Following a year and half long market investigation, the OFT published on 7 December 2006 its report on the commercial use of public sector information (PSI). The report makes a number of recommendations aimed at increasing "fair" access to PSI, particularly where the public sector body holding the information is itself active in providing value added products to end users ...
"Outsourcing" is defined as an event in which the regulated financial services firm (the "outsourcing entity"), contracts with a service provider to perform any aspect of the outsourcing entity's regulated or unregulated functions that could otherwise be undertaken by the entity itself. The service provider may be a related party within a corporate group, or an unrelated third party entity ...
A Chinese commercial bank recently launched an investment product under the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors scheme (QDII) which takes in Renminbi funds from mainland investors and invests in offshore equity funds, fixed income instruments and money market products denominated in foreign currencies. This is an important breakthrough as previously QDII products from banks only invested in fixed income instruments ...
The European Commission continues its interest in the energy sector in 2007 by imposing record fines on participants in a gas insulated switchgear cartel and carrying out unannounced inspections on several power transformer manufacturers suspected of participating in a cartel. Siemens and ABB confirm involvement in both investigations. A record fine of EUR 992 for a lifts and escalators cartel has also been announced ...
Immediate access to the latest data is essential for business. The Internet and other networks ensure that data are readily accessible. But easy access to data carries with it certain risks, including the risk of unauthorised access. According to research by Gartner in 2006, 80 percent of companies will have suffered an application security incident by 2009 ...
It is generally accepted that mentoring is important to the retention and professional development of attorneys – particularly minority attorneys. However, despite touting their mentoring programs, it appears that few, if any, law firms and corporations “get it right.” Assigning a mentor often results in a few lunches between two people who may or may not have anything in common ...
IntroductionThe ECJ's decision in Placanica has quite rightly generated a lot of comment in this publication and in the press more generally. As the dust settles three views have emerged as to the potential impact of the judgement ...
The long-awaited revision to the United States federal franchise regulation which requires presale disclosure throughout the country will become effective July 1, 2007, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) January 23. The FTC Franchising Trade Regulation Rule (“FTC Rule”), initially adopted in 1979, has been under review since the early 1990s. Although the focus was upon making the disclosures and compliance burdens more relevant to changes in the U.S ...
The Companies Act 2006, which is likely to come into force towards the end of 2007, represents the first attempt to codify directors' duties in UK law. In broad terms, a director's duties currently include the requirement to exercise reasonable skill, care and judgement, not to exceed the powers given to him/her, to avoid conflicts of interest and to act in good faith and in the interests of the company ...
Advocate General Sharpston has recently expressed her opinion in the Commission v Republic of Finland case that ensuring a sufficient degree of transparency for the award of sub-threshold procurements should be determined by national law, rather than Community law. If these views were to be followed by the ECJ, it would provide renewed impetus to create national rules on low value awards and represent a meaningful evolution of the ECJ's past case law ...
Much has been made of the e-communication provisions set out in the new Companies Act 2006. However, less is known of a piece of legislation which came into force on 1 January 2007, the Companies (Registrar, Languages and Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2006, which affect the electronic communications of every company and limited liability partnership in the UK ...
In the context of Romania's accession to the European Union and in response to the World Bank's reports on the compatibility of the country's legislation with the principles of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which indicated a number of deficiencies in Romania's corporate governance regulations, the government introduced major changes to the Company Law (31/1990) with effect from December 1 2006 ...
The Companies Act 2006, which is likely to come into force towards the end of 2007, represents the first attempt to codify directors' duties in UK law. In broad terms, a director's duties currently include the requirement to exercise reasonable skill, care and judgement, not to exceed the powers given to him/her, to avoid conflicts of interest and to act in good faith and in the interests of the company ...
With competition authorities across Europe increasingly keen to demonstrate their toughness when it comes to market-sharing and price-fixing, cartel-busting is very much flavour of the month. The European Commission is imposing larger and larger fines in order to ramp up its cartel-busting activities ...
Enforcement of competition law by means of private actions (particularly private damages actions) is a hot topic. The European Commission has a stated policy objective of encouraging private actions and, at the UK level, private actions are becoming more prevalent in both the courts and before the Competition Appeal Tribunal. In particular, the English High Court's decision in Provimi has led to England being seen as an attractive jurisdiction for damages claims ...
In a previous article on this site , I suggested that the impact of Placanica was to leave the national courts in a bit of a hole ...
The financial services industry recently witnessed a plethora of competition investigations. The banking sector, in particular, has attracted the attention of competition watchdogs in an increasingly complex regulatory environment. Following an 18-month European sector enquiry, UK banks seem to have largely escaped the danger of significant enforcement actions, except possibly in relation to credit cards ...
WiMax, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is a new product developing in Chile that promises to revolutionise Internet access. WiMax allows high speed transmission of data and multimedia services (e.g., the Internet and videos) from laptops, cell phones and other portable devices from distances greater than was possible with previous technologies. According to some preliminary tests, WiMax equipment can reach up to 40 km in open spaces ...
The purpose of this article is to provide a short update as to the legal and policy developments in the area of private enforcement of competition law. Regulatory scrutiny and judicial developments continue to be principally focussed on the issue of follow-on damages actions for infringements of competition law, especially in the cartel arena. However, as can be seen in the English High Court's recent judgement in SanDisk Corporation vs ...
In recent weeks, hefty fines for data breaches have been issued in the United Kingdom and Greece. Surprisingly, these fines have not been levied by data protection authorities, but by other regulators with overlapping jurisdiction over data security. The authors, from Hunton & Williams, write that data protection enforcement in Europe appears to be entering a new phase ...
Romania¡¦s yearly economic growth has triggered in the past few years an increased interest for investment in the existing domestic companies. Most of the financial investors seek to leverage their acquisitions and expect the possibility to use the target companies¡¦ assets to such purpose. This article will briefly review corporate limits and prevailing interpretation.Prohibition of financial assistanceRomania has implemented the provisions of art ...
On 10 May 2007, the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) issued its "Notice on the Adjustments to the Overseas Investment Scope of Overseas Wealth Management Business of Commercial Banks on behalf of their Clients". This Notice widens the investment scope permitted under the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors scheme (QDII) applicable to commercial banks (including Chinese banks and approved foreign banks in China) ...
The SFC's feedback on their recent round of inspections of Investment Advisers (IAs) was shared with members of the Institute of Financial Planners of Hong Kong on 8 May 2007. The SFC reported that the main issues they identified were: insufficient knowledge of clients and lack of justification to illustrate suitability of advice ...
