx Initiatives, Inc. v. Siracusano, 563 U.S. __ (2011), the Supreme Court declined to adopt a proposed bright-line rule for materiality and reaffirmed the Basic “total mix” test. Specifically, the Court rejected Matrixx’s argument that adverse incident reports are never material unless they are statistically significant - overturning several lower court decisions to the contrary, including one written by then-Judge Alito ...
* The New Act Respecting the Legal Publicity of Enterprises and Trusts * New Filing Requirements for Partnerships * Requests for Production of Documents by the Tax Authorities * Your’re Fired!: The Impact on the Exercise of Stock Options THE NEW ACT RESPECTING THE LEGAL PUBLICITY OF ENTERPRISES AND TRUSTS André Paquette apaquette@lavery ...
These days many US businesses are looking north to Canada for new markets. This paper discusses when a US business needs to worry about the Canadian tax system. The short answer comes from some of the oldest provisions in the Income Tax Act. US businesses need to worry about Canadian tax when they have a physical presence in Canada. To read this paper, click here. For more information please contact Len Glass at [email protected] or 604.631.9140 ...
Since the passage of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, with its heightened pleading standards for shareholder plaintiffs, it has become routine for plaintiffs’ lawyers to load their federal securities class action complaints with allegations purportedly obtained from “confidential witnesses” (or “CWs”) ...
AVOID A $15,000 FINE FOR A FIRST OFFENCE UNDER THE ACT RESPECTING OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! * MANAGEMENT OF TAX-RELATED DOCUMENTS * DIRECTOR AND… LIABLE AVOID A $15,000 FINE FOR A FIRST OFFENCE UNDER THE ACT RESPECTING OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! On March 31, 2004, the federal legislature amended the Criminal Code (R.S.C., 1985 c ...
Recently, the Exempt Organizations Office (“EO”) of the IRS released a list of 2011 initiatives, including international activities and compliance. The following are just a few of the items on the IRS’s radar for the coming year. Employment Tax Examinations. In 2011, the EO plans to conduct full examinations of 500 exempt organizations to determine compliance with employment tax rules as part of a project reviewing employment tax practices of both taxable and tax-exempt organizations ...
Article 219 of the Loi sur la protection du consommateur (Consumer Protection Act -hereinafter: “LPC”) states that no merchant may, by any means whatsoever, make a false or misleading representation to a consumer. Article 238 states that no merchant may falsely declare that they possess a status or identity ...
Corporate documents provided to the government as part of an investigation of the company are not excepted from disclosure for “personal privacy” purposes under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In Federal Communications Comm. v. AT&T Inc., the Supreme Court held AT&T did not have a personal privacy interest in documents the company provided to the FCC during an investigation ...
In an action filed this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged three outside directors of a public company with securities fraud based on their alleged failures to fulfill their roles and responsibilities as Board members. The SEC contends that by their actions and inaction, the outside directors – Jerome Krantz, Cary Chasin, and Gary Nadelman – facilitated and assisted in a massive accounting fraud at DHB Industries, Inc., a body armor supply company ...
Website accessibility is a requirement of the Equality Act 201. The first of a two-part article explaining Equality Act 2010 to websites. In our last article, Website accessibility: Industry standards and best practice, we considered how the Equality Act 2010 would be implemented, and considered what the new BSI Standard for website accessibility might look like ...
Creditors and debtors often enter into agreements with respect to the repayment of indebtedness. These forbearance agreements or “standstill agreements” are useful tools whereby both creditors and debtors can work together to reach a common goal without the immediate need for realization of assets in a formal insolvency proceeding. In contrast, a settlement agreement is designed to bring finality to all or some part of the credit arrangement with the debtor ...
Concents : * Technology Licences in the Event of Bankruptcy * New Quebec Business Corporations Regime * The Shareholder Agreement: the "Specifications" of the Private Corporation Shareholder Technology Licences in the Event of Bankruptcy Sive Burns [email protected] The owner of a technology protected by an intellectual property right (copyright or patent) or protected by secret (trade secret) may grant a licence to a licensee ...
In a welcome bit of good news for lenders, U.S. District Court Judge Gold (Southern District of Florida) reversed the portion of the 2009 bankruptcy court decision in the TOUSA, Inc. bankruptcy cases that had ordered the disgorgement of $403 million plus interest based on the holding that the amounts were received by certain lenders to the TOUSA parent in connection with a pre-petition transaction that constituted a fraudulent transfer ...
The Business Corporations Act (Quebec) (the “QBCA” or the “Act”) comes into force on February 14, 2011. Described as innovative by many, the Act provides a new regime for legal persons currently governed by Parts I and IA of the Companies Act (the “QCA”). The last significant amendments to the QCA dating back to the early 1980s, the QBCA has been eagerly awaited by the legal and business communities ...
On February 8, 2011, the IRS announced a second voluntary disclosure program that will allow U.S. taxpayers to disclose offshore accounts that were previously kept secret from the IRS. U.S. citizens and resident foreign nationals are required to pay U.S. federal income tax on their worldwide income. The objective of this initiative is to bring taxpayers that have used undisclosed foreign accounts to avoid or evade taxes into compliance with United States tax laws ...
On February 8, 2011, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion that will have a major impact on Chapter 11 plan confirmation. In consolidated appeals stemming from the In re DBSD North America, Inc ...
The Federal government’s legislation to control spam and other ills of the electronic age with the oh-so-catchy title of An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and
The last minute compromise which averted the expiration of the Bush tax cuts included a two-year modification of the estate, gift, and generation-skipping taxes. For 2011 and 2012, every individual will have a $5 million gift tax exemption. For individuals dying in 2011 or 2012, the estate tax exemption is also $5 million, and the generation-skipping transfer (“GST”) tax exemption for transfers during life or at death is $5 million ...
Straight dealing ...
As required under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted rules regarding shareholder approval of executive compensation and “golden parachute” arrangements on January 25, 2011. See Release Nos. 33-9178 and 34-63768 ...
1. How can the government’s attitude and approach to internet issues best be described? The attitude of the Belgian government can be described as positive and their approach is proactive. In 2003, the Belgian authorities announced the introduction of ‘egovernment’ ...
