Significant changes to the tax regulations in the Republic of Srpska (“RS”) are expected in the coming months. On March 6, the National Assembly of RS passed amendments to the Law on Fiscal Cash Registries. In addition, Parliament approved the Government’s proposals on amendments to several important tax laws, including corporate income tax, personal income tax, social security contributions and property tax ...
One of the central functions of a contract is to be able to enforce its obligations. Within the EU, under the new Recast Brussels Regulation (the Regulation), it is now easier, quicker and cheaper to enforce EU judgments within England and Wales. The Regulation applies to all proceedings instituted on or after 10 January 2015 within the EU. This article looks at the key changes introduced and key points to be aware of when seeking to enforce ...
MMF Regulation: The European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) published its report (which includes the draft regulation) (dated 4 March 2015) on the proposed Regulation on Money Market Funds (MMF Regulation). The EU Parliament is scheduled to consider the legislative proposal on 27 to 30 April 2015. ESMA AIFMD Q&AESMA has published updated AIFMD Q&A with new reporting issues and some additional guidance on marketing ...
Registration of an aircraft: Civil aircraft are registered in the Civil Aircraft Register maintained by the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine (SAAU). Application for an aircraft's registration may be submitted by the owner of an aircraft or a person authorised by the owner. Record of person's ownership in the Civil Aircraft Register does not evidence title to an aircraft. Information recorded in the Civil Aircraft Register is published on the SAAU's website ...
On 10 January 2015, new EU rules on jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters came into effect as a result of the Brussels Regulation (recast) (Regulation (EU) 1215/2012) (the recast Regulation). Although the recast Regulation introduces several important changes to the Brussels regime, this article considers the controversial arbitration exclusion to that regime and looks at the likely impact for commercial parties ...
“Families that play together, stay together”. That’s what my late grandfather always used to say. But what does his message have to do with developing business opportunities in a law firm? In my opinion, everything. Business development is about people. It’s about relationships. Not just momentary relationships, but committed relationships. Relationships one would most likely find in a family. What unites a family and makes it strong? Trust, common values and support ...
A country’s competitiveness depends in part on its capacity to attract foreign investorsinterested in the acquisition of local companies ...
When copyright has been infringed online, what court is competent to hear and decide the case? The EU top court’s recent ruling provides clarity and states that online infringement cases can be heard where the infringing content is accessible. The content right holders will be able to take legal action against the infringer in their home countries, but only regarding damage that occurred there ...
On 3 March 2015 IVASS published Regulation No.8 (the “Regulation”) on the simplification of procedures and requirements in the relationship between insurance companies, intermediaries and clients, implementing section 22, paragraph 15 bis, of Law Decree of 18 October 2012,No. 179, converted into Law No. 221 dated 17 December 2012 ...
Amendments toPoland’s Corporate Income Tax (CIT) Act and Personal Income Tax (PIT) Act wentinto force at the beginning of 2015. One of the key changes is taxation ofincome earned by controlled foreign companies (CFC, in Polish: zagranicznespółki kontrolowane).With the entryinto force of the amendments to the CIT Act and the PIT Act, there is a 19% taxon CFC’s income that goes to a Polish tax resident ...
In a recent judgment on the merits, the president of the Brussels Commercial Court held that the X shape of Mars's Dentastix dog food (see Figure 1 below) constituted a valid three-dimensional (3D) Community trademark and a valid Benelux design. Both IP rights had been invoked cumulatively against a Belgian company commercialising similar X-shaped chew sticks for dogs (Figure 2) on the European market.
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As January closes, it is worth reflecting on what has been a turbulent few months for UK retailers. The travails of Tesco are well documented (and seemingly never ending), whilst Marks and Spencer must have been mightily relieved that it’s own continued decline (food excepted) was slightly overshadowed. That’s before you add in the departure of the CEO at Morrisons and some fairly major surgery that’s underway at Sainsburys ...
