Entrepreneurs are a special breed. The good ones have that special blend of vision, timing and risk tolerance most others lack. The really good ones find a way to use their special talents to make their communities a better place to live and work. Mike John is a really good entrepreneur. As we all know, the shale plays across the United States have been game changers ...
The Fifth Circuit recently affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a federal securities fraud class action on the basis that the plaintiffs had failed to adequately plead facts establishing that the defendants, the executives of a failed bank, were severely reckless in their overvaluation of the bank’s portfolio of mortgage-backed securities.See Owens v. Jastrow, No. 13–10928, 2015 WL 3649823 (5th Cir ...
Domestic legislation1. Domestic law.Identify your jurisdiction’s money laundering and anti-money laundering (AML) laws and regulations. Describe the main elements of these laws. Law 25,246, enacted in 2000, was the first to regulate both criminal money laundering (by means of inclusions of specific money laundering and terrorism financing offences in the Argentine Criminal Code (ACC) and antimoney laundering provisions ...
The amendments to Chapter III.J.3 of the Compendium of Financial Regulations of the Central Bank introduced a new regulation on prepaid cards (Payment Cards with the Provision of Funds), which seeks to achieve greater financial inclusion by strengthening and promoting this payment method, which has not yet achieved the expected market penetration. The first draft of this regulation is from June of last year, which received many comments from both banks and regulators ...
Ecuador is no stranger to the “State Capitalism” economic stream which prevailed in South America in the last two decades. This way to directly involve the central government to the country’s economy has triggered deep changes to the commercial relationships ...
Following the regulatory workshop in Shenzhen on 5 June 2015 hosted by the SFC and CSRC/SAFE on mutual recognition of funds (MRF) between Hong Kong and the PRC, Hong Kong’s SFC has issued FAQs on the topics that were discussed.In the FAQs, the SFC offered guidance on some of the requirements for authorisation in Hong Kong of PRC funds. In summary:One-year track record: Numerous Cayman unit trusts have re-domiciled to Hong Kong ...
In keeping with trends in other jurisdictions, Canada has brought into force federal rules requiring businesses in the extractive sector to publish annual reports on payments of $100,000 or more made to governments in Canada and abroad. Payments to Aboriginal governments will be covered by these rules starting in 2017 ...
Over the last 10 years, considerable legislative efforts have been made towards creating a favourable framework for financing agribusiness and agricultural production in Serbia. The latest piece of legislation in that sector is a law on secured pre-harvest financing. Looking back, in 2005 Serbia introduced the national strategy on agricultural development (the Strategy), which outlined obstacles and set goals with regard to financing agribusiness and agricultural production ...
Following President Obama’s announcement on December 17, 2014 of a policy to normalize relations with Cuba,the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended its Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) amended its Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) on January 16, 2015, to implement the policy change ...
As part of the implementation of the Mexican Energy Reform, the Mexican government has selected certain fields that will gradually be tendered to foreign and domestic companies for hydrocarbon exploration and production projects. Round One includes 109 blocks for exploration and 60 blocks for production, and covers new areas of different sizes and types of resources, including (i)deepwater, (ii)shallow water, and (iii)onshore fields ...
Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal has held that bank enforcement titles are contrary to the Polish Constitution because they violate the constitutional principle of equality. Pursuant to this judgment, the relevant provisions of the Banking Law—Art. 96(1) and Art. 97(1)—will cease to be in force on 1 August 2016. The ruling is fundamentally important for the entire banking sector and for bank customers ...
The September 2014 issue of the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) included an international briefing article by then SyCipLaw senior associate and now partner Jose Florante M. Pamfilo entitled "Foreign banks gain full entry." The Philippines recently enacted a law that allows the full entry of foreign banks into the Philippines ...
Download a free copy of the Philippine section of The Public-Private Partnership Law Review edition 1, which was contributed by the SyCipLaw Partners Marievic G. Ramos-Añonuevo and Arlene M. Maneja.Aside from the Philippines, other jurisdictions covered include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Ireland, Japan, Mozambique, Paraguay, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States ...
