Last November the expert group appointed by the Scottish Executive to consider a statutory offence of corporate culpable homicide issued its report. As expected, the group proposed a new statutory offence of corporate killing. It recommended that this should apply to incorporated companies and, as far as possible, to unincorporated and Crown bodies. The report recommended that two individual offences (applying to named persons) be introduced ...
On 14 July 2006, the Hong Kong and Mainland China Governments signed a ground-breaking agreement, rather lengthily entitled "An Arrangement on Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters by the Courts of the Mainland and of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region pursuant to Choice of Court Agreements between Parties Concerned" (Arrangement), under which they agreed to recognise and enforce judgments made in each others courts ...
Further to the recent amends to the Portuguese Securities Code arising from the implementation of the EU Directives on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading and on insider dealing and market manipulation, the Portuguese Securities Exchange Commission (“CMVM”) approved a set of rulings and guidelines1 now creating an overall framework on the new Inside Information regime. I ...
The People's Bank of China, the Chinese central bank, recently announced principle policies for the financial services sector on outbound investments in overseas markets by Chinese nationals and corporations. These policies are generally regarded as the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors (QDII) program in the market ...
On 1 March 2004, the Provisional Administrative Rules Governing Derivative Activities of Financial Institutions were implemented by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (the "CBRC") and constituted the first set of substantive regulations governing the derivatives business in China ...
Shareholders with a substantial interest in a listed company are required to disclose their shareholdings in order to improve market transparency, prevent insider trading, and facilitate informed investment decisions. In most countries in Asia, initial disclosure is required once a shareholder acquires an interest in 5% of a listed company’s voting shares. In Taiwan and Sri Lanka it is 10% ...
These questions arise periodically and always pose problems of conscience for the lawyers and employers concerned. A recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Caisse Populaire Desjardins de La Malbaie v. Tremblay, J.E. 2006-1218, 2006 QCCA 697, sets out the latest state of the law on the subject. The facts Tremblay sued the Caisse Populaire for unlawful dismissal and his lawyer communicated with employees of his former employer for the purpose of meeting with them ...
In order for an employee to be entitled to the statutory benefits endowed under the Employment Ordinance (the "EO"), in most of the situations, he has to be under a continuous employment with their employer for a certain minimum period. As a result, what constitutes a continuous employment and what breaks its continuity are important to both employers and employees. In a recent Court of Appeal case, Lui Lim Ka & others v ...
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress made public China's draft law on "The PRC Labour Contract Law" on 20 March 2006, with a view to collecting opinions thereon from relevant departments and the public, for further amendments to be made to this draft law. The PRC Labour Contract Law is intended to be promulgated pursuant to the PRC Labour Law, and sets out to clarify certain ambiguities to give employees better protection ...
The recently introduced Pension Protection Act 2006 makes two important changes to the definition of the term "plan assets" for the purposes of ERISA. The new legislation continues to provide that the assets of a fund or other entity will not constitute "plan assets" and will therefore not be subject to the fiduciary obligations under ERISA if less than 25% of the value of each class of equity in the entity is held by "benefit plan investors" ...
By January 2007 all EU members are supposed to adopt MiFID, including its implementation measures published in June 2006. Firms carrying out investment services will then have to comply with it by November 2007. MiFID should greatly facilitate EU cross-border activities since passported firms will no longer be subject to prudential regulation in each country where they provide services but only by their home country ...
In the recent Feedback Statement (FS06/2) from the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) to its Discussion Paper entitled "Hedge funds: A discussion of risk and regulatory engagement", the FSA identified the use of side letters as an area of concern where a market failure may be present, thus potentially requiring regulatory intervention by the FSA ...
The SFC has recently published a guide to the information required to be submitted to the SFC in relation to risk management and control processes by fund managers seeking approval to use the expanded investment powers under UCITS III (Guide). The Guide sets out the items and areas relating to the risk management and control process that the SFC normally expects to be provided in order to give the SFC an understanding of the risk management processes of the relevant UCITS III funds ...
In the recent past, the State Supervision of Financial Organizations (the "SSFO") has published its guidelines on its official website regarding the possibility of providing financial services in the territory of Hungary by credit institutions/financial enterprises with a registered seat in a Member State of the European Union in the form of cross-border services through agencies by means of the Hungarian Bank Act ...
According to the independent charity, The Age and Employment Network, the cost of age discrimination in the UK now amounts to £5.5bn in lost government tax and paid unemployment benefits and a further £30bn in lost productivity annually. These are astounding figures. It seems that many employees are currently obliged or persuaded to leave the workplace before their normal retirement age and that early exit from work for people aged over 50 tends to be permanent ...
In the workplace, youth is seen as a valuable asset. When the benefits of youth are emphasised in relation to personnel and staffing issues to the exclusion of other factors, employers may well find themselves discriminating on the basis of age. Employers may also be depriving themselves of the many benefits of an age-diverse workforce – higher retention rates; lower rates of absenteeism; greater flexibility; and a wider pool of available skills. This has a major economic impact ...
This article was first published in Invest Romania, October 2006 issue. 1 Common customs policy The enlargement of the European Union automatically triggered the enlargement of the scope and applicability of the common commercial policy promoted by the member states towards the new member states ...
On 24 August 2006, the China Securities Regulatory Commission ("CSRC"), People's Bank of China ("PBOC") and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange ("SAFE") jointly issued new regulations, the "Measures for the Administration of Investment in Domestic Securities by Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors" (the "New QFII Rules") that govern the regime allowing qualifying foreign institutions approved by the CSRC as Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors ("QFIIs") to invest in China A sh
Pursuant to the Act on Supervision of Financial Market, the National Bank of Slovakia has issued this Measure, which defines the content, format, terms, form, method, procedure and place of submitting the reports for statistical purposes by a pension asset management company for the pension asset management company itself and for individual pension funds established and managed by it, and by a supplementary pension company for the supplementary pension company itself and for individual pension f
Pursuant to the Act on Supervision of Financial Market, the National Bank of Slovakia has issued this Measure, which defines the content, format, terms, form, manner, procedure and place of submitting the reports to the National Bank of Slovakia by factoring companies, instalment financing companies and leasing companies for statistical purposes. This Measure is published in the Bulletin of the National Bank of Slovakia (Issue No ...
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic announced the adoption of the Treaty on Accession of the Czech Republic, Republic of Estonia, Republic of Cyprus, Republic of Latvia, Republic of Lithuania, Republic of Hungary, Republic of Malta, Republic of Poland, Republic of Slovenia and Slovak Republic to the Double Tax Treaty in case of adjustment of profit of associated companies, dated 23 July 1990 as amended by the Treaty of 21 December 1995 and the
Pursuant to the Act on Old-Age Pension Savings, the National Bank of Slovakia issued this Decree stipulating the requirements for the content of an annual and halfyear report on asset management in a pension fund, and annual and half-year report on equity management in a pension asset management company, as well as the content and structure of daily information about each transaction with pension fund assets ...
Pursuant to the Act on Supplementary Pension Savings, the National Bank of Slovakia issued this Decree stipulating the requirements for the content of an annual and halfyear report on asset management in supplementary pension fund and annual and half-year report on equity management of supplementary pension company ...
