Last week upon final passage by Congress, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA or Act) into law.[1] The $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill provides a comprehensive package of available funds to qualifying individuals and businesses in the form of direct payments, industry-specific grants, and tax credits ...
Who qualifies as a Politically Exposed Person? Politically exposed persons (or “PEPs”) are individuals who have been entrusted with a prominent public function ...
All eyes were on health care in 2020, as the industry faced unprecedented challenges presented by the global coronavirus pandemic. Stories and images of overburdened frontline health care workers dominated the news cycle for most of the year, and the rapid development of one or more seemingly effective vaccines has engendered a cautious optimism for a return to normalcy in 2021 ...
“The framework agreement is an agreement whereby the contracting parties define and establish the main rules and conditions that will govern future agreements that will be concluded between them and that are called agreements “for the application” or “for the enforcement” of the framework agreement.” (High Court of Cassation and Justice Decision n0 ...
In Secretariat Consulting Pte Ltd v A Company [2021] EWCA Civ 6, England’s Court of Appeal held that, depending on the terms of the retainer, the relationship between a provider of litigation support services/expert and his or her client, may have one of the characteristics of a fiduciary relationship, namely a duty of loyalty or, to put it another way, a duty to avoid conflicts of interest ...
A group of 50 striking employees confront their manager in his office. An altercation ensues, which culminates in the manager being violently assaulted. Only five of the striking employees are caught “red-handed”, having been identified as the perpetrators of the violent assault. The rest are only identified as having been there when the assault took place ...
On August 11, 2023, the Court of Appeal of Quebec handed down a decision in CFG Construction inc. c. R.,1 dismissing the appeal of the guilty verdict against an employer, CFG Construction inc. (?CFG?), for criminal negligence having caused the death of one of its employees. This decision serves as a reminder of the potential criminal liability of an employer, depending on its legal form, for the death or bodily injury of its employees in the workplace ...
The advent of streaming video on demand platforms (SVOD) has made access to virtual content relatively easy. As a matter of fact, it is one of the many benefits that comes with the internet and technological evolution. However, when sharing or transmitting virtual contents to consumers or subscribers, these platforms must ensure that the appropriate licences are obtained from holders of intellectual property rights to avoid claims of infringement ...
In Secretariat Consulting Pte Ltd v A Company [2021] EWCA Civ 6, England’s Court of Appeal held that, depending on the terms of the retainer, the relationship between a provider of litigation support services/expert and his or her client, may have one of the characteristics of a fiduciary relationship, namely a duty of loyalty or, to put it another way, a duty to avoid conflicts of interest ...
Key Points Opponents of the proposed Oakland A's stadium at Howard Terminal argued that the Governor missed a deadline to certify the project for an expedited environmental review pursuant to Assembly Bill (AB) 734, a special purpose bill. AB 734 contained no explicit deadline for certification, but it incorporated guidelines from AB 900, as amended, which did include a certification deadline ...
On February 12, 2024, the Court of Appeal of Quebec handed down its decision in Société d?assurance Beneva inc. c. Bordeleau,1 dealing in particular with the burden of proof incumbent on an insurer when it denies coverage on the basis of an insured?s intentional fault, and an award of damages against an insurer for breach of its duty of good faith. The facts This decision was rendered further to a dispute between Société d?assurance Beneva inc ...
The objectives in brief The Government would like to see the aquaculture industry grow, provided that it can do so in a sustainable manner. Statistics produced by the Directorate of Fisheries show that Norway produced and sold a total of just under 1.5 million tonnes of rainbow trout, trout and Atlantic salmon in 2020 ...
According to the World Bank’s 2019 Doing Business index, Indonesia sits in 73rd position overall out of 190 countries in terms of ease of doing business. President Joko Widodo has set as a target increasing Indonesia’s ranking to 40th position. To boost investment and ease of doing business in Indonesia, in his inauguration speech on 20 October 2019, President Joko Widodo introduced the idea of enacting an Omnibus Law ...
The legal systems of the nations that comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- have undergone dramatic, radical and progressive change and development in the past 25 years, which is continuing ...
A trust is created when the legal ownership of property is transferred to or vested in a trustee who thereafter is required by law to manage and administer the property for the benefit of beneficiaries, or for the furtherance of certain purposes. The beneficiaries of the trust collectively hold beneficial title to the trust property. This permits the beneficiaries to enforce trust obligations through the courts if necessary ...
Female attorneys are leaving the practice of law. Although this isn’t a new problem, it’s a problem that has plagued the legal profession for decades. Many departures go unexplained and leave legal employers reeling. While answers may be hard to come by, I suggest that legal employers look to an unlikely source for information: TikTok. TikTok is a social media networking platform that allows users to post short-form videos ranging from 15 seconds to several minutes ...
The Register of Controlled Interests in Land (RCI) opened in Scotland on 1 April 2022. As we reported last year, the main aim of the RCI Regulations[1] is to increase public transparency around individuals who have significant control over decision-making in relation to land or a registrable lease, but crucially who do not appear on the Land Register or Sasine Register ...
Investing in India can be challenging in view of the myriad of laws at both the Central and State level, as well as cumbersome sector specific requirements. Many-a-times, foreign investors tie up with Indian promoters to overcome these hurdles. However, difficulties get amplified when they get embroiled in litigation / arbitration with Indian promoters over issues related to mismanagement, control, earn-out payments etc ...
A new report has found that men have substantially more private pension wealth than women, which may pose challenges when they divorce. In October 2019, Shoosmiths commissioned research to understand the gender gap in pensions and we found that a third of married couples and those in civil partnerships did not know that they were entitled to a proportion of their spouse’s pension on divorce ...
In 2014, a South African court convicted Paralympian Oscar Pistorius of culpable homicide (manslaughter), following the shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, and he was given a custodial sentence of five years. The conviction was later replaced with one of murder and his sentence increased to six years imprisonment ...
The Private Investment Law (Law 10/18 of 26 June) was amended by Law 10/21 of 22 April. The new law marks the return of the contractual system to the area of private investment. As a result, the current private investment systems are the following: i) Prior declaration system ii) Special system iii) Contractual system The contractual system is applicable to projects in any sector ...
Note on Circular Letter No. 002/DCC/2020 With the approval of Notice No. 2/2020, of January 2020 (“Notice 2/2020”), the National Bank of Angola (“BNA”) introduced greater flexibility in the foreign exchange sector, as it eliminated prior licensing and delegated the validation of the operations to the commercial banks. With the publication of the Circular Letter No ...
