Drawing a cheque which is dishonoured due to insufficient funds will not be a criminal offence after 2 January 2022, when Federal Decree No. 14/2020 (the Decree) comes into effect. Here is a quick primer on the changes that the Decree will introduce. The highlight of the Decree is the decriminalisation of the act of drawing a cheque which is dishonoured due to insufficient funds ...
The financial sector has seen its fair share of discrimination cases and the trend continues. In Lacatus v Barclays Executive Services Limited the Employment Tribunal turned its mind to sexism. A female Analyst in the Rates Options Structured Trading Middle Office department brought a number of claims against the bank, including a sex discrimination and harassment claim centred around her line manager’s repeated use of the word “bird” to describe a woman ...
In this update, we’re looking at the hot topic of returning to the office post-pandemic. Q: What’s the direction of travel on working from home in financial services? While many industries have embraced hybrid working, financial services has generally been less enthusiastic about the idea of staff continuing to spend a significant proportion of their working time at home ...
Hot off the press, the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy are today introducing a new Code of Practice, and a draft Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill ...
We are seeing renewed interest in these types of structures – particularly from fund managers who have not previously targeted Shariah investors - as (i) sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and HNW individuals from the Middle East and South East Asia diversify into alternative assets like private equity (PE), and (ii) traditional or "western" managers look to expand into the Shariah market by establishing bespoke feeder or parallel funds in Guernsey which offer a Shariah complian
Earlier this year I wrote about a court challenge being made by the rewilding charity Trees for Life against NatureScot, challenging the issue of licences to kill beavers. This followed the release of information by NatureScot reporting that, during 2019, 87 beavers were killed and 15 were live trapped under licences that it had issued to farmers and landowners ...
By Supreme Decree Nº 023-2021-PRODUCE published in the Official Gazette "El Peruano" on November 8, 2021, the new Single Text of Administrative Procedures - TUPA of the Ministry of Production - PRODUCE was adopted, according to Annex Nº 1 that is an integral part of the decree, which is published in the Institutional Portal of the Ministry of Production (www.gob ...
To mark Charity Fraud Awareness Week on 21 October Shoosmiths hosted a webinar with Jonathan Taylor, head of charities and care at Innovation Broking, entitled ‘Charity fraud and cybercrime: prevention and cure’. New figures show charities reported £8.6 million of lost funds in the last financial year and more than 1,000 incidents of fraud to Action Fraud, but the true scale of fraud against charities is believed to be much higher ...
The Carey Olsen chapters provide analysis and commentary on blockchain and cryptocurrency regulation in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Jersey ...
In February 2012, the FATF published the revised FATF Recommendations (also known as the Standards). The Standards continue to develop to detect and prevent new money laundering and terrorist-financing techniques impacting the international financial system, such as misuse of virtual assets and COVID-19 related threats ...
A recent Fifth Circuit ruling suggests a softening of the SEC’s obligation to return disgorgement awards directly to victims, says Elisha Kobre, a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP. The issue is relevant because the Dodd-Frank Act created a specific fund to hold monetary sanctions collected by the SEC, including disgorgement amounts not directly distributed to victims or used in other specified ways, he explains. The U.S ...
On 30 July 2021, the Financial Services Authority (“OJK”) has issued OJK Regulation No. 12/POJK.03/2021 on Commercial Banks (“POJK 12/2021”). POJK 12/2021 was issued to anticipate, amongst other things, a business development and banking trend including the development and innovation of information technology. One of the interesting topics of POJK 12/2021 is the introduction of provisions on digital banks ...
There is no doubt that the pandemic catapulted society and businesses into a new and different world, which saw old working practices replaced by new and which advanced the adoption of new technology at a rapid pace. However, one thing didn’t change at law firm Shoosmiths, and that was how Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations still firmly lay at the heart of the business strategy ...
With the COP26 climate summit taking place in Glasgow this week, we thought it would be timely to look at the practical challenges facing businesses wishing to reduce their emissions and become sustainable in alignment with the government’s net zero strategy. Setting targets is crucial for companies with complexity across sectors, technologies and business structures ...
The lack of detail in the Budget speech on investment in renewable energy (nothing on hydrogen for example) was disappointing, and surprising to many given the timing of the Autumn Budget with COP26. However, the Comprehensive Spending Review did give a bit more detail. Whether it goes far enough or fast enough to meet ambitious targets is still up for debate ...
OSHA is considering rules to address heat injury and stress in the workplace. On October 27, 2021, OSHA filed an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("ANPRM") for Heat Injury and Illness Prevention in Outdoor and Indoor Work Settings. The ANPRM includes 114 questions and seeks public input on heat-related issues that should be addressed in any standard, including possible controls or measures that might be considered to address heat-related injury and stress ...
In her speech to the Principles for Responsible Investment and the London Stock Exchange Group, SEC Commissioner Allison Herren Lee made it clear that a climate change disclosure proposal is no longer a question of if, but when and provided some hints about what the proposal will look like. After remarking that “[c]limate change is . . ...
Last week, in the culmination of a process that began in 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a Final Rule to update the Safeguards Rule promulgated under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act ...
This initiative is a significant departure from the current position where an application for the appointment of a 'light touch' provisional liquidator, for the purpose of restructuring, must be made as part of the winding up process. Under the changes, a restructuring officer can be appointed by a company acting by its directors without a resolution of its members or an express power in its articles of association ...
With COP26 now upon us, all eyes are on Glasgow! As we continue to explore the various routes to net zero, there is no doubt that the Scottish Government's recently published "Heat in Buildings Strategy" will have a key play to role to play. Never in recent history has there been so much focus on how we use space that was once the reserve of our personal and family lives for working…but also on how our homes work for us ...
On 27 August 2021, the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (“ARRC”), a group of private-market participants convened by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2014 to lead the LIBOR transition in the United States, issued FAQs and Best Practice Recommendations on, among other things, the use of the Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”) and its term rates (“Term SOFR”), following the ARRC’s formal recommendatio
[!<CDATA[ Moratoriums on foreclosures due to COVID-19 ended this summer, prompting concerns of a shock similar to the 2008 housing crisis. While there are numerous differences between today and the previous recession, financial service providers can stay a step ahead by arming themselves with a few lessons learned ...
