On May 7th, 2007, the British Columbia Court of Appeal overturned the certification of a major pension class proceeding in Ruddell v. BC Rail Ltd., 2007 BCCA 269. In doing so, the court ruled that BC Rail had properly invoked its right to have the dispute determined by arbitration. The court found that, in the circumstances of this case, arbitration took precedence over the class proceeding, which had to be stayed ...
On 6 February 2007, the State Council promulgated the Regulations for the Administration of Commercial Franchising Operations. Although not stated in the Regulations, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOFCOM”) has indicated that the Measures for the Administration of Commercial Franchising Operations, issued on 30 December 2004 (as discussed in the 2005.1 issue of China Legal Update), will be repealed on the Regulations’ effective date, 1 May 2007 ...
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”) issued the Measures for the Administration of the Takeover of Listed Companies on 17 May 2006. Effective 1 September 2006, the Measures cover both takeovers and significant share acquisition activities in listed companies. The Measures apply to acquisitions by investors of listed companies. They impose disclosure and tender offer obligations upon investors crossing certain shareholding thresholds ...
The Federal Circuit, in an opinion written by Judge Rader and joined by Judges Lourie and Prost, has determined that a termination of a contract for the government’s convenience does not terminate obligations to perform warranty and software upgrade services under the contract. The Court of Federal Claims, in a well-reasoned opinion by Judge Miller, had determined otherwise ...
A director should seriously consider resigning in the following situations:• in the case of a material contravention of the law or violation of the corporation’s by-laws, its shareholders agreement or the corporation’s undertakings, if the contravention is not rectified promptly;• in the case of bankruptcy or insolvency, if the director is unable to obtain adequate protection from the trustee, the corporation’s creditors or other third parties;• if the corporation or the Boar
The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce upholds a strong position as one of the most important centres of international arbitration. The steady growth in the number of cases involving foreign parties that are administered by the Arbitration Institute convincingly demonstrates its worldwide popularity and reputation ...
On June 7, 2007, the National Assembly passed Bill 10, which amends the National Holiday Act and the Act Respecting Hours and Days of Admission to Commercial Establishments.Under the amended provisions of the National Holiday Act, June 24, the day of the National Holiday, will henceforth always be a public holiday, even when it falls on a Sunday, as is the case this year ...
Private Actions in Competition Law: Effective Redress for Consumers and BusinessResponse by Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP1. Introduction1.1 Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP welcomes the opportunity to comment on the issues raised by the OFT in its April 2007 Discussion Paper: Private Actions in Competition law: Effective Redress for Consumers and Business (the Discussion Paper). 1 ...
Ten years ago, we would not have been discussing this topic with the Chairman of the then Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Ten years ago, the MMC was a very different animal from today's Competition Commission. Ten years ago, the MMC was largely outside of the daily media spotlight, less transparent and much closer to government ...
The countdown has begun! Have the governance rules for your pension committee been set out in an internal by-law? If not, there’s no time to lose! The deadline is December 13, 2007.SourceIn Quebec, billions of dollars are managed by pension committees ...
It was gazetted on 14 May 2007 that the Employment (Amendment) Ordinance 2007 (the "Amendment Ordinance") will become effective on 13 July 2007 (except section 16 in relation to the requirement to keep wage and employment records, which will become effective on 13 January 2008).For details of the Amendment Ordinance, please see our HR & Pensions Newsletter Issue 2007.1 regarding the Employment (Amendment) Bill 2006 via this link: http://www.deacons.com ...
TABLE OF CONTENTSI. INTRODUCTIONII. WHAT ARE THE FACTORS DRIVING A RISING NUMBER OF CLASS ACTIONS IN THE PENSION CONTEXTIII KEY ELEMENTS OF THE CLASS PROCEEDING AND WHAT MAKES IT A SUITABLE VEHICLE FOR PENSION ACTIONSA. How Class Actions WorkB. Expansion of Class Actions in Canada1. Availability of Class Actions2. Advantage of Class Actions3. Class Proceeding Not the Only Way to Pursue Pension Related ClaimsIV. KEY ELEMENTS OF A CLASS PROCEEDING1. Filing2. Certification3 ...