An amendment to the Competition and Consumer Protection Act went into force on 18 January 2015. The changes are sweeping.The Act of 10 June 2014 Amending the Competition and Consumer Protection Act and the Civil Procedure Code was published on 17 July 2014 and went into force six months later, on 18 January 2015.Below we review some of the key changes introduced by the amending act, which we also reported on several times during the course of the legislative process ...
The phrase ‘Je suis Charlie’ became one of the most popular twitter hashtags in history following the attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine. Nearly 6,500 tweets were sent per minute containing the phrase first coined by artist Joachim Roncin and which has come to symbolise freedom of speech and freedom of the press. However, there have also been several attempts to register the phrase as a trademark ...
The top level domain .УКР was delegated to Ukraine by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on 28 February 2013. The Ukrainian Network Information Center (UANIC) became administrator and manager of .УКР domain. Registration in the .УКР domain opened on 22 August 2013. Thus, this domain became the fourth Cyrillic domain of top level after the Russian .P$, the Serbian .CPS and the Kazakh .КАЗ ...
Policy & Law: What is the government policy and legislative framework for the electricity sector? Securing energy supply, competitive energy prices and meeting the European Union’s common energy and climate goals are core elements of policy in the Finnish electricity sector ...
The Parliament of the Republic of Serbia has adopted a Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers (the “Law”). The Law, which was adopted on 25 November 2014, will become applicable on June 5, 2015. This is the first time that Serbia has a law which should systematically and comprehensively provide effective protection to individuals who report suspicions of corruption ...
In recent weeks the US Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a substantial settlement with the car manufactures Hyundai and Kia. The car manufacturers agreed to pay $100 million penalty as a settlement, arising from a complaint that the car companies sold nearly 1 ...
On 8 December 2014, the Serbian Parliament passed the law on Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Planning and Construction (“the Law”). Here are some of the most important novelties: Conversion - The concept of conversion continues to exist under the term “transformation of right of use into the right of ownership of construction land” ...
Back in 2007 and 2008, the Swiss Parliament was debating changes to Swiss corporate law. On 1 January 2014, the CompO was put into force, temporarily governing the subject matter of the Minder initiative. Now, the Swiss Federal Council released the Pre-Draft which would, however, not only integrate most of the provisions of the CompO into the Swiss corporate law, but in addition to several fundamental changes to certain features of Swiss corporate law strengthen corporate governance ...
A Ministerial Order (S.I. 541/2014) has been passed commencing Part 3 of the Criminal Justice (Mutual Assistance) Act 2008 (the Act), from last Monday 1 December, 2014. The Act provides for various forms of mutual legal assistance to foreign law enforcement authorities. Part 3 concerns requests for mutual assistance between Ireland and other Member States of the EU for interception of telecommunications messages for the purposes of criminal investigations ...
Professionals dealing with secured lending in Belgium have been looking forward for some time to the new Belgian law of 11 July 2013 on security interests over movable goods (“Wet van 11 juli 2013 tot wijziging van het Burgerlijk Wetboek wat de zakelijke zekerheden op roerende goederen betreft en tot opheffing van diverse bepalingen ter zake” / “Loi du 11 juillet 2013 modifiant le Code civil en ce qui concerne les sûretés réelles mobilières et abrogeant diverses dispositions en cette matiè
It has long been known that Greenland possesses vast amounts of mineral resources. But due to climate changes, resulting in a rapid meltdown of ice caps in the Arctic regions, it is now getting easier to discover and exploit the mineral resources. The costs of exploring and exploiting minerals continue to decrease, and many experts believe that Greenland will become the next frontier within the mining industry ...
Bosnia & Herzegovina enacted a new Law on Public Procurement on 28 November 2014. This new legislation aims to improve current public procurement rules through key changes which will increase the level of transparency in Bosnian procurement and through more precise definitions for groups of suppliers, among other changes ...
Also men are now allowed to book a room on the "Bella Donna" floor - the design of hotel floors for women only is discriminatory. This was established by the Danish Eastern High Court by judgment of 25 April 2014. In this case, one of the largest hotels in the country had established a floor for women only. This floor had a number of additional amenities not to be found on the other floors, including special toilet ware, flowers, and a particularly efficient hand shower ...
