The two financial centres have long been considered twins, but where do the similarities end and the differences begin? Hong Kong, now entering its 15th week of protests, has been filled with increasingly incendiary rhetoric and escalating violence. This past weekend saw protesters lighting fires at an MTR station entrance, just outside the uber-luxe Bulgari boutique in Central ...
Cambodia has signed a Double Taxation Agreement (“DTA“) with Malaysia on the 3rd of September 2019 during the visit of Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to Phnom Penh. Under the DTA, double taxation will be avoided in that any tax paid in Cambodia by Malaysian companies in accordance with the DTA will be allowed as a credit against the tax payable in Malaysia on the same income, subject to the provisions of the tax laws of Malaysia ...
MCA UPDATE – JULY 2019 What When Summary 1. Notification of Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) with regards to filing / verification of KYC details of the directors 25.07.2019 The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (“MCA”) has notified the Companies (Appointment and Qualification of Directors) Third Amendment Rules, 2019 ...
What When Summary 1. Online reporting for filing of Annual Return on Foreign Liabilities and Assets (FLA Return) by Indian Companies 28.06 ...
A rose, said Shakespeare, by any other name would smell as sweet. But while the Bard may know his flowers, he clearly was no expert on branding Apples. Rodrigo Duterte, the Filipino president, would like to change his country’s moniker “because the Philippines is named after King Phillip”. He appears to be eager to distance his nation from its colonial past, the said monarch being a 16th century ruler of Spain ...
As of August 7th, 2018, the amendments of the Consumer Protection Law (CPL), which includes for the first time, the consumer protection in the field of electronic commerce (e-commerce), taking that as the contracting process or the goods, services and commercial information trading through data communication webs ...
In 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued regulations that prohibited long-term care facilities from entering into pre-dispute arbitration agreements with residents and their families. Shortly thereafter, those regulations were successfully challenged in federal court, and CMS has not attempted to enforce them. On July 18, 2019, CMS issued a final rule that will formally rescind the ban on pre-dispute arbitration agreements with long-term care residents ...
In Union of Medical Marijuana Patients v. City of San Diego, the California Supreme Court unanimously held that the City of San Diego failed to analyze the potential environmental impacts of its medical marijuana dispensary law. While the main issue in this case was the definition of a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the ruling has important ramifications for the legal cannabis market as a whole ...
The “good faith” requirement of a light-duty offer was just examined by the 10th District Court of Appeals and the Ohio Supreme Court with a somewhat surprising result. Light-duty job offers can be a good way for employers to minimize the payment of temporary total disability compensation and bring injured workers back to the workforce. However, these job offers must conform to very specific requirements under the Ohio Administrative Code ...
The U.S.-China trade dispute escalated yet again as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a fourth round of tariffs of 10 percent on an estimated $300 billion of goods imported from China not already subject to Section 301 tariffs. At the same time, the USTR continues to accept List 3 exclusion requests and is working to complete review of List 1 and List 2 exclusion requests. 1. USTR Announces Section 301 Tariffs on $300B of U.S ...
Reform is in the air for Central America’s tax systems. Alfredo Rodríguez, Diego Martín Menjívar, Armando Manzanares,Carlos Taboada and Diego Salto Van der Laatof Consortium Legal take a look. Central America’s tax systems have certainly evolved over the past few years. Looking ahead, the need to increase fiscal revenues and the lack of modernised systems will trigger further reforms in most of the countries ...
On August 19, 2019, the chairman of the National Credit Union Association issued a letter with guidance to all credit unions. Prior to August 19, hemp businesses had difficulty locating banks or other entities that would permit them to conduct normal merchant banking activities. That issue has, in part, been addressed by this letter of guidance. Questions remain, however, regarding many merchant services and whether FinCEN will issue a similar guidance ...
