When the Supreme Court in 2020 issued its decision in Liu v. SEC, placing limits upon the Securities and Exchange Commission's ability to obtain disgorgement, many observers believed that the decision would significantly diminish the SEC's capability to seek and obtain significant disgorgement recoveries in civil enforcement actions alleging violations of the securities laws ...
As seen in Bank Director Strategic planning is one of the most important roles of a financial institution’s board of directors. Since the 2008 financial crisis, financial institution boards have dealt with the emergence of fintechs as a primary consideration in developing their strategic plans ...
Do social media users have a fair choice between giving up their privacy and paying a subscription fee? The European Data Protection Board has given its opinion on what’s fair for large platforms in the latest shake up of personalised online advertising. When it comes to justifying processing personal data for targeted advertising under EU data protection laws, Meta (along with other online platforms) has been feeling the squeeze ...
Congress reached agreement on the third round of coronavirus-related relief measures (totaling approximately $900 Billion) as this issue was being written. The relevant statutory language is part of the massive Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the “Act”) and was released on December 21, 2020. Passage by the House and Senate was swift, and approval by the President is expected ...
as published in the Fall 2021 issue of West Virginia Banker magazine As the world (hopefully) comes out of the COVID-19 pandemic later this year, the way we conduct business is changing. The banking industry, described by one commentator as “the most old-school of the old-school professions,” is criticized as being resistant to change. As one article described it, “the fundamental ways that financial institutions function have not changed with the times ...
The world continues to come to grips with the daily changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools contemplate opening. Some do, while others do not. Some professional and college sports teams play games to empty stadiums. Some businesses are open, with restrictions, while others are not. Lawsuits are being filed by businesses that think they should be permitted to reopen like their neighbors who already have ...
It is a common concern among commentators on international relations that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to deglobalisation. Indeed, the havoc wrought by the pandemic in the global economy raises some unsettling questions about the fragility of global supply chains, especially in critical industries, and about the interdependency of national economies. It is nudging sentiment towards reshoring, promoting domestic production and protectionism ...
Lauren Bowkett is a fraud and financial crime expert in the Business Crime and Compliance Team at Shoosmiths. She is an expert in confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (‘POCA’) and has successfully intervened in numerous POCA cases to assert her clients third party interest rights ...
One of the common complaints that commercial entities have about international arbitration in Thailand is the costs. Whilst in the past, international arbitration has been promoted as being cheaper than court litigation, in practice this has not always been the case, particularly in the case of complex commercial disputes or investor state arbitration. Third party funding can dramatically change this landscape ...
On 21 July 2016, National Treasury released the third draft of the regulations under the Financial Markets Act, 2012 (the “Third Draft Regulations”). The previous draft of the regulations was released in June 2015. The Third Draft Regulations are, together with pending legislation, aimed at progressing the financial sector reform strategy for South Africa ...
Most commentary around AI looks at the big picture or the future of work, but in this article we look at some practical data protection implications for businesses that are considering implementing AI systems. 1. Automated Decision-Making There are specific rules in both the EU and UK GDPR (in this article we will refer to both together) covering individuals’ rights when processing involves solely automated decision-making, including profiling ...
At Spilman Thomas & Battle, we talk with lending clients regularly about their collection options against borrowers who have defaulted in their obligations. Many are surprised to learn how varied and wide their toolbox actually is. Debts that look dead in the water may yet have air in the lungs ...
Court decisions regarding company names are rare. So the recent decision of the Western Cape High Court in the case of Bloomberg’s Posterity Investments (Pty) Ltd v The Registrar of Companies and Bloomberg LLP is worth discussing. What makes company name cases interesting from an intellectual property (IP) law point of view is that they deal with issues that are very similar to the issues that are dealt with in trade mark infringement and passing-off cases ...
What happened? Two directors of VTL, a Jersey company, devised a fraudulent scheme. They purported to provide investors with a mechanism to decrease income tax exposure. As it turned out, the scheme was a fraud on the customers. It was also a fraud on VTL: instead of turning over around £4.55 million in proceeds from the scheme to VTL, the directors kept these funds for themselves ...
Perhaps, one of the facts which creates the highest expectations among those of us who manage the second or third defense line is risk materialization. That is to say, for a risk to become an event and generate some kind of impact. And from there on, the possibility of verifying the effectiveness of the controls designed, the residual risk and feeding back the matrix ...
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 ...
Businesses in the UK have for some time been subject to strict rules on misleading advertising, contained in the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 (the “BPRs”) ...
Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group's annual employment law conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its' impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as "law" or "justice" ...
Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group’s annual employment law1 conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its’ impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as “law” or “justice” ...
What is the CTA? The CTA was enacted on January 1st, 2021 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act to prevent the use of companies to evade anti-money laundering rules or to hide other illegal activities. Under the CTA companies will be required to report information regarding its beneficial owners with a beneficial ownership registry maintained by the United States Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) ...
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is aimed at extensive harmonization of data protection in the EU, and will be applicable with effect from May 25, 2018. The GDPR will replace the current EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) and will be directly applicable in all EU member states. The new regulations mean that German employers will also have to prepare for changes as regards the protection of employees’ personal data ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has been not only causing major social upheaval but disrupting business development and the economy as well. Nevertheless, since last March, we have seen many developments and new projects involving self-driving vehicles (SDV). Here is an overview ...
The $26bn acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft certainly caught the eye this week.A business that is little more than 14 years old and wasn’t generating operating profits (under GAAP) selling for almost ten times revenue – that’s some deal.Yet it doesn’t take a great deal of investigation into some of the non-financial statistics to see why such an eye watering price might be justifiable:LinkedIn has 430 million members and is growing fast ...
An LTAF is a UK authorised fund which offers greater flexibility in terms of assets that it can invest in than other types of UK authorised fund. It has more liquidity than more traditional fund structures such as private equity limited partnerships ...
