Proposition 19, which was marketed as a provision to benefit homeowners who are over 55, the disabled, and wildfire/disaster victims, actually contained major property tax increases. The increased property taxes will be paid by children and grandchildren that receive California real estate (primary residences and all other properties) from their parents and grandparents ...
The global financial crisis which began in 2008 elevated the prosecution of crimes affecting federally insured financial institutions to near the top of the Justice Department’s priority list. Directors and officers of those institutions, already under scrutiny from the regulators and law enforcement agencies traditionally charged with examining their actions (e.g ...
With federal privacy legislation stalled and indefinitely delayed, states have moved forward to push an impressive number of privacy laws forward over the last several years. Some of these laws are still relatively obscure, but are being increasingly enforced by state regulators and through litigation ...
Over the previous couple of years, the region of South-Eastern Europe, or more specifically, the Western Balkans, has enjoyed a globally acknowledged position of an investment hot-spot. This comes as no surprise if we take into account how the socialist past of encompassing countries has provided their contemporary incarnations with a number of state-owned companies in core industries, all of which now present viable targets for Private Equity funds and M&A activities in general ...
Over the previous couple of years, the region of South-Eastern Europe, or more specifically, the Western Balkans, has enjoyed a globally acknowledged position of an investment hot-spot. This comes as no surprise if we take into account how the socialist past of encompassing countries has provided their contemporary incarnations with a number of state-owned companies in core industries, all of which now present viable targets for Private Equity funds and M&A activities in general ...
with the assistance of Robert La Rosa, student-at-lawOn October 28, 2010, Justice Yves Poirier of the Quebec Superior Court rendered a decision, which enforced the application of new section 54.1 of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (hereinafter the “BIA”). The case, Aliments Möpure inc. (Avis d’intention et de proposition de) (“Möpure”), addressed the question of whether a creditor advancing an equity claim has the right to vote at creditors’ meetings ...
Bradley attorneys Aron Beezley and Nathaniel Greeson highlight the administrative bid protest landscape in New York given the state's abundant acquisition economy. New York state's budget is the second largest in the country, and with it, New York has some of the most developed state acquisition laws and procedures in the country. Accordingly, New York provides comparatively robust bid protest rights when it comes to state-level bid protests ...
Corporations and governments are ferreting out and squirreling away voluminous, detailed and private information about each and every one of us – and they are not afraid to use it. Should we be worried? Singapore’s Health Minister recently revealed that confidential details of 14,200 HIV-positive people, stolen from a government public health database, had been leaked online by a disgruntled US citizen who had been in a romantic relationship with a local doctor ...
The Law on Financial Operations On the 30th of December 2016, the application of the Law on Financial Operations (Law) will commence in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Law is intended to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market by introducing adequate and systematic risk management measures and solvency measures, as well as to promote the competitiveness of local commercial enterprises by legislating a culture of prompt payment ...
On May 4, 2011, an important Bill was presented by the Minister for Finance, Mr. Alain Paquet. The effect of Bill 7, entitled An Act to amend various legislative provisions concerning the financial sector, is, among other things, to amend section 115 of the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services (“ARDFPS”) and to add sections 115.1 to 115.9 ARDFPS ...
As we have written in a number of previous articles1, National Treasury, together with the Prudential Authority and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, has recently rolled out various pieces of legislation to bring South Africa closer to compliance with its G20 commitment to regulate over-the-counter (“OTC”) derivatives in South Africa. Detailed requirements are now being harmonised, including through proposed amendments to existing legislation ...
Earlier this month, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez introduced Bill C-18 (Online News Act) in Parliament. This bill, which was largely inspired by similar legislation in Australia, aims to reduce bargaining imbalances between online platforms and Canadian news outlets in terms of how these ?digital news intermediaries? allow news content to be accessed and shared on their platforms ...
The Digital Commodity Exchange Act of 2022(DCEA), introduced by Republican representatives Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania and Tom Emmer of Minnesota, along with Democratic representatives Darren Soto of Florida and Ro Khanna of California, would create a definition for “digital commodity” and allow the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to oversee companies issuing or letting people trade certain tokens, while having the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC
On July 10th, 2023, the Chamber of Deputies approved in its Second Constitutional Procedure the bill of law that, among other matters, aims to recognize Internet access as a Public Telecommunications Service (bulletin No. 11,632-15) (the "Bill"), through various amendments to Law No. 18,168, the General Telecommunications Law ("GTL"). As a result of the abovementioned approval, the Bill has been returned to its chamber of origin (i.e ...
As part of the preventive constitutionality control, the Constitutional Court ("TC") resolved that the provisions of the Bill that systematizes Economic Crimes and Attempts against the Environment (the "Bill"), that have the character of constitutional organic law, conform to the Constitution. Thus, for the Bill to become law, it only remains for the President of the Republic to promulgate it, and then proceed with its publication in the Official Gazette ...
The new biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirements are set to come into force from November 2023. This will legally mandate securing a minimum 10 per cent biodiversity net gain from new commercial and residential developments in England, with a few exceptions. While the requirements - part of the Environment Act 2021 – will have financial and operational implications, the real estate industry has had several years to prepare for BNG ...
The UK data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”), has released a statement warning organisations to assess the public risks of using emotion analysis technologies, with those failing to do so risking investigation and enforcement action ...
On December 24, 2020, the Brazilian President sanctioned, with some vetoes, an amendment to Law 11,101/2005, which governs judicial reorganizations, pre-packaged reorganizations and bankruptcy liquidations of businessmen and companies. The vetoes can still be overthrown by the Brazilian Congress ...
The era of cryptocurrencies has come: whilst they were initially used as a specific means of payment and as a source of investments other functions are now being explored, such as the possibility of cryptocurrencies being directly contributed to a company in the context of its incorporation ...
Dispute is heating up over IRS’s attempts to get personal information about users of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Last November, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) filed a petition in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. It sought the court’s permission to serve a “John Doe” summons on Coinbase, Inc., a virtual currency exchanger in San Francisco ...
Dispute is heating up over IRS’s attempts to get personal information about users of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Last November, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) filed a petition in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. It sought the court’s permission to serve a “John Doe” summons on Coinbase, Inc., a virtual currency exchanger in San Francisco ...
In an earlier post, we started discussing the IRS’ “John Doe” summons to Coinbase, a virtual currency exchange, to obtain information about every Coinbase user, who, at any time during the period of January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2015, conducted transactions in a convertible virtual currency as defined in IRS Notice 2014-21. One such user filed a motion to intervene in the proceeding and to quash the IRS’ summons ...
Following the recently reported hack of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s social media account yesterday (10 January 2024), the SEC formally announced that it had approved the launch of 11 Bitcoin ETFs in the US. As the announcement states, these approvals are not an endorsement of cryptocurrency as an “investment” or of any of the issuers of the ETFs themselves ...
Last week, 49 state attorneys general announced a $49.5 million settlement with Blackbaud, Inc. (Blackbaud) over the software company’s data-security practices and its response to a breach in 2020 that exposed the personal information of millions of individuals. Blackbaud provides software solutions to nonprofit organizations, including charities, schools and healthcare agencies, to help them connect with donors and manage data about their constituencies ...
Blockchain, a type of distributed ledger technology, has garnered heightened interest as a secure method to conduct transactions. In this article, we provide an introduction to blockchain and its uses. In later articles, we will explore how this technology is being implemented to transform the financial services industry ...
