ALERT Hospital May Be Excluded For Physician Recruiting On May 8, 2006 the OIG announced that it intends to exclude San Diego-based Alvarado Hospital from participation in Medicare, Medicaid and all other federal health care programs because of payments the Hospital made under relocation agreements involving placement of newly-recruited physicians in established physician practices ...
Certificate of Need Strategies for New Nursing Home Beds Special Population Beds are Re-Approved At its March 2006 meeting, the Michigan Certificate of Need (“CON”) Commission took action to re-approve several state-wide pools of nursing home beds that are set aside to serve special populations, including: Alzheimer’s Use 60 beds Hospice 30 beds Religious Use 20 beds The Commission reserved 22 special population beds on a non-specified basis for future use ...
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA) both came into force on 1 January 2005. The Acts gave the general public the right to request and receive information held by public authorities for the first time ...
IN OUR JUNE 2005 “FDA WATCH” column, we provided an overview of the regulatory, political, and scientific landscape for follow-on biological products in the U.S. As reported a year ago, the biogenerics debate centers around whether generic biologics are scientifically possible (i.e ...
The 'moral hazard' provisions introduced by the Pensions Act 2004 could cause extra headaches for many corporate transactions unless steps are taken early to avoid potential pitfalls. Parties involved in corporate mergers, takeovers or even group restructurings may now need prior clearance from the Pensions Regulator to avoid being potentially liable for contributing towards a deficit in the defined benefit pension scheme of the target or investee company ...
The Police and Justice Bill was put before the House of Commons on 25 January 2006. The main aim of the Bill is to improve the powers and scope of the police force but there are a number of sections which look to update the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA) and in particular to make Denial of Service (DOS) Attacks illegal. DOS attacks can take many forms but are essentially an attempt to disrupt the use of a computer, server or website ...
TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION II ...
Scope of this treatiseThe purpose of this discussion is to address those cases which are most likely to have a significant effect for those practicing in the chemical, pharmaceutical and biotech areas ...
The Cabinet Office's Better Regulation Executive (BRE) is currently undertaking a review of penalties for businesses that fall foul of the law and business should ensure their views are heard. This spring, a consultation paper will be released which will be the final opportunity for stakeholders and interested parties to contribute to the review before it makes its recommendations to the Government in late 2006 ...
Under the Rules Governing Offshore Funds of August 2005, private placement of offshore funds may only be offered to: a) banks, bills companies, securities companies, trust companies, insurance companies, financial holding companies or other legal entities or organisation approved by the Taiwan Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC); b) not more than 35 “private investors” ...
The Law Reform Commission (Commission) published a report on 25 October 2005 recommending proposals to reform the doctrine of privity of contract in Hong Kong. The aim of the reform is to allow a person who is not a party to a contract to enforce the contract if that was the intent of the contracting parties. Under the existing doctrine of privity of contract, a person cannot acquire and enforce rights under a contract to which he is not a party ...
Investors, investment managers and others with direct or attributed interests of 5% or more of any Hong Kong listed company are subject to Hong Kong’s substantial shareholder disclosure regime. Inadvertent breaches of the regime are common, largely because of its complexity and investors’ misapprehensions of the requirements. A review of enforcement actions over the last year indicates an increasingly aggressive approach by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) ...
An exemption from “acting in concert” is available under the Hong Kong Codes on Takeovers and Mergers and Share Repurchases (Takeovers Code) to entities within a large financial group which manage investment accounts on a discretionary basis and which maintain acceptable levels of segregation regarding confidential information through Chinese Walls ...
The UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) has issued a Feedback Statement on its discussion paper DP05/4 "Hedge funds: A discussion of risk and regulatory engagement" and has urged firms to focus on the risks posed by side letters "which will remain an area of supervisory focus". Side letters have become a common feature for institutional investors investing in hedge funds with the result that such investors receive preferential treatment and more information than other investors ...
At its Singapore 2006 AGM, ISDA announced the publication of a new set of definitions – the ISDA 2006 Fund Derivative Definitions (Fund Definitions). The Fund Definitions are intended to provide basis terminology for use in confirmations of derivatives transactions linked to interests in various types of pooled investment vehicles, such as hedge funds and mutual funds, for which a liquid secondary market may not exist ...
March of 2006 will make a mark in history as the date in which the people of Bolivia have manifested, through the National Congress, their irrevocable and unequivocal decision of modifying the political structure of the Republic by simultaneously calling to a Constituent Assembly, with the purpose of designing a new Political Constitution, and to a binding referendum on departmental autonomies. Six presidents have passed since the beginning of the new millennium ...
On St Patrick’s Day the Irish Revenue Commissioners issued a communication, through CREST, in relation to CFDs. In the communication the Revenue said they believe the underlying hedging transaction behind a CFD, where the broker acquires Irish shares, may not fall within the relevant stamp duty exemptions that the brokers are claiming. If the Revenue are correct the broker has a 1% stamp duty liability on this hedging transaction ...
Scotland's new procurement regulations came into force on 31 January 2006, meaning the country is covered by a separate set of procurement rules than the rest of the UK. This is a major change from the previous regime. The Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations and the Utilities Contracts (Scotland) Regulations, both 2006, were introduced to ensure the procurement regime in Scotland complies with the European Union's new directives on procurement in the public and utilities sectors ...
China presents enormous opportunities for the wealth management industry. Since the opening up of China’s banking and other financial industries to foreign investments, foreign banks, securities companies, insurers and fund management companies have sought to establish presence in this market through the setting up of representative offices, branches, foreign direct investments and joint venture companies ...
November and December 2005 saw the Hong Kong real estate investment trust (“REIT”) market burst into life, with the listing of three REITs on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong – The Link REIT (Hong Kong retail and car parks), Prosperity REIT (Hong Kong commercial) and GZI REIT (office buildings in Guangdong, PRC) ...
In 2006, the SFC plans to conduct another investigation into licensed investment advisers. This follows a report issued in February 2005, in which the SFC noted industry practices that posed “serious regulatory concerns”. It is timely, then, for investment advisers to review their adherence to the standards of conduct expected of them by the SFC. We set out below some of the practices that investment advisers should adopt to ensure regulatory compliance ...
The China Securities Regulatory Commission (“CSRC”) and State Administration of Foreign Exchange (“SAFE”) have, in recent months, issued consultation drafts of proposed amendments to the two major regulations governing Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors (“QFIIs”): and . According to the draft regulations, certain amendments are to be implemented. Under the existing regulations, QFIIs are subject to relatively long investment lock-up periods ...
In April 2005 a new Disability Discrimination Act was passed by Westminster. The Act extends existing non-discrimination legislation, primarily the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. While some provisions of the Act came into force in December 2005, many others will be coming into force over the course of 2006. It is essential that businesses are aware of their new responsibilities under the Act and prepare for its implementation ...
As it is considered as of general interest, we would like to mention that on December 30, 2005, the Federal Official Gazette published an executive order amending Article 117 and Article 118 of the Financial Institutions Law ...
