This summary draws together Beccar Varela’s reports on the coronavirus (COVID-19) legal news which may affect corporate law in Argentina. This edition brings together the reports sent between 05.02.2020 and 05.08.2020. Our COVID-19 Resource Center provides shortcuts to our circulars and links to relevant external websites. We have established a work team to coordinate attention to specific queries about how COVID-19 can affect business continuity ...
On August 1, 2016, the legislative rule promulgated to implement the Aboveground Storage Tank Act became effective. The Rule is 63 pages long and contains detailed requirements for registering, designing, installing, operating, maintaining and closing tanks subject to the AST Act. The following is a handy reference list of the more significant compliance deadlines established in the Rule ...
On February 1, 2012, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) and its Office of Oil and Gas (“OOG”) conducted what it named the “Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act Industry Workshop” at the Marriott Town Center in Charleston, West Virginia (“Workshop”). For those of you who may have missed all or a portion of the Workshop, the following is a summary of the presentations by the various DEP speakers ...
“ESG” is an acronym that is being used with growing frequency across the investment community. ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance criteria, which are increasingly used by socially conscious investors when deciding whether or not to invest in a company. Environmental criteria are effectively a company’s green credentials. Social criteria relate to the people the company works with and the community it serves ...
On 19 January 2022, the Scottish Government approved legislation that will require local authorities to set up licensing schemes for short-term lets, and require all short-term let properties to hold a suitable licence ...
On top of the multiple challenges hitting retail and leisure landlords and occupiers arising from COVID-19, the news that Intu has had to write down the value of its shopping centre portfolio by nearly £2 billion came as further bad news. Intu owns multiple high-profile retail and leisure locations across the UK (including The Trafford Centre in Manchester and the Lakeside complex in Essex) and on 12 March was widely reported as being at risk of insolvency ...
We have recently witnessed several Swedish governmental decisions and recommendations that restrict citizens and businesses, in order to reduce social contact due to the outbreak of Covid-19. However, so far the authorities have not made any decrees that force tenants to close their businesses, such as restaurants and shops, or that prevent landlords from fulfilling their duty to provide the premises ...
Hydrogen is seen by many as the fuel of the future, a substance that can provide heat through combustion, or electrical power from fuel cells, emitting only water in the process. Its potential usefulness, specifically its ability to replace fossil fuels without generating greenhouse gases, makes it the poster child for clean energy. There are various ways of producing hydrogen, but currently most of it is done in the most cost-efficient way, by steam reforming ...
Dramatic changes in global climate have helped to wake up the consciousness of States on the significance of environmental issues in the last fourty years. Before then countries focused their energies on relentless industrial development with little or no attention to its impact on the environment. Scientific evidence has shown that unbridled development leads to loss of environmental capital, sometimes an irreversible phenomenon ...
Ownership of mines and minerals separately to surface land poses a risk for developers that must be assessed and mitigated as appropriate. It is not uncommon for mines and minerals to be owned separately to the land at the surface and in certain areas of the country, particularly the north, it is frequently encountered ...
Separate ownership of mines and minerals poses a risk for developers that must be assessed and mitigated as appropriate. The basic rule of property ownership is that the owner of land owns up to the heavens and down to the centre of the earth. Following this common law presumption, mines and minerals are presumed to be owned by the surface landowner, unless it is shown that they have been severed and therefore in separate ownership ...
1. Introduction Equinor’s pioneering «Hywind Tampen» project, set to become the biggest floating wind farm in the world and scheduled to commence construction in late 2022, will mark the first foray into offshore wind production in Norway. Further, the areas «Utsira Nord» (floating turbines) and «Sørlige Nordsjø II» (bottom fixed turbines), both in the North Sea, have as from 1 January 2021 been opened for development ...
The Government has published its response to questions regarding “in occupation” higher-risk buildings. Part 4 of the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) contains provision about the management of building safety risks in occupied higher-risk buildings. The draft Higher-Risk (Key Buildings Information etc) (England) Regulations 2023 sets out in more detail the allocation of responsibilities and obligations to be provided under that Part ...
A commercial lease does not end on the sole basis that the lessee declares bankruptcy; to the contrary, the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (“BIA”) provides that the property of the bankrupt, including the lease, is vested in the trustee. In fact, the terms of the lease are what make it possible for the lessor to terminate the lease should the lessee declare bankruptcy ...
The Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane (the “Minister”) recently gazetted the Broad-Based Black Socio-Economic Empowerment Charter for the South African Mining and Minerals industry, 2017 (the “2017 Mining Charter”), which comes into effect on the date of publication ...
On 15 April 2016, the Minister of Mineral Resources, Mosebenzi Zwane (the “Minister”), unexpectedly published the draft Reviewed Broad Based Black-Economic Empowerment Charter for the South African Mining and Minerals Industry, 2016 (“draft reviewed Mining Charter”). The timing of its publication means that the fate of the Chamber of Mines’ current High Court application now hangs in the balance ...
UK REACH (Registration, Authorisation, Evaluation and Restriction of Chemicals) is the UK’s post-Brexit chemicals regulatory framework for the Great Britain (GB) market. It is regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and has the overall aim of ensuring the protection of human health and the environment from the use of chemicals. UK REACH places responsibility for understanding and managing the risks associated with the use of chemicals on those who place them on the market (i.e ...
Revised EPC regulations: Where commercial premises larger than 500m² are frequently visited by the public and have an EPC, it must now be displayed at the premises. This new requirement was introduced by the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012, which came into force on 9 January 2013. They replace all existing regulations on energy performance certificates, display energy certificates and air conditioning inspections ...
The underwriters have priced the deal. The underwriting agreement has been signed. The issuer has returned its focus to running its business and the underwriters have moved on to the next deal. All that is left is for the lawyers to document the terms and to ensure that the underwriters are in a position to move money at closing. Then, a day or two after pricing, the plant unexpectedly blows up ...
The March 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) contains a number of provisions that help borrowers with federally backed mortgage loans. Among these are forbearance protections for borrowers with single-family loans and multifamily loans. However, only one of the forbearance provisions has a clearly defined period when the rights are available ...
If you have ever had a project on land on which wetlands or other “waters of the U.S.” were present, you know that project was more expensive because of the costs of permitting and mitigation for wetland losses, or the presence of wetlands may have resulted in abandonment or significant revision of the project to minimize losses of wetlands or other waters of the U.S. In their prior two “waters of the U.S.” decisions, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook Cty. v. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U ...
The Supreme Court makes clear that a party that has started to clean up contamination caused by another party is also deemed to be a business operator. This gives rise to joint and several liability for the original contamination. The fact that remedial work was intended to reduce the environmental impact is of no importance. Background A company which was later incorporated into JM Värmdöstrand (“JM”) operated a casting works from the 1940s to the 1980s on a site in Oxelösund ...
