The UK ceased to be part of the EU customs union at 23:00 GMT on 31 December 2020. The UK is now considered by the EU to be a “third country” and as such VAT treatment of UK pleasure craft in EU waters and EU pleasure craft entering UK waters will be affected. This update seeks to outline the post-Brexit position on the payment of VAT for existing pleasure boat owners in the UK, and for those looking to dip their toes in the water this season ...
Not surprisingly, COVID-19 business interruption insurance disputes dominated media headlines for most of 2020. Nonetheless, there were a number of other insurance rulings that will undoubtedly shape the coverage landscape. Policyholders enjoyed a number of significant wins including significant victories related to COVID-19 business interruption cases. The start of a new year gives us an opportunity to highlight some of 2020’s most notable coverage decisions ...
For the first quarterly update of the year, we look back at some of the key employment law cases from the past three months and the lessons we can learn from them. Discrimination The case of Higgs v Farmors School considered whether Christian beliefs that gender cannot be fluid and that someone cannot change their biological sex or gender were protected beliefs under the Equality Act 2010. Mrs Higgs is a Christian and was employed in Farmor’s school as a pastoral administrator ...
A change in administrations from Republican to Democratic usually ushers in increased enforcement, regulation and strategic initiatives. Most of the Trump regulations and initiatives will likely be scrapped where possible. They will be replaced by rules and guidance documents that have been held in abeyance during the previous administration, as well as numerous new initiatives ...
In recent years, Russia has focused on regulating its IT area. In particular, this has been needed due to the increasing number of cases, when prohibited information has been distributed on various large Internet resources, such as a social network. However, according to Russian government agencies, despite the risks of possible sanctions, many foreign companies still do not respond quickly enough to government requests, or ignore the demands to remove prohibited information ...
An Eleventh Circuit panel has breathed new life into a long-running, $248 million False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam case, United States ex rel. Bibby v. Mortgage Investors Corp.,[1] reversing the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendants.[2] Materiality lay at the heart of the case, which involved allegations that the defendant finance companies misled the U.S ...
An Eleventh Circuit panel has breathed new life into a long-running, $248 million False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam case, United States ex rel. Bibby v. Mortgage Investors Corp.,[1] reversing the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the defendants.[2] Materiality lay at the heart of the case, which involved allegations that the defendant finance companies misled the U.S ...
It is common knowledge among many human resources professionals that religious organizations generally are protected from religious discrimination lawsuits under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and most state anti-discrimination laws. For example, a Baptist organization may apply a preference for members of the Baptist Church in its hiring decisions ...
Bradley’s Government Enforcement and Investigations Practice Group is pleased to present the False Claims Act: 2020 Year in Review, our annual review of significant False Claims Act (FCA) cases, developments and trends. Despite the pandemic and the smallest recoveries for the Department of Justice in over a decade, FCA enforcement remains robust. As always, the healthcare industry remains the most frequent subject of FCA cases and investigation ...
Leases often include language that gives a tenant the option to purchase the leased property during or at the end of the lease term. The Michigan Supreme Court has held that these options to purchase, or “options” as they are commonly referred, are “simply a contract by which the owner of the property agrees with another that he shall have a right to buy the property at a fixed price within a specified time ...
Introduction In the recent Industrial Court Award of Harry Wong Wei Chen v Petroliam Nasional Berhad [Award No.11 of 2021] dated 4 January 2021, the Industrial Court upheld the dismissal of an employee (“the Claimant”) on account of several allegations of sexual and workplace harassment. An interesting point in the instant case was the absence of corroborative witnesses in respect of several of the complaints against the Claimant ...
Some facts and figures that set out the landscape of merger control, antitrust enforcement and competition litigation in Portugal in 2020. Interim Measures The PCA ordered the Portuguese Professional Football League to suspend its decision preventing teams in the First and Second Football Leagues from signing players that have unilaterally terminated their contracts due to the COVID-19 pandemic ...
In a decision that could be a game-changer for cookie and candy manufacturers, the Third Circuit has recently denied trade dress protection for the shape of the popular Pocky cookie. The Pocky is a long, thin Japanese cookie stick that is almost completely dipped in chocolate, except for the very bottom. Ezaki Glico created the Pocky in 1966 and obtained two trade dress registrations to protect the configuration of the cookie ...
We would like to inform you that several laws, that will have a significant impact on IT and data protection regulation, were adopted at the end of 2020 (“Amendments”). Further rules for blacklisting Internet resources The first amendment to Russian law is aimed at securing guarantees, for citizens’ rights, to freely search, access and disseminate information ...
1. Background to the case The case concerned a young, female employee in a mechanical workshop, who felt she had been sexually harassed by two of the enterprise’s customers. Customer No 1 had on one occasion, while the female employee was sitting on the floor in a forward-leaning position, performing work, put his hands on her lower back, under her top ...
As we continue through Lockdown 3, we are seeing how children can be caught in the middle of family disputes involving separated parents trying to navigate living arrangements between different family bubbles. With that in mind, it appears to be more important than ever within the context of private law children proceedings for the courts and authorities to be alert to the views of the children when determining what should happen ...
The “right to be forgotten” (“RTBF”) has been central to the global debate over the balance between individual privacy and freedom of information and of the media in recent years. Such right has been affirmed by the European Court of Justice in a milestone case in 2014, as well as later in the UK, although its application in other countries remains uncertain ...
In Joanne Properties Ltd v Moneything Capital Ltd and Anor [2020] EWCA Civ 1541, England’s Court of Appeal had to decide whether the parties had entered into a binding contract of compromise contained in written communications passing between their respective solicitors. The Court below had held that a binding contract had been made, despite the fact that the correspondence in question had been marked “subject to contract” ...
A recent UK Supreme Court Judgment, the Financial Conduct Authority v Arch Insurance (UK Ltd) & Ors [2021] UKSC 1, clarified whether a variety of insurance policy wordings cover business interruption losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and public health measures taken by UK authorities in response to the pandemic from March 2020 ...
The recent judgment from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on Halliburton Company v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48, raised important questions about the requirement that there can not only be no actual bias, but also no apparent bias on the part of arbitrators in favour of or against any party in arbitration and also about the obligation of arbitrators in international arbitrations to make disclosure of multiple appointments concerning the same or overlapping subje
Following the renewal of the state of emergency, Decree 3-A/2021 of14January of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, determines the closure of various types of establishments. Inthiscontext, the employment support measures were amended by Decree-Law 6-C/2021 of 15 January and Decree-Law 6-E/2021 of15January, which we summarised below. 1 ...
In December 2018, section 53.1 was added to the Patent Act (the? Act?) Allowing reference to be made to communications exchanged with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office ("CIPO") During the prosecution of an application with respect? [... ] to the construction of a claim.? This concept is more commonly known as? File wrapper estoppel ...
&The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in BGT Holdings LLC v. United States, 1 recently held that the government does not have the discretion to deny a contractor's request for equitable adjustment (REA) under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.245-1 (Government Property) where the conditions specified in that clause are present and the contractor is able to show financial loss ...