Romania¡¦s yearly economic growth has triggered in the past few years an increased interest for investment in the existing domestic companies. Most of the financial investors seek to leverage their acquisitions and expect the possibility to use the target companies¡¦ assets to such purpose. This article will briefly review corporate limits and prevailing interpretation.Prohibition of financial assistanceRomania has implemented the provisions of art ...
In Hungary, Act XXXIII of 1995 on the Protection of Inventions by Patents (the “Patent Act”) is the key piece of legislation in respect of inventions created in employment relationships. The Act differentiates between employees’ inventions and service inventions in its provisions applicable to this domain ...
On April 25, 2007 the BC Government introduced Bill 31: the Human Rights Code (Mandatory Retirement Elimination) Amendment Act, 2007. Once the amendments are in force, the changes to the legislation are to be effective January 1, 2008.Currently, the BC Human Rights Code defines “age” as being an age of 19 years or more and less than 65 years. Following the amendment, “age” will be defined as being an age of 19 years or more ...
The purpose of this article is to provide a short update as to the legal and policy developments in the area of private enforcement of competition law. Regulatory scrutiny and judicial developments continue to be principally focussed on the issue of follow-on damages actions for infringements of competition law, especially in the cartel arena. However, as can be seen in the English High Court's recent judgement in SanDisk Corporation vs ...
The Employment (Amendment) Bill 2006 (the "Bill") was gazetted on 8 December 2006 and was read in the Legislation Council for the first time on 20 December 2006. The Bill proposes that commission be expressly included in the calculation of certain statutory payments under the Employment Ordinance (“EO”) ...
The Court of Final Appeal recently made a ruling in Poon Chau Nam v. Yim Siu Cheung t/a Yat Cheung Air-conditioning & Electric Co. casting light on determining whether a worker should be treated as an employee or an independent contractor under the Employees Compensation Ordinance ("ECO").This is an appeal case from the District Court and the Court of Appeal. The appellant worker suffered personal injury in a work-related accident at a building ...
First conviction on offence to make false or misleading statement to claim MPF benefitsAccording to section 43E of the Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Ordinance ("MPFSO"), a person who, in any document given to the MPFA, an approved trustee or an auditor of an approved trustee or of a registered scheme in connection with the MPFSO, makes a statement that the person knows to be false or misleading in a material respect, or recklessly makes a statement which is false or mislea
The Labour Law of the People's Republic of China ("PRC") came into effect on 1 January 1995. The PRC Labour Law sets out the basic legal framework for the administration of employment/labour relationships and is applicable to all labour/employment contracts entered into between a PRC entity (including any foreign invested company) as employer and an individual as employee rendering services in the PRC ...
In a previous article on this site , I suggested that the impact of Placanica was to leave the national courts in a bit of a hole ...
Enforcement of competition law by means of private actions (particularly private damages actions) is a hot topic. The European Commission has a stated policy objective of encouraging private actions and, at the UK level, private actions are becoming more prevalent in both the courts and before the Competition Appeal Tribunal. In particular, the English High Court's decision in Provimi has led to England being seen as an attractive jurisdiction for damages claims ...
With competition authorities across Europe increasingly keen to demonstrate their toughness when it comes to market-sharing and price-fixing, cartel-busting is very much flavour of the month. The European Commission is imposing larger and larger fines in order to ramp up its cartel-busting activities ...
The U.S. Department of Justice’s revised corporate charging policy, which was named after deputy attorney general Paul McNulty, was unveiled in December 2006. In the wake of its predecessor document, the 2003 Thompson Memo, we have seen a steady increase in the resolution of corporate criminal investigations without indictments or trials ...