A website operator that embeds third party plugins on its website may become a joint controller in relation to the website visitors' personal data together with the third party service provider, according to a preliminary ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in case C-40/17 Fashion ID. The judgment upholds the broad interpretation of joint controllership of personal data established by the CJEU in its recent case law ...
In what appears to be a first under the False Claims Act, a case based on flawed cybersecurity has been settled, for nearly $9 million. On July 31, 2019, the Attorney General of New York announced that, alongside the U.S. Department of Justice, New York, eighteen other states, and the District of Columbia have reached an $8.6 million settlement with Cisco Systems, Inc. (“Cisco”) over sales of surveillance video software allegedly vulnerable to hacking ...
On August 14, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its Supplemental Decision, Order, and Notice to Show Cause in Cordúa Restaurants, Inc. and Steven Ramirez Rogelio Morales and Shearone Lewis, 368 NLRB No. 43 (2019). The decision resolves several important issues of first impression involving mandatory arbitration agreements following the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 84 U.S. __, 138 S.Ct. 1612 (2018) ...
This summer, the IRS significantly increased its efforts to police the taxation of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other similar cryptocurrencies. On July 26, 2019, the IRS announced that it had begun sending letters to taxpayers who potentially failed to pay cryptocurrency taxes associated with digital currency transactions or failed to properly report those transactions. By the end of August, the IRS anticipates that it will have sent over 10,000 letters to taxpayers ...
The Bureau of Cannabis Control recently published two new fact sheets on its website as a resource for industry stakeholders, licensees, and the general public. The facts sheet help everyone better understand the different responsibilities of the cannabis distributor (Type 11) and the cannabis distributor transport only (Type 13) licensee by providing a list of required procedures and guidelines for various distribution activities ...
In order to comply with the international guidelines regarding corporate transparency, the government of Panama enacted Law 52 of October 27, 2016 in the Official Gazette. This Law establishes the obligation for Panamanian companies and other entities to maintain accounting records, financial records and supporting documentation of all transactions that took place during the last five (5) years, so that their financial status can be easily determined with reasonable accuracy ...
On 09 July 2019, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation enacted the Resolution “On application of conflict rules by the courts of the Russian Federation” (hereinafter – the “Resolution”). In this Resolution, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (hereinafter – the “Supreme Court”) confirmed some approaches to interpretation of conflict rules elaborated in the court practice and the doctrine ...
On August 6, 2019, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a panel opinion in the case of Texas v. EEOC at al., Case No. 18-10638 (5th Cir. August 6, 2019), that looks to significantly impact the way employers may choose to treat employees or applicants with criminal backgrounds. Background In April 2012, the EEOC issued “Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII” (Guidance) ...
The Singapore Convention cements the Lion City’s reputation as a dispute resolution hub, making mediation easier to enforce globally. Clients who come to see me about commercial disputes often ask for the same thing: fast resolution. I tell them that there are two tried-and-tested ways to resolve financial claims. First, you can litigate in court and have a judge make a legal ruling on the dispute, in the full gaze of the public ...
The past year has been a busy one for AML compliance in the UAE. In October 2018, Federal Decree-Law 20 of 2018 on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism and Illegal Organizations (AML Law) came into force. It contained features recommended by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and brought UAE laws in line with international AML standards ...
It is a well-established principle of South African law that you may not take the law into your own hands. The remedy formulated to enforce this principle is the mandament van spolie.In its classic formulation, the mandament, or spoliation action, protects against a deprivation of possession otherwise than through a legal process. All a plaintiff need prove is that it was in peaceful and undisturbed possession of property and was deprived of that possession ...
On 12 June 2019, the Tax Court of South Africa delivered its judgment in ABC (Pty) Ltd v C:SARS (case no. 14287). The court was tasked with determining the application and interpretation of South African double taxation agreements (“DTAs”) entered into with the State of Kuwait (the “SA-KW DTA”), the Kingdom of the Netherlands (the “SA-NL Protocol”), and the Kingdom of Sweden (the “SA-SE Protocol”) ...
