Is your firm monitoring compliance with the liquid capital thresholds continuously? As the financial resilience of some firms is being tested in the face of the COVID-19 crisis, it is timely for us to remind clients that a HK SFC licensed firm’s “liquid” capital must always exceed its “required” liquid capital and that it must formally notify the SFC "as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within one business day of becoming aware”, if, am
Through Circular 4011 of 2020, the Ministry of Mines and Energy presents the considerations regarding the application of the exceptions to the restriction of free movement for the Mining Sector, as established in Article 3 of Decree 531 of April 08, 2020, by means of which"(...) it gives instructions under the health emergency caused by the Coronavirus COVID-19 and set measures for the maintenance of public order ...
The Superintendence of Notaries and Registry and The National Civil Registry Authority issued new measures through Ruling 041 of 15 April 2020 for the prevention of spreading the Coronavirus COVID-19. These measures followed previous regulations issued through Rulings 031 and 037 of March 2020. The new regulation reminds who can request a birth certificate by presenting the certificate of live birth as provided in the law ...
Measures taken for water, sewage and sanitation public utilities, within the framework of the State of Emergency ...
In accordance with the schedule of the Permanent Bidding Process ("PPAA"), the National Hydrocarbons Agency ("ANH") published on April 17 the final list of qualified companies to participate in the fourth cycle of this process, with which it is expected to reactivate the economy in Colombia ...
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 Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group (“CAR WG”) of the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (“IFWG”) has released its long-anticipated position paper on crypto assets. The position paper proposes that a clear regulatory policy for crypto assets be adopted in South Africa. However, it is still recommend that crypto assets not be regarded as legal tender or public money ...
While the Trump administration looks to pass legislation aimed at Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), a lawsuit involving the extent of the CFPB’s authority and whether it can impose a $109 million penalty on a group of companies is continuing to be fought in a D.C. courtroom. In June 2015, PHH Corporation and a group of other companies asked the D.C ...
If you haven’t been paying any attention for the last two weeks, you may have missed that on February 3, 2017 President Trump signed an Executive Order setting forth his administration’s core principles for regulating the United States’ financial system. The order seems to be the first step in fulfilling his campaign promise to change Dodd-Frank, the Obama-era financial law that was enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. The order contains three sections. 1 ...
On February 24, 2017, President Trump issued another executive order designed to further his administration’s agenda to reduce regulations. Entitled “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” the executive order continues to make clear that “[i]t is the policy of the United States to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people ...
Late this afternoon, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia issued its decision in State v. AFL-CIO and upheld the constitutionality of West Virginia's “Right-Work-Act” (the Workplace Freedom Act). Justice Jenkins delivered the opinion in which our high court reversed the Circuit Court of Kanawha County and remanded the matter back to that lower court with instructions to enter Summary Judgment in favor of the State ...
GERMAN GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO INCREASE HURDLES FOR ACQUIRING GERMAN COMPANIES IN STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT BUSINESS SECTORS On April 8, 2020, the German government adopted the draft bill of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs to amend the Foreign Trade and Payments Act (Außenwirtschaftsgesetz, AWG) ...
After the federal government’s initial rollout of its COVID-19 Economic Response Plan to provide economic measures to stabilize the economy (previously described in our blog post here), a number of voices from Canada’s business community have warned of program eligibility gaps and, in particular, that early and growth stage technology and innovation businesses have fallen through the cracks ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a burst of COVID-19-related guidance documents to facilitate expanded availability of medical products during the current public health emergency created by COVID-19. FDA-regulated products under these temporary policies include: PPE, diagnostic tests, hand sanitizers, disinfectant devices, remote monitoring devices, ventilators, and electronic thermometers for clinical use ...
On March 27, 2020, President Donald Trump signed into law a $2 trillion emergency relief bill to ease the economic impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) and support response efforts. The CARES Act[1] included an allocation of $80 million in funding to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to continue its COVID-19 response efforts. The additional agency funding will be used, in part, for the development of medical countermeasures and vaccines ...
Section 3513, one of the many provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”), addresses the handling of most federal student loans. The CARES Act suspends all loan payments through September 30, 2020, for certain types of student loans made or held by the United States Department of Education: Federal Direct Stafford Loans, Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loans, Federal Direct Grad PLUS Loans, and Federal Direct Consolidation Loans ...
Amidst the rising number of mortgage loan forbearances due to COVID-19, Ginnie Mae has stepped in to limit the damage to issuers with its PTAP/C19 program. The CARES Act provides borrowers with temporary protections in light of the economic distress caused by COVID-19. The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, includes a series of protections for borrowers whose financial security has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic ...
While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the adoption of certain piecemeal consumer protection policies and/or guidances by individual states and the federal government, there have yet to be any sweeping changes to existing federal consumer debt collection laws or regulations in the wake of the pandemic. There has been a push, though, for the enactment of comprehensive consumer protection provisions ...
On April 17, a bill was introduced in the United States House of Representatives seeking to create the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act of 2020. The primary feature of the bill is it would suspend all rent and mortgage payments due during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning on April 1, 2020 and ending 30 days after the termination of the pandemic by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The tenants and mortgagees would have no responsibility to ever make those payments ...
As part of a package of economic measures worth EUR 5.1 billion, the Serbian Government adopted a decree on 16 April 2020 establishing a guarantee scheme for loans to be provided by local banks to businesses to reduce the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (the “COVID-19 Guarantee Scheme”) ...
The COVID-19 crisis has triggered an unprecedented response of federal and state relief programs to provide health care resources and economic relief. Once the country moves past the immediate crisis, the government will take a hard look at emergency payments. Along with $2 trillion in relief, the CARES Act established a new law enforcement authority within the Treasury Department: the Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (the SIGPR) ...
