The SBA, in consultation with the U.S. Department of Treasury, issued the Paycheck Protection Program Loan ForgivenessApplicationand related instructions on May 15, 2020. While the application and instructions answer many of our questions about PPP loan forgiveness, it leaves many others open. Treasury has promised that the SBA also will soon issue regulations and guidance that we hope will address these questions ...
Section 29 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance (Cap. 6) (BO) allows a trustee in bankruptcy to apply to the Courts for orders compelling disclosure of material documents and/or information of the bankrupt in order for the trustee to carry out his/her duties under the bankruptcy. For the authors’ previous article on Section 29, please see here ...
Section 29 of the Bankruptcy Ordinance (Cap. 6) (BO) allows a trustee in bankruptcy to apply to the Courts for orders compelling disclosure of material documents and/or information of the bankrupt in order for the trustee to carry out his/her duties under the bankruptcy. For the authors’ previous article on Section 29, please see here ...
Rule 2-2020, as amended by Rule 3-2020 of the Superintendency of Banks of Panama (hereinafter, “SBP,” for its initials in Spanish). On March 16, 2020, the SBP issued Rule 2-2020, which was subsequently amended by Rule 3-2020 (here in after referred to as “Rule 2-2020") and "establishes additional, exceptional and temporary measures for compliance with the provisions contained in Rule 4-2013 on credit risk".” ...
Recently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the State Banking Regulators released a joint statement announcing increased flexibility in the agencies’ regulation and enforcement of certain mortgage servicing rules governing borrower communications in response to the
The landmark CARES Act, signed into law by the President on March 27, provides many employers with several options to increase liquidity and cash flow during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. And only 9 days before that legislation was enacted, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) also created two other payroll tax-related incentives for certain employers, and to self-employed individuals ...
Guatemala dawns today with the validity of a law, contained in the Decree 15-2020, extremely harmful for the country, the economy, the industry and legal certainty, and in violation of the Constitution. This law allows for the possibility of not paying certain basic services (water, cable, telephony, power [sic] (electric power) and internet) by the users, and imposes the obligation to public and private supplier companies not to suspend, under any circumstances, their provision ...
While immediate pandemic pressures may moderate short-term corporate progress on climate risk assessment and disclosure, there is little to suggest that regulatory and investor expectations have significantly diminished in 2020. Corporates may face increasing investor pressure to make a 'Paris-aligned' business strategy a central pillar of their corporate rebuilding and recovery plans, with a measurable pathway to net zero emissions ...
As we continue our series on bankruptcy litigation, we want to discuss the use of receiverships as an important aspect of a fully developed creditors' rights practice. Creditors often face recalcitrant corporate debtors who continue to reap the rewards of their business while ignoring all attempts by creditors to collect amounts owed to them. Sometimes, those debtors' intricate corporate structure makes it harder for creditors to trace money and assets and easier for debtors to hide them ...
The government has rolled out a series of measures to relieve the economic impact brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Introduced under the second round Anti-epidemic Fund, the Employment Support Scheme (ESS) has come under the spotlight as it aims to provide wage subsidies to employers against their undertaking to spend all subsidies on paying wages to their employees and not to implement redundancy during the subsidy period ...
In early April, the United States approved the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”) authorizing $349 billion in a small business lending program called the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”). Depleted within days by the overwhelming response from businesses across the country, Congress authorized an additional $310 billion for this program on April 23. With government money, however, comes government oversight ...
State and local governments throughout the nation are struggling to address the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, enacted by Congress on March 28, 2020 appears to provide insufficient funding, and many state and local governments need more federal financial assistance ...
On May 14, 2020, San Francisco Mayor London Breed issued a second extension of the City’s commercial eviction moratorium and rent deferral program for small businesses with less than $25 Million in 2019 gross receipts. The extension grants rent relief for rent due and payable through June 16, 2020. On April 15, 2020, Mayor Breed previously extended the original order through May 17, 2020 ...
The Treasury Department has issued a form application to be used for SBA Payroll Protection Program (PPP) borrowers to seek loan forgiveness, along with instructions for completing the form and an accompanying worksheet. The application form, instructions and worksheet may be located by clicking on this link: https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/3245-0407-SBA-Form-3508-PPP-Forgiveness-Application ...
Despite the restrictions on activity affecting Hong Kong since the beginning of the year, there have been several enforcement cases reported which can provide some useful lessons or reminders for intermediaries. Approvals involve due diligence A requirement for approval for a transaction indicates that the transaction is unusual or involves material risk ...
On 16 March 2020, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) published its 2019 Financial Review of the Securities Industry. This is an annual review which contains statistical information about the financial situation of firms licensed for type 1 (dealing in securities) or type 8 (securities margin financing) regulated activities ...
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a circular on 27 March 2020 reminding the industry of the importance of compliance with the suitability obligation. Deacons’ client alert, which you can access here provides a succinct summary of the sources of the suitability obligation and the SFC’s FAQs on the subject. The alert also drew attention to the sampling and monitoring obligations under FAQ 10, which are frequently overlooked ...
In a recent enforcement action, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a public reprimand and a HK$19.6 million fine to a licensed corporation (LC) for a range of breaches and internal control shortcomings, including failures relating to: 1. AML 2. Authorisation for transactions 3. Record keeping 4. Handling of client complaints 5. Telephone recording 6. Margin lending 7 ...
On 7 May 2020, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) jointly issued the Regulations on Funds of Securities and Futures Investment by Foreign Institutional Investors (PBOC & SAFE Announcement [2020] No. 2, the New Regulations available here in Chinese), and the Policy Q&A No.1 clarifying certain details in the New Regulations (available here in Chinese). The official implementation date for the New Regulations is 6 June 2020 ...
On 28 April 2020, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and the Competition Commission entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the intention to enhance their cooperation and exchange of information, so as to allow each regulator to perform their respective functions more effectively. This is the second MoU entered into by the Competition Commission with a Hong Kong regulator, and is the first MoU the Competition Commission entered into with a financial regulator ...
COVID-19 Although the first big wave of requests for repayment deferrals of banking and non-banking loans may seem to be over, a further one is likely just to come once some debtors realise the actual effects of COVID-19 crisis on their economic situation and the pandemic time frame for filing the requests for repayment deferrals will start approaching its end ...
The USCIS on Friday, May 15, sent a request to Congress for $1.2 billion in emergency funding, proposing to pay it back with a 10% surcharge on application filing fees. The immigration service is entirely funded by these filing fees and has seen a significant drop in applications due to the coronavirus pandemic. It said in the statement it expects a 61% drop in revenue through the end of the fiscal year ...
The 50th Earth Day has passed this year under the shadow of a global pandemic, where the immediacy of human health has eclipsed, for now, the focus on the long-term health of the planet and humanity’s place within it that had begun to preoccupy businesses and investors. From a corporate governance perspective, that is reasonable, as risks to short-term survival take precedence over the long-term planning and risk mitigation demanded by more epochal trends like climate change ...
With much fanfare, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has rolled out a series of headlines detailing its enforcement efforts in the wake of COVID-19. At the end of March, the government announced a kickback case against a marketer who allegedly steered patients towards COVID-19 and genetic cancer testing ...
