From 1 October 2006, new legislation comes into effect intended to combat age discrimination. During a recent series of seminars, commercial law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn carried out a survey of delegates to understand employers' concerns and see what efforts they are making to take the new law on board. More than one in four delegates claimed they themselves intended to work past the anticipated default retirement age of 65 while a further 15% were unsure ...
This paper appears in the March 24, 2006 issue of The Lawyers Weekly, published by LexisNexis Canada Inc. Over the past few years, courts in Canada have faced the apparent conflict between competing statutory mandates with respect to class proceedings and arbitrations. In Ruddell v. BC Rail Ltd., 2005 BCSC 1504, Mr. Justice Holmes of the British Columbia Supreme Court reviewed this conflict in the context of pension litigation ...
The Court of Final Appeal made a landmark ruling at the end of February on an unprecedented claim for holiday pay or annual leave pay based on commission in Lisbeth Enterprises Limited v Mandy Luk. The Court concluded that, apart from the contractual commission which accrued and calculated on a daily basis in amount varying from day to day, no commission is to be included in the calculation of holiday pay and annual leave pay ...
Doctors working in public hospitals claimed that, in breach of their employment contracts as well as the Employment Ordinance, for many years the Hospital Authority had required them to work long hours without proper compensation. The doctors in this latest round of confrontation with the HA successfully claimed compensation for "rest days" and "holidays" for which they had been deprived but lost their claim on compensation for "overtime" worked ...
Introduction Since June 1, 2004, the Labour Standards Act (hereinafter the “L.S.A.”) requires employers to provide a work environment free from psychological harassment. Thus, employers must, as a first step, take reasonable measures to prevent psychological harassment and then, whenever they become aware of such behaviour, put a stop to it. These duties imposed on employers are obligations “of means” as opposed to obligations “of result” ...
Complaints by foreign businesses regarding protection of intellectual property rights in China have been a consistent feature in media reports since large scale foreign investment commenced some 20 years ago. However, China's economic revolution over the same period means that opinions based on negative experiences in the past must be constantly reassessed ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
A 100% Quebec Parental Insurance Plan A new Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP) came into force on January 1, 2006. This plan provides for payment of benefits to all workers eligible for the plan who take a maternity leave, parental leave, paternity leave or adoption leave. This plan replaces the federal employment insurance plan. Beginning in 1996, Quebec informed Ottawa that it wanted to implement its own parental insurance plan ...
Internet telephones are set to take the global communications industry by storm. Big names like Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo! and eBay are piling into the market and former state-run telecoms providers like BT are also investing. The technology was first developed by the US Defense Department as part of a research project on interconnection in the 1970s. But until recently only techno-geeks have had the interest and ability to make any use of it. But times have changed ...
On 6 April 2006, new regulations, called the Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment - TUPE - Regulations 2006 came into force to replace the well-known 1981 Regulations. These are the Regulations that make provision for protection of employees ? from dismissal and in their terms and conditions - where a business is transferred from one company to another. TUPE 2006 differs in a number of ways from the 1981 Regulations ...
In Hong Kong, some employers grant to employees more than one day off per week while the Employment Ordinance (“EO”) only requires the employer to grant one rest day in every period of seven days. Under such circumstances, there is a question as to whether the employees are entitled to an alternative holiday when the statutory holiday falls on a day off ...
In Hong Kong, it is quite common for employers to grant commission or allowance in addition to basic salary to the employees as part of the remuneration package. Under the EO, eligible employees are entitled to holiday and annual leave pay in respect of holiday or annual leave taken by the employees. There is a question as to whether commission is to be included in “wages” for the purpose of calculating the holiday and annual leave pay to the employees ...
On 23 December 2005, the District Court delivered its judgment on a sex and family status discrimination claim in the case of Lam Wing Lai v YT Cheng (Chingtai) Ltd DCEO 6/2004. The Defendant was a Hong Kong company carrying on the business of trading in industrial raw materials and the Plaintiff was employed as the secretary to the director between 21 May 2001 and 11 November 2002 ...
The Ministry of Labour and Social Security (“MLSS”) issued the Letter on Issues Relevant to the Occupational Qualification Certificates Held by Foreigners Seeking Employment in China on 13 September 2005. The Letter is likely to make it more difficult for foreigners to take up employment in China in positions or jobs for which Occupational Qualification Certificates must be held ...
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 Ministry of Labour and Social Security (“MLSS”) issued the Letter on Issues Relevant to the Occupational Qualification Certificates Held by Foreigners Seeking Employment in China on 13 September 2005. The Letter is likely to make it more difficult for foreigners to take up employment in China in positions or jobs for which Occupational Qualification Certificates must be held ...
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 1 May 2004 a new and revised Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (the TTBER) entered into force - Regulation No. 772/2004. The TTBER will provide block exemptions for IP licensing agreements, ensuring that certain technology transfer agreements are automatically exempt from the application of Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty, which prohibits anti-competitive agreements ...
From 1 October 2006, new legislation comes into effect intended to combat age discrimination. During a recent series of seminars, commercial law firm Shepherd and Wedderburn carried out a survey of delegates to understand employers' concerns and see what efforts they are making to take the new law on board. More than one in four delegates claimed they themselves intended to work past the anticipated default retirement age of 65 while a further 15% were unsure ...
The European Union has recently launched a new ccTLD (country code top level domain). Instead of using the various national European ccTLD's, such as .fr for French companies, .de for German companies, and .co.uk for U.K. companies, the EU has made available the .eu suffix as a Community-wide ccTLD. The new domain extension has already proved widely popular, with more than 100,000 applications for domain names filed thus far ...
Under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), employers who provide group health plans and have 20 or more employees must offer continuation coverage to “qualified beneficiaries” who have lost health coverage as a result of certain qualifying events. This article addresses a number of common COBRA-related issues ...
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 ...
