Did you know? A pilot program providing Hong Kong applicants with the opportunity to expedite their patent applications filed in China has been in place since 1 Jan 2023. The scheme allows Hong Kong permanent residents and entities legally registered in Hong Kong to request prioritized examination for their patent applications before the China National Intellectual Property Administration ...
Many billions of assets under management have already been tokenised. High profile managers such as Franklin Templeton, Abrdn, KKR, Mitsui and Hamilton Lane have already launched tokenised products. Whilst there is no doubt that this is a nascent space, and these assets still represent a tiny percentage of the funds industry, we expect this area to grow exponentially in the coming years. What is tokenisation? Tokenisation is the digital representation of "traditional" financial assets (e.g ...
Acting as a director of a company or incorporated body (whether incorporated in or under the laws of the Bailiwick of Guernsey or elsewhere) by way of business[1] is a regulated activity under The Regulation of Fiduciaries, Administration Businesses and Company Directors, etc (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2020 as amended (the "Fiduciaries Law") ...
On 25 April 2023, Guernsey introduced the Preferred Debts (Insurance Policyholders) (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Amendment Ordinance, 2023. That Ordinance effects changes to the Preferred Debts Law, 1983, which accords priority to certain preferred creditors in the event of insolvency. Full details of Guernsey's insolvency regime can be found here ...
The European Commission has adopted revised Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations on research and development agreements and specialisation agreements, as well as revised Horizontal Guidelines. This follows a thorough review of the existent rules ...
Vikas Shah MBE chats to Adam Wagner on the rule of law. Susanna Reid from ITV’s Good Morning Britain calls him “the barrister who kept the legal receipts”. Put simply, Adam knows more about the Covid regulations which upended our lives from March 2020 onwards than arguably anyone else in the country ...
Nope, we’re not referring to Elvis Presley’s Suspicious Minds but rather in relation to the perils consumers have been facing when falling into subscription traps set by traders ...
We would like to inform you that on July 10, 2023 the Federal Law No. 301-FZ “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On Protection of Competition” has been adopted (hereinafter – the “Law”, the “Fifth antimonopoly package”). The Law shall take effect as of September 01, 2023 ...
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 ...
Background FK Construction Limited (“FK”) was sub-contractor to ISG Retail Limited (“ISG”) for works involving roofing and cladding in relation to ISG’s Project Barberry. FK issued an application for payment of £1,691,679.94. ISG failed to issue a payment notice, submitting a pay less notice instead. The sum sought by FK was not paid, and FK referred the dispute to adjudication ...
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 ...
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 June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down its much-anticipated decision in Abitron Austria GmbH, et al. (“Abitron et al.”) v. Hetronic International, Inc. (“Hetronic”) regarding the extraterritorial reach of the Lanham Act, the comprehensive trademark statute in the United States ...
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 ...
When scoping a new development, sewerage and drainage may not be the first thing to spark everyone’s interest, but they are an essential component. Effective drainage is key to the functionality and success of any development. This article examines the legal position and regulations around drainage, with the aim of demystifying common queries and misconceptions ...
As the Building Safety Act 2022 slowly comes into force, the government has been required to publish various amendment Regulations that make clarifications and changes. It is no secret that the Building Safety Act 2022 (BSA) and its provisions are often difficult to untangle and interpret ...
