It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of incredulity. Blazing yellow sun. Lapping blue waves. Tanned beach bods and a palm tree’s silhouette swaying against an orange sky. Once ubiquitous, the California Fitness logo that hints at its fabulous lifestyle offering has vanished from Singapore. In its heyday “Cali”, as its legions of fans called it, was not merely a gym, it was a status symbol ...
Module 6 of the UK’s Covid-19 Public Inquiry opened on 12 December 2023, with public hearings set to begin in Spring 2025. This article explores what Module 6 will examine and explains how and why members of the Care Sector may want to become involved ...
B.C.’s Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry,[1] and the Public Health Agency of Canada,[2] have recommended that individuals who are not fully vaccinated[3] continue wearing masks in indoor public spaces. At the same time, public authorities are providing little to no guidance on how or when businesses can continue mask requirements ...
1. Introduction Equinor’s pioneering «Hywind Tampen» project, set to become the biggest floating wind farm in the world and scheduled to commence construction in late 2022, will mark the first foray into offshore wind production in Norway. Further, the areas «Utsira Nord» (floating turbines) and «Sørlige Nordsjø II» (bottom fixed turbines), both in the North Sea, have as from 1 January 2021 been opened for development ...
In the Loop: With the Hanson Bridgett Government Group We’ve been getting lots of questions from public agencies about the General Data Protection Regulation—known as GDPR. GDPR is a new European Union privacy law that governs the processing of personal data about people residing in Europe. It just went into effect on May 25 ...
This Need to Know Express is part of a series of newsletters which each answers one or several questions in a practical and concrete way. These bulletins have been or will be published over the next few weeks. In addition, a consolidated version of all the Need to Know Express newsletters published on this topic will be available upon request ...
When the company was purchased, you will have entered into a Share Purchase Agreement. If you think that there might be potential for a warranty claim, you need to revisit the agreement to establish the basis of your claim and the manner in which it requires to be processed. The warranties in your agreement amount to assurances from the seller with regards to the condition of the business and outstanding liabilities at the time the deal was completed ...
Separate ownership of mines and minerals poses a risk for developers that must be assessed and mitigated as appropriate. The basic rule of property ownership is that the owner of land owns up to the heavens and down to the centre of the earth. Following this common law presumption, mines and minerals are presumed to be owned by the surface landowner, unless it is shown that they have been severed and therefore in separate ownership ...
Dramatic changes in global climate have helped to wake up the consciousness of States on the significance of environmental issues in the last fourty years. Before then countries focused their energies on relentless industrial development with little or no attention to its impact on the environment. Scientific evidence has shown that unbridled development leads to loss of environmental capital, sometimes an irreversible phenomenon ...
Hydrogen is seen by many as the fuel of the future, a substance that can provide heat through combustion, or electrical power from fuel cells, emitting only water in the process. Its potential usefulness, specifically its ability to replace fossil fuels without generating greenhouse gases, makes it the poster child for clean energy. There are various ways of producing hydrogen, but currently most of it is done in the most cost-efficient way, by steam reforming ...
In light of ongoing litigation between General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, Dinsmore partner Mark Carter wrote an article for Automotive News explaining the basics of RICO actions: "Any person injured in his or her business or property by a pattern of racketeering activity may have standing to seek relief pursuant to the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 ...
It is a sad fact that the current economic crisis is causing many employers to consider cost saving measures like redundancies. But it can be difficult to know what amounts to a redundancy situation. We consider the legal definition and how it applies. What the law says Redundancy is a mechanism used by employers when a company needs to reduce the number of its employees. It is one of the five potentially fair reasons for which an employer can dismiss an employee ...
As the general counsel of a company, you are busy working one day and the CEO walks into your office and says, "In the board meeting this morning, one of our directors asked me if a special committee was needed for a new issue that has come up. How do we know when a special committee is needed?" The following summary can be used as a starting point in determining your answer ...
The scope of the insured’s liability (and thus, the insurance companies’ auxiliary liability) is affected not only by national law, but also by EU legislation and case law regarding “use of a motor vehicle.” After a recent Supreme Court resolution, a contradiction between the two has emerged. Motor insurance is one of the most economically significant types of insurance policies ...
Many governmentalregulations may prevent contractual obligations from being duly fulfilled. How can you best handlethe performance, or more precisely, thenon-performance of your contracts? Force majeure Section 2913 of Act No. 89/2012 Coll ...
VAT payers, who have monthly obligations, may no longer be oriented in the flood of newly adopted tax measures to help taxpayers to overcome the current situation caused by the spread of the coronavirus. For this reason, we provide a brief overview of the tax measures specifically related to VAT and add some important remarks that should be kept in mind ...
As we draw to the end of 2021, Lauren Bholé and Lizzie Lord reflect on some of the HR challenges faced by many companies over the past 12 months. 1. Employees wanting a change in career – the ‘great resignation’ A study by Microsoft found that 41% of the global workforce is considering leaving their employer this year ...
On top of the multiple challenges hitting retail and leisure landlords and occupiers arising from COVID-19, the news that Intu has had to write down the value of its shopping centre portfolio by nearly £2 billion came as further bad news. Intu owns multiple high-profile retail and leisure locations across the UK (including The Trafford Centre in Manchester and the Lakeside complex in Essex) and on 12 March was widely reported as being at risk of insolvency ...
The Supreme Court held today in FTC v. Actavis that so-called “reverse payment” settlement agreements are subject to antitrust law’s “rule of reason” analysis. The Court, however, largely downplayed whether such analysis would require inquiry into what Justice Scalia deemed “the elephant in the room” at oral argument: the strength of the patent at issue ...
The insurance industry typically has a significant role to play in public inquiries, and in this article we consider this from the perspective of insurance companies and policyholders. The Rt Hon Baroness Heather Hallett DBE has been appointed Chair of the upcoming UK COVID-19 Inquiry (“the Inquiry”) and we currently await publication of the Terms of Reference, which will determine the scope of the investigation ...
On 25 May 2022, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its new 10-year strategy (“the Strategy”) which will inform its activities until 2032. As recognised in the Foreword, “the organisation’s role and responsibilities are growing, particularly in the areas of building safety, chemicals regulation and supporting sustainable, healthy, workplace practices ...
If you have been doing business with entities in the European Union, chances are that you have struggled to figure out how to transfer data from the EU to the US without running afoul of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You are not alone. The EU and US have struggled to create “adequate” safeguards for the transfer of personal data since 2000. The first set of guidelines, the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, was adopted in 2000 ...
