Action: The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued a final rule increasing the limit of liability for damages under the Oil Pollution Act to $133.65 million. BOEM’s Final Rule: On December 12, 2014, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a final rule that, effective January 12, 2015, will increase from $75 million to $133 ...
On December 2, 2014, the Yukon Supreme Court struck down the Yukon government’s Peel watershed regional land use plan because of the government’s failure to follow the process for developing that plan under final agreements (modern treaties) with the Na-Cho Nyak Dun, Tr’ondek Hwech’in and Vuntut Gwichin First Nations ...
On November 12, 2014, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (“ISDA”) published the ISDA Resolution Stay Protocol (“Protocol”). Eighteen of the world’s largest banks and their affiliates1 (“G-18”) have agreed to sign the Protocol, which is open for adherence and has an effective date of January 1, 2015 ...
On November 6, 2014, Law No. 20,789 was published in the Official Gazette, granting legal status to theConsejo de Estabilidad Financiera (Financial Stability Council or “CEF”). The CEF is part of the Ministry of Finance, and was originally created in 2011 by means of a ministerial decree.
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It has long been known that Greenland possesses vast amounts of mineral resources. But due to climate changes, resulting in a rapid meltdown of ice caps in the Arctic regions, it is now getting easier to discover and exploit the mineral resources. The costs of exploring and exploiting minerals continue to decrease, and many experts believe that Greenland will become the next frontier within the mining industry ...
This article first appeared in the November 2014 issue of Hong Kong Lawyer, the official journal of The Law Society of Hong Kong. In January 2013, Alexa Lam, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), announced that the SFC and the China Securities and Regulatory Commission (CSRC) planned to implement mutual fund recognition between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese fund products ...
Crowdfunding has many faces. Charitable organisations have received support through this route, as have travelers, athletes, scientists and inventors, and the creators of such humble concepts as making potato salad—a project to which the public contributed over USD 55,000. But often crowdfunding is the main source of financing for innovative ideas which in the long run can drive economic development and positive social changes ...
Offsite drilling is becoming increasing prevalent in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas. Consequently, many in the industry were closely following a dispute between two neighboring operators in the Eagle Ford Shale area in which one operator opposed a neighboring operator’s plans to use offsite drilling. On October 29, 2014, the San Antonio Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiff lease owner, Lightning Oil Co ...
Amendments to the Corporate Income Tax Act which went into effect on 1 January 2014 provide an opportunity to revive the practice of subparticipation in lending in Poland. Regulations governing subparticipation have been in force since 2004. For tax reasons, however, subparticipation has remained much less popular in Poland than assignment of receivables, despite certain other advantages, particularly the greater ease of selling participation in loans backed by mortgages ...
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced today that it would allow financial institutions to provide their privacy notices to consumers online and would no longer require annual distribution of paper copies, provided that the institutions meet certain requirements. Among other things, companies that rely on this new exemption (1) must not share data in ways that would trigger consumers’ opt-out rights (e.g ...
On September 8, the Canadian Department of Finance announced the signature of a memorandum of agreement (the "Agreement") between the provinces of British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, and the federal government (the "Participating Jurisdictions") formalizing the terms and conditions of the Cooperative Capital Markets Regulatory System (the "Cooperative System"), a project to set up a national regulator for the Canadian securities industry ...
The Superior Court considered two interesting issues in the case of Banque Laurentienne du Canada v. Yuan.1 First, it had to determine whether a term loan that was used to payout an existing term loan had resulted in the novation of the first debt. Second, it had to determine what the effect the contract titled (translation) “Credit Facility Secured by Hypothec”2 had on the survival of the disputed hypothec.FACTSThe Court’s decision describes the circumstances of the dispute ...
Earlier this week, on September 29, 2014, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) took action against Michigan-based Flagstar Bank, fining it $10 million and ordering $27.5 million in payments to consumers. Flagstar allegedly “took excessive time to process borrowers’ applications for foreclosure relief, failed to tell borrowers when their applications were incomplete, denied loan modifications to qualified borrowers, and illegally delayed finalizing permanent loan modifications ...
