On 23 June 2023, the Council of the European Union adopted its eleventh package of restrictive measures against Russia, which supplements those discussed in our previous newsflashes_. This latest package aims to tackle the circumvention of previously adopted sanctions and also adds additional restrictions ...
On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., v. University of North Carolina (collectively “SFFA”) that Harvard and the University of North Carolina (“UNC”) violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by impermissibly considering race when making undergraduate admissions decisions ...
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has published an update to its guidance on misleading green claims that demonstrates its collaboration with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and their joint commitment to protect consumers from 'greenwashing'. What are green claims? We discussed green claims and the ASA’s and CMA’s guidance in our previous article “Are your green claims compliant?” ...
The key issue before the formal body of advisers to the UK sovereign was whether the trustee of a settlement “exercised for a proper purpose” an express power contained in the trust deed to add and exclude discretionary objects, having added a purpose trust as an object and removed all family members comprising the entire class of objects. The Background The trust settlors were two brothers who founded Formosa Plastics Group, one of the largest business conglomerates in Taiwan ...
Legal service providers (LSPs) in Bermuda are encouraged to contribute to the development and implementation of new and existing legislation in response to the ever-evolving needs of their clients ...
The recently released Rose Review progress report 2023 found that female founders defied a challenging economic climate to build more new businesses last year than ever before. The data insight and tracking that built on the inaugural findings of 2019, discovered that women-led companies had used ‘innovation and entrepreneurialism’ to tackle higher inflation and macroeconomic uncertainty to launch over 150,000 new companies in 2022 – more than twice as many as in 2018 ...
‘Flexibility becomes the norm as businesses look to build resilience in their real estate portfolio and workplace strategy.’ That is the key takeaway from Colliers’ recently released Global Occupier Outlook 2023 report, which found that two-thirds of corporate occupiers active in EMEA anticipate that up to 20% of their commercial real estate portfolio will move from traditional leases to flex leases within the next five years ...
"Leave this to me, I'm British… I know how to queue."{1} The Energy Services Operator (ESO) recently published a consultation which sets out a vision of medium-term reform for connections to (or affecting) the Transmission Network, whether they are directly connected or embedded ...
Labour party donor and entrepreneur, Dale Vince, has put the spotlight back on the controversy surrounding the tax treatment of carried interest received by private equity fund managers, by instructing The Good Law Project to serve a “pre-action protocol” letter on HMRC seeking judicial review of its practice of taxing such carried interest as capital gains as opposed to income ...
Figures published in May by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) record a further decline in Trade Union membership in the UK. Comparable data is only available as far back as 1995, but shows a clear decline over that nearly 30-year period to a level where, as at 2022, the proportion of UK workers in a union has declined to 23.1% - the lowest figure recorded in that time period ...
The economic landscape continues to place mortgage customers under significant pressure. Following discussions between the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and some of the largest mortgage lenders in the UK, the Mortgage Charter was signed to address measures aimed at helping customers who may be struggling to meet their mortgage repayments amid the cost-of-living crisis ...
Following the submission of the first Draft of the Artificial Intelligence Act (”AI Act”) on April 21, 2021 by the European Commission for regulating artificial intelligence (AI) (we reported here), the European Parliament also published its final position on June 14, 2023. Thus, the next step now is the trilogue between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission ...
At the end of its 2023 term, the United States Supreme Court handed down several buzz-worthy decisions. Two opinions may have substantial and lasting impacts on employers and their efforts to promote diversity and inclusion. In Groff v. DeJoy, Postmaster General, the Court addressed religious accommodation and clarified the parameters of its “undue burden” standard set forth in its prior decision in Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hardison, 432 U. S. 63 (1977). 2023 U.S. LEXIS 2790 ...
On June 15, 2023, Law No. 21,577 (hereinafter, the "New Law") was enacted, which strengthens the prosecution of organized crime offenses, establishes special techniques for their investigation, and reinforces the confiscation of profits. The New Law modernizes the current criminal offenses related to organized crime and, at the same time, incorporates and improves the specialized techniques of investigation ...
Who qualifies as a Politically Exposed Person? Politically exposed persons (or “PEPs”) are individuals who have been entrusted with a prominent public function ...
With less than a month to go until the Consumer Duty comes into force on 31 July 2023, it is crucial that businesses are asking themselves the proper questions, reflecting on the right things, and having the honest discussions to ensure that they can maximise the remaining days left before the 31 July 2023 deadline ...
Zoltan Balazs Kovacs prepared a summary to the key questions regarding the EU Whistleblowing Directive and the related change of legislation in Hungary with the act entering into force on 24 July 2023. 1 ...
Introduction The sphere of asset tracing and recovery, particularly the extent of tools available around the world, is rightly attracting more attention in cross-border fraud and investigations. This includes projects at the international level, such as UNCITRAL's ongoing efforts (for which the author acts as an expert), as well as attention being given in national legislatures around the world ...
On Monday, June 26, 2023, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) issued the first two global sustainability standards: IFRS S1, General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information, and IFRS S2, Climate-related Disclosures. These standards are intended to improve confidence in the sustainability disclosures made by companies to guide investment decisions ...
On June 14, 2023, the National Congress approved the bill that creates the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service and the National System of Protected Areas (the "Bill"). The purpose of the Bill is the conservation of biological diversity and the protection of the national natural heritage through the preservation, restoration and sustainable use of genes, species, and ecosystems ...
After a rollercoaster of a ride, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill has received Royal Assent and is now an Act of Parliament. From the initial proposal of an all-singing, all-dancing automatic revocation of thousands of retained EU laws by the end of this year, to a more restrained revocation of just under 600 irrelevant or redundant laws, the Bill will not deliver the big bang that it initially promised ...
It is often acknowledged that, like fine wine, some things get better with age. However, the same is not always true of trust deeds – particularly those that may have been drafted using a mechanical typewriter or require service of notices by Telex. While families grow and evolve, legislation is regularly revised and expanded upon and technology continues to develop at an incredibly fast pace, trusts often remain unchanged ...
ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence program, has grabbed wide attention since its first introduction to the public. It has become the fastest-growing consumer application in history with more than 100 million monthly active users. People are amazed by its ability to respond intelligently to complex queries. ChatGPT is only one of the many AI tools that are being developed and used in various industries to improve efficiency and customer service ...
On 28 June 2023, Parliament adopted a new law on non-profit organisations and foundations (the “Law”). The Law aims to simplify and modernise the legal framework created by the century-old law of 21 April 1928, by replacing its outdated provisions. The main changes introduced by the Law are as follows: Significant simplification of the administrative procedures for incorporating and managing non-profit organisations ...
