The Seventh Circuit issued the third in a trilogy of opinions in October establishing the metes and bounds for criminal prosecutions of “spoofing”—a form of market manipulation, mostly in the commodities markets—that Congress expressly prohibited in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. The decisions create a roadmap for government enforcers to bring more cases ...
All banks rely upon their critical vendors, including law firms that handle sensitive, complicated, and high-risk matters. And yet vendor oversight of law firms has been awkward for all parties involved – fitting square pegs into round holes. We believe opportunities exist to ameliorate this awkwardness and enhance law firm oversight ...
One of the main features of the cryptocurrency market is how unpredictable it is - the value of cryptocurrencies can rise and fall sharply, depending on how investors feel about them or the social media hype around them at the time ...
On St Patrick’s Day the Irish Revenue Commissioners issued a communication, through CREST, in relation to CFDs. In the communication the Revenue said they believe the underlying hedging transaction behind a CFD, where the broker acquires Irish shares, may not fall within the relevant stamp duty exemptions that the brokers are claiming. If the Revenue are correct the broker has a 1% stamp duty liability on this hedging transaction ...
Cyber criminals, the twenty-first century equivalent to the highwaymen of yesteryear, don’t offer charities the stark alternative of “their money or their life”, but instead their money or their data, the lifeblood of many charities. Ransomware attacks present a critical risk of their services grinding to a halt for weeks if not months – even if data is restored - as well as swingeing fines for personal data breaches in multiple jurisdictions ...
New SCCs are hot off the (virtual) press. Now's the time to plan, implement the changes in them and, most importantly of course, keep your data flowing. Who hasn’t during a power cut, out of habit, entered a room and tried to flick on the lights? There’s a tiny delay before you remember there’s no power and you reprimand yourself for being so foolish. Too often, we only notice the electricity that powers our lives when it’s not there ...
The administrative fines that have been imposed by the different European supervisory authorities since the GDPR took effect vary enormously. While the highest administrative fines imposed by the German authorities to date have been EUR 20,000 and EUR 80,000 and have therefore remained well below the possible maximum fine of EUR 20 million or 4 % of worldwide annual turnover, other countries’ supervisory authorities have already delivered higher fines ...
Following certain onsite inspections, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) issued a Circular in October 2008 setting out various standards of conduct and control procedures that the SFC views as being "generally expected" of a Hong Kong-licensed hedge fund manager (HKHFM) ...
Stanford Economist Nick Bloom Shares WFH Trends and Predictions View Webinar More than two years into the pandemic, businesses are still wrestling with how to best navigate return to office (RTO). Firms that do it right stand to increase retention, equity, and business performance and forge a new culture of collaboration. But widely varying and evolving business and employee needs make it difficult to unravel the best course of action ...
On Jan. 19, 2021, the two recent final rules issued by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding changes to the Physician-Self Referral Law (Stark Law) and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) regulations (respectively the OIG Final Rule and the CMS Rule, collectively the Final Rules) will become effective ...
A company’s need for substantial amounts of capital is intensified when looking to grow quickly, or develop an innovative product that will disrupt the market in a meaningful way. This is true to any company, and is especially true to innovative and disruptive startups, which aim at creating new markets, revolutionizing existing ones and prevailing over traditional market participants ...
In the VC community, especially for early stage investments, the valuation of a startup is strongly influenced by subjective factors, mainly how the investors view the business, market and management team of the startup. While there are no objective benchmarks for valuing early startups, the valuations of these companies are especially vulnerable to an uncertain economy. Valuation is a very important issue for startups ...
Following the announcement of economic measures aimed towards responding to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Serbian Government issued two regulations on 10 April 2020 that determine the conditions and criteria for compliance of the state aid (i) for remedying the negative effects caused byCOVID-19 and (ii) for remedying a serious disturbance in the economy caused byCOVID-19, whereas both regulations will be valid until 1 July 2021 ...
The Communications Decency Act (CDA)—the law Congress enacted in 1996 and confirmed this past year to shield online publishers from responsibility for the speech of others—gives internet platforms the right to publish the ideas and opinions of third-party users without being held liable for that content or being forced to remove it.[1] In the closely watched case ofHassell v ...
The State of California and the City of Los Angeles are providing emergency assistance for California small businesses. These grants and loans are separate from incentives and programs being offered by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The State is also reminding businesses of existing small business loan programs that affected businesses can utilize. Information about the programs and how to apply is set forth below. State of California Loan Programs 1 ...
China Business Law Journal Published March 9, 2023 With the growing importance of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) and the high level of globalisation in capital and supply chains, the scope of ESG regulation is no longer confined to listed companies, the traditional targets ...
The BVI is a leading international financial centre, and BVI companies play a significant role in the flow of capital across the global economy. As global economic conditions become more challenging, lenders are increasingly reliant on formal insolvency procedures to realise value from distressed assets. As a result, the past year has seen a marked increase in the use of statutory demands against BVI companies as a precursor to an application to appoint liquidators ...
California voters signaled that privacy is a top priority by overwhelmingly approving Proposition 24 on Nov. 3, 2020—the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). The CPRA amends and significantly strengthens the recently enacted California Consumer Privacy Act and moves California's privacy laws toward those of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ...
An entrepreneur who invests time and energy raising the funds necessary to launch a startup, usually from family and friends (love money), will necessarily want their startup to grow exponentially. Achieving exponential growth requires always more capital, and so the entrepreneur will need to find additional sources of financing. One of these could be venture capital financing ...
On April 27, 2016, Waller hosted the Middle Tennessee InfraGard Members Alliance’s Incident Response Briefing. The presenters highlighted increasing cybersecurity risks and the need for a proactive, coordinated approach to limit the impact of cybersecurity compromises. InfraGard is a partnership between the FBI and the private sector dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States ...
The recent decision of the Ugandan Court of Appeal to uphold a 12-year custodial sentence against a former managing director of the National Social Security Fund (“NSSF”) has sparked much debate among finance and legal professionals. Speculation is rife on the impact the decision will have on fund managers (falling within the scope of the Anti-Corruption Act, 2009), as they trade on the secondary bond market ...
Regardless of an organization's scale, cyberattacks and other cybersecurity incidents, such as data loss or merchant/vendor incidents, pose a significant threat to businesses globally. A quick search online easily identifies current cyberattacks being unleashed against corporations operating in today’s global economy including American Express and Change Health ...
In a fascinating court case involving perhaps the best known players in the crytocurrency sector, old legal principles were used to try to solve a new problem. The claim relates to very substantial digital currency assets that Tulip Trading Limited (TTL) claimed it owned but is currently unable to control or use. Following what it says was a hack of computers at the home office of Dr Craig Wright, its primary owner, the company allegedly lost access to more than 111,000 bitcoins ...