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (“BSEE”) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) on September 24, 2014 seeking comments on improving safety for operations related to helicopters, helidecks and aviation fuel systems on fixed offshore facilities. Comments on the ANPR are due November 24, 2014. The ANPR was issued just days after BSEE and the U.S ...
Based on a recent decision in West Virginia’s 3rd Judicial Circuit, which includes Doddridge, Pleasants and Ritchie counties, the use of litigation in the form of partition suits may be more problematic than it otherwise has been for oil and gas operators attempting to acquire property interests to create efficient drilling units for their planned wells. The Court’s decision (described below) denied a mineral interest owner’s request to partition by sale under W. Va. Code § 37-4-1 et seq ...
On September 19, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its ruling in the so called “banks’ cases”1, in the context of which consumers instituted class actions to recover the conversion fees charged on credit card transactions in foreign currencies by many institutions issuing such cards. The plaintiffs were maintaining that these charges were contravening the Consumer Protection Act (Quebec) (the “CPA”) ...
The Scottish electorate has voted ‘no’ to independence. However, the ‘no’ vote will still result in constitutional change for Scotland, not least because of the pledge by all main UK political parties to devolve further powers to the Scottish Parliament. Additionally, key provisions of the Scotland Act 2012 will come into force over the next two years giving the Scottish government additional powers and a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU is proposed for 2017 ...
The Central Bank of Ireland has today issued its feedback statement on Consultation Paper 85 dealing with loan originating qualifying investor alternative investment funds (QIAIFs). In the feedback statement the Central Bank has announced that it will allow for the authorisation of QIAIFs that originate loans from 1 October 2014. The Central Bank's AIF Rulebook is being updated to reflect this change ...
In the last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges in two separate investigations related to its “Broken Windows” initiative, signaling that the Commission’s focus on what some may characterize as “minor violations” will continue ...
The Law 1450 of 2011 by means of which it was issued the National Development Plan for the period 2011-2014 provided in its article 112 the creation of a Single Registry of Marketers of Minerals ("RUCOM" by its acronyms in Spanish), which is managed by the National Mining Agency ("ANM" by its acronyms in Spanish) in order to control the marketing of minerals in Colombia ...
Last month, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued an important opinion for lenders in this state. The opinion reversed the North Carolina Court of Appeals’ decision in RL REGI N.C., LLC v. Lighthouse Cove, LLC, which found that a waiver of claims contained in a forbearance agreement could not waive a guarantor’s affirmative defense that a guaranty was obtained in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). The Lighthouse Cove case involves a familiar story for many lenders ...
GST/QST Election: Get Ready for 2015 Carolyne Corbeil and Emmanuel SalaGenerally, certain corporations or partnerships within a same group who are engaged exclusively in commercial activities, may make intra-group supplies of taxable goods or services without having to collect or remit the GST/QST otherwise applicable to such supplies ...
On September 9, 2014, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”) issued CFTC Letter No. 14-116 (the “CFTC Letter”) providing exemptive relief allowing commodity pools to use general solicitation in certain types of private offerings, including offerings of private fund interests. The CFTC Letter is available here ...
This morning, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) filed a proposed interpretive rule (the “Interpretive Rule”) with the West Virginia Secretary of State’s office implementing, in part, the recent Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), which was enacted in response to the January 9, 2014 event that contaminated the water supply of approximately 300,000 West Virginia residents across nine counties ...
On 17 May 2011 the National Assembly adopted the Law on Notary Public (“the Law”), which came into effect on 1 September 2014. The new Law introduces the Notary Public into the Serbian legal system, which should help to relieve the judiciary, improve its efficiency, and improve legal security. A Notary Public is an independent and autonomous legal expert, who performs a service of public trust ...
