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 ...
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 ...
On 13 December 2005, the European Court of Justice ("ECJ") found Marks and Spencer plc ("M&S") could claim group tax relief from UK tax authorities in relation to the losses incurred by its former European subsidiaries that had ceased trading in Belgium, France and Germany in 2001. M&S argued that just as UK resident companies in a group may set off their profits and losses among themselves, so the same should be possible for the losses of foreign subsidiaries ...
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 ...
On December 1, 2005, the second paragraph of section III of Article 31 of the Income Tax Law became effective and requires taxpayers seeking to deduct the purchase of gasoline to pay with the taxpayer’s check payable to the seller, with a credit, debit or services card, or with a prepaid card, authorized by the Tax Administration Service. On January 25, 2006 a new amendment to Rule 3.4 ...
Scottish Enterprise has a number of schemes to make it easier for small to medium-sized businesses to access growth funding, such as a loan, equity finance - where the investors take shares in your company - or a combination of the two ...
At the 18th Session of the Standing Committee of the 10th National People’s Congress held on 27 October 2005 amendments were adopted to the Individual Income Tax Law of the People's Republic of China. The amendments were promulgated by President Hu Jintao on 27 October 2005 and enter into effect on 1 January 2006. Tax free allowance A first amendment raises the tax free allowance applicable to wages and salaries from RMB 800 to RMB 1,600 ...
The State Administration for Taxation issued the Reply of the State Administration of Taxation on Issues relating to Tax Refund for Reinvestment by Foreign Investors on 20 October 2005. The Reply explains the conditions under which a foreign investment enterprise (“FIE”) can obtain a rebate on its enterprise income tax (“EIT”) for re-investment of its profits if such re-investment is made in instalments or in phases ...
On Wednesday 21 December, Ms Justice Laffoy issued her long-awaited judgment in Fyffes’ multi-million euro insider dealing action against Jim Flavin and his company Development Capital Corporation plc (DCC) and two of its subsidiaries. The decision follows 87 days of evidence, which closed in July 2005. Ms Justice Laffoy ruled that the defendants were not in possession of price sensitive information at the time they sold their shares in Fyffes and as such, no civil liability to Fyffes arose ...
The Government has recently announced changes to the proposed regime of confirmation by directors of compliance by a company with its obligations. This note explains the background to the announcement and comments on the new proposals. Background - 2003 Act From the time that the Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Act, 2003 was first published there was considerable and widespread concern voiced about the proposed regime for Directors’ Compliance Statements ...
TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction II. Recent and Proposed Governance Changes III. Institutional Scrutiny and Accountability IV. Inherent Governance Tensions V. Governance Regulation I. Introduction Corporate governance continues to be a hot topic. In Canada, we are at the stage of implementing a number of initiatives that have been enacted to follow the US lead in the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation ...
Persons responsible for filing annual returns for the following types of companies should be aware of this commencement order: Most private unlimited companies; Private companies not trading for the acquisition of gain by the members; Companies not having a share capital which are formed for an object that is charitable and is under the control of a religion recognised under Article 44 of the Constitution; and Companies which are exempted from certain filing requirements by order of the Co
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China which is governed by the Basic Law which forms a mini constitution for Hong Kong. Under the Basic Law, Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy except in relation to matters such as defence or foreign affairs. It has its own executive, legislative and independent judicial power including that of final adjudication ...
In Nicaragua, we did not have a Tributary Code as a unique legal body, the attributions of the Tributary Administration and the regulation of the different tributary procedures, the rights and duties of the contributor, were dispersed in our legislation existing in several cases, inapplicable norms, conflicts of application of the same, lack of adaptation to the actual technological recourses, among others ...
Judgement of the Court of First Instance in case T-28/03 – Holcim (Deutschland) AG v. European Commission. By Decision 94/815/EC of 30 November 1994 the Commission ordered Alsen Breitenburg Zement- und Kalkwerke GmbH and Nordcement AG (in 1997 these companies merged to become Alsen AG, now Holcim (Deutschland) AG) (hereinafter the "Applicant" or "Applicants") to pay total fines of EUR 3.841 million for infringement of Article 85 of the EC Treaty ...
The National Venture Capital Association (US) has prepared various model venture capital documents for use in the industry, including a term sheet (the “NVCA Term Sheet”). These model legal documents are available at www.nvca.org. The American Bar Association has further commented on the provisions in the NVCA Term Sheet, in particular adding commentary including outlining any differences between the California corporations law and Delaware law ...
In our previous ezines we tracked the progress of the Alcohol Products (Control of Advertising, Sponsorship and Marketing Practices/Sales Promotions) Bill. The Bill was set to have a major impact on the relationship between alcohol advertising and sport in Ireland but a recent controversial turnabout by the Government means that the Bill may never be enacted ...
GETTING PAID ON A COLLECTION FILE – FROM START TO FINISH I. INTRODUCTION This paper is intended to be an overview of various issues and potential pitfalls that inevitably will arise in the course of attempting to collect on a debt claim from the time the debt becomes due all the way through to the enforcement of a court judgment based on the debt claim ...
In our last newsletter we provided a summary of the Securities & Futures Commission’s (“SFC”) proposed amendments to the SFC’s guidelines on hedge funds. The SFC has now concluded its consultations and the hedge fund guidelines have been amended. As proposed, in assessing compliance of the personnel of investment managers with the requirement for five years relevant experience, a wider range of hedge fund experience will now be acceptable ...
In January 2005, the Hong Kong Securities & Futures Commission (“SFC”) issued a Consultation Paper on the disclosure of interests in securities of Hong Kong listed companies under Part XV of the Securities & Futures Ordinance (“SFO”). Conclusions to the consultation were issued in May 2005. The most significant of these include the following: Investment managers: non-aggregation Interests (and short positions) of companies are attributed to their holding companies and other “controllers” ...
Authorisation of funds by the Macau Monetary Authority (“MMA”) is necessary for funds to be distributed to the public in Macau. Authorisation will only be granted if the investment funds have been duly authorised in their country of origin and the respective funds managers and custodians are subject to supervision by a competent home regulator. In practice funds are usually authorised in Macau on the basis that they are already authorised by the SFC in Hong Kong ...
The SFC published its conclusions on the Consultation Paper on Proposed Amendments to the Schedule 5 to the Securities and Futures Ordinance in September. The Consultation Paper had proposed amendments to the definitions of certain regulated activities as set out in the SFO. The main proposals were: • To extend the definition of "asset management" to include management of real estate investment trusts ...
