Background Companies licensed to conduct engineering or contracting activities in Abu Dhabi must be classified by the Contractors and Consultants Classification and Engineers Registration Office at the Abu Dhabi Department of Town Planning and Municipalities. The applicable regulations setting out the classification requirements are not new and date back to 2009, although implementation was delayed until 2014. Subsequent to the 2009 regulations, new regulations were introduced in 2018 ...
The Financial Transactions Reporting Act 2018 (FTRA), which was enacted on May 25, 2018, imposed a mandatory requirement on land developers to register with the Compliance Commission (the Commission) ...
In a short, unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an ERISA pension plan administrator should have treated a deceased participant's registered domestic partner as a surviving spouse and granted his claim for survivor benefits ...
Last month, a California appellate court rejected an insurer's arguments and affirmed a large punitive damages award against the insurer, providing a fresh roadmap for policyholders to obtain such relief when insurers engage in certain bad-faith practices. Mazik v. GEICO General Insurance Company (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 455 involved a policyholder's claim for the $50,000 limits under his underinsured motorist policy ...
Among the many benefits of investing in a qualified opportunity fund (QOF) is the deferral of tax on current capital gains. Specifically, if an amount equivalent to a current capital gain is invested in a QOF within 180 days of the realization event, the tax generally will not come due until the earlier of the year in which the QOF investment is disposed of or 2026 ...
Last month, a California appellate court reversed the trial court and ruled that a subcontractor's insurer had a duty to defend an additional-insured general contractor in underlying construction-defect litigation. In McMillin Homes Construction, Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Insurance Company (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 1042, a general contractor was an additional insured under a commercial general liability policy issued to its roofing subcontractor ...
On 13 June 2019, the Minister of Public Works and Public Housing (“MPW”) issued Regulation No. 09/PRT/M/2019 on Guidelines on Licensing Services for Foreign Construction Business Entities (“Reg No. 9/2019”) replacing:(i) MPW Regulation No. 10/PRT/M/2014 on Guidelines on Issuing Licenses to Representatives of Foreign Construction Service Corporate Bodies (“Reg No. 10/2014”); and (ii) MPW Regulation No ...
On July 17, 2019, the Ohio Supreme Court resolved any doubt regarding the scope of Ohio’s construction statute of repose (R.C. 2305.131) and with it, delivered a clear victory to construction contractors in Ohio. In New Riegel Local School District Board of Education vs. Buehrer Group Architecture and Engineering, Inc., et al ...
With the State of Illinois’ recent legalization of recreational cannabis, municipalities have started to debate whether to “opt in” to allow such businesses. While municipalities cannot prohibit the use of recreational cannabis, they can decide whether recreational cannabis businesses are allowed to operate within their boundaries. Local officials are just starting to consider the pros and cons of recreational cannabis businesses in their communities ...
Under final rules issued last month, employers can offer two new types of health reimbursement arrangements or HRAs: individual coverage HRAs ("ICHRAs") and excepted benefit HRAs ("EBHRAs"). HRAs are self-funded, account based plans that reimburse employees for qualified medical expenses on a tax-free basis. The final rules apply for plan years beginning on or after January 1, 2020. While the rules are complex, the new ICHRAs and EBHRAs offer new planning opportunities for employers ...
As the first of several deadlines under the Qualified Opportunity Zone (“QOZ”) program rapidly approaches, investors still on the sidelines are discovering that time is running out on the ability to take advantage of the full suite of tax benefits under the program. December 31, 2019 marks the last day in which investors may roll over capital gains into Qualified Opportunity Funds (“QOF”) and obtain a 15% reduction in the amount of the deferred gain ...
On September 1, 2019, AB2342 and its new timing requirements for issuing certain eviction notices and for answering eviction lawsuits go into effect in California. AB2343 amends California Code of Civil Procedure Sections 1161(2) and (3) regarding 3-day notices to pay or quit and 3-day notices based on neglect or failure to perform other conditions or covenants of the lease or agreement ...
The information in this article is based on new regulations issued by the City of San Francisco, and supersedes the article published in early June of this year. San Francisco has recently enacted the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA), a law that provides San Francisco nonprofits with the right to purchase apartment buildings of three or more units before they are put on the market ...
The Association of Fire Prevention Enterprises of Cambodia (“AFPE”) in conjunction with the National Quality Inspection Centre for fire Safety Systems (“NICS”) hosted a seminar on 9 September 2019 on the introduction of the National Standard Book on Fire Safety Systems – Building Design Code ...
On the 21st of August 2019 Notification dated 21 August 2019 the General Department of Taxation (“GDT“) issued Notification 17517 GDT on the Second Reminder of the Payment of the Property Tax reminding owners of immovable property to file their annual Property Tax declaration before the deadline of 30 September 2019 ...
Recently, the IRS has intensified enforcement of information reporting compliance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Information reporting penalties apply in addition to any penalties assessed for failures to meet the employer shared responsibility provisions, known as the employer mandate ...
For those insurers that seek to circumvent California’s notice-prejudice rule, the California Supreme Court has just made that more difficult. In Pitzer College v. Indian Harbor Insurance Company, 845 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2017), the Ninth Circuit certified questions to the California Supreme Court, including: “Is California's common law notice-prejudice rule a fundamental public policy for the purpose of choice-of-law analysis?” (Pitzer College, 845 F.3d at 994 ...
For those insurers that seek to circumvent California’s notice-prejudice rule, the California Supreme Court has just made that more difficult. In Pitzer College v. Indian Harbor Insurance Company, 845 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2017), the Ninth Circuit certified questions to the California Supreme Court, including: “Is California's common law notice-prejudice rule a fundamental public policy for the purpose of choice-of-law analysis?” (Pitzer College, 845 F.3d at 994 ...
For those insurers that seek to circumvent California’s notice-prejudice rule, the California Supreme Court has just made that more difficult. In Pitzer College v. Indian Harbor Insurance Company, 845 F.3d 993 (9th Cir. 2017), the Ninth Circuit certified questions to the California Supreme Court, including: “Is California's common law notice-prejudice rule a fundamental public policy for the purpose of choice-of-law analysis?” (Pitzer College, 845 F.3d at 994 ...
What’s happened? After much media coverage regarding the potential change in the law concerning properties owned in common in Dubai, Law 6 of 2019 was introduced on 4 September 2019 (the New Law). The New Law is an important development for Dubai as most real estate is held by way of property owned in common. That is, a real estate development that has been subdivided into apartments, offices, retail units and/or common areas ...
The final rule promulgated by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (Federal Reserve), the Farm Credit Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the National Credit Union Administration, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) went into effect on July 1, 2019, to implement the portion of the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act mandating regulated lending institutions to accept private flood insurance policies ...
The Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO), which develops standard insurance policy forms for use by insurers, recently released its first cannabis-related endorsements (Cannabis Endorsements) to the businessowner policy form. This new release provides five cannabis exclusion endorsements; two of the endorsements change property coverage for cannabis, and the other three endorsements change liability coverage for cannabis ...
In order to improve mortgage services to achieve among other targets, disclosure, punctuality, simplicity and affordability as well as to adapt them to the development of laws, technology and public needs, the government has issued Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/ Head of the National Land Agency (“MOA”) Regulation No ...
The False Claims Act (“FCA”) is one of the most powerful anti-fraud weapons available to the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”). It permits treble damages and makes penalties available for each false claim the defendant submitted to a federal payor. The DOJ effectively deployed the FCA against mortgage lenders in the aftermath of the sub-prime lending crisis to obtain, in some cases, billion-dollar settlements ...