The Lavery GO inc. Program team is happy to inform you that theAutorité des marchés financiers(AMF) announced yesterday the implementation of an equity crowdfunding exemption which allows startups to raise up to $500,000 in capital per year ...
Following the gradual selection of areas and fields that will be tendered for foreign and domestic companies (including Mexican government production companies), pursuant to the Mexican Energy Reform enacted last year, the National Hydrocarbons Commission (Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos, “CNH”) published a formal call for the third bid of Round 1, “CNH-R01-L03/2015” in the National Federal Gazette on May 12, 2015 ...
Serbia is a contracting party to the Energy Community Treaty (ECT), signed in October 2005 between the European Union (EU) and nine South Eastern European countries. Since then, Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia have ceased to be parties upon their accession to the EU and thus are no longer parties to the ECT, while Moldova and Ukraine have become parties to the agreement. One of the explicit aims of the ECT is to support the development of renewable energy ...
The Canadian Securities Administrators (“CSA”) have announced that, on several fronts, they are implementing amendments to the disclosure requirements for venture issuers, including those listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. These amendments primarily address continuous disclosure and governance obligations, while also implementing changes to disclosure obligations for prospectuses and information circulars ...
Indonesia’s Currency Law came into effect on 28 June 2011 as Law No. 7 of 2011 on Currency (“Currency Law”). The Currency Law is the implementation of Article 23B of the 1945 Constitution which states that the types and value of the currency are to be further regulated under a law. Bank Indonesia issued on 31 March 2015 as an implementing regulation for the Currency Law, Bank Indonesia Regulation No. 17/3/PBI/2015 on the Obligation to Use Rupiah in the Indonesian Territory (“PBI 17/3/2015”) ...
The April issue of the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) includes an international briefing article by SyCipLaw partner Anthony W. Dee and associate Ma. Patricia B. Paz entitled “Philippines: Complaints mechanism concerns.”Download a PDF copy of the article or read the article online at the IFLR website ...
In several recent years, Hong Kong’s equity capital market has raised the most new funds from IPOs, in some of those years raising more than London and New York combined. A global finance centre There were a number of massive listings in the market before the financial crisis, notably of state owned Chinese banks. These gave a strong impetus to the emergence of Hong Kong as a key financial centre ...
The Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) has launched its new research report entitled “Asia’s Financial Services: Ready for the Cloud—A Report on FSI Regulations Impacting Cloud in Asia-Pacific Markets.” SyCipLaw Partner Rose Marie M. King-Dominguez with Senior Associate Ruben P. Acebedo II contributed the information on the Philippines ...
As noted in our January 2015 Haynes and Boone Alert on “Stretching Your Borrowing Base,” the spring borrowing base redetermination season is upon us. Borrowing base reductions seem a certainty for many oil and gas producers ...
MMF Regulation: The European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) published its report (which includes the draft regulation) (dated 4 March 2015) on the proposed Regulation on Money Market Funds (MMF Regulation). The EU Parliament is scheduled to consider the legislative proposal on 27 to 30 April 2015. ESMA AIFMD Q&AESMA has published updated AIFMD Q&A with new reporting issues and some additional guidance on marketing ...
This coming Sunday, March 29, CME Group plans to launch the first ever physically-delivered crude oil storage futures contract. CME Group is able to make this contract available having teamed up with LOOP LLC (“LOOP”) (LOOP owns and operates the deepwater port and associated onshore terminal with significant crude oil handling, storage and re-distribution capabilities located in Clovelly, Louisiana, sometimes called the “Clovelly Hub”) and NEO Markets Inc. (“NEO”) ...
The Chambers Asia-Pacific 2015 Guide is now available online and features an overview of the Philippinescontributed by SyCipLaw Managing Partner Rafael A. Morales.The guide is distributed to corporate counsel worldwide and is accessible through the Chambers website: www.chambersandpartners.com/guide/asia/8/172/1 ...
