Page 18 - Law Developments News Today

In March 2020 the Comptroller of Revenue released a concession confirming that where companies had to alter their operating practices to compensate for the COVID-19 outbreak, the comptroller would not determine that such company had failed the economic substance test under Article 6 of the Taxation (Companies – Economic Substance) (Jersey) Law 2019. Given that the pandemic remains ongoing, the comptroller recently issued further guidance in relation to the concession.

In a welcome move, the European Union has notified the United Kingdom that all EU countries will apply the 'detached worker' exception to UK employees who are temporarily seconded to work in the European Union. Similarly, the United Kingdom will apply the detached worker exception for EU employees who are temporarily seconded to work in the United Kingdom. This article reviews the latest position.

Introduction On 1 January 2021 a number of tax law amendments introduced by Federal Law 374-FZ of 23 November 2020 entered into force. Among these amendments was the introduction of a rule concerning the taxation of transactions involving the transfer and acquisition of property rights to the Tax Code. Now, the law directly states that property rights, along with other property, are exempt from taxation. At present, according to Article 251(1)(11) of the Tax Code, where one company directly or ...

Introduction Across the globe, more companies are looking into ways to strengthen their environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) profile as investors realise that a strong ESG profile is the key to safeguarding a companys long-term profit and growth. Besides pressure from investors, the importance of sustainability has also been driven by public debate and consumers using spending power to signal their priorities. With the topic of sustainability moving up the global political agend...

Extension of 10% threshold for listed companies until end of 2021 On 28 December 2020 a decree extended until 31 December 2021 (instead of 30 December 2020) the decreased threshold of 10% applying to shareholdings acquisitions of listed companies made by non-EU and non-EEA investors in French sensitive sectors (for further details please see "Private M&A transactions: tightening state control over foreign investment due to COVID-19 pandemic"). Photonis/Teledyne In mid-December 2020 the governme...

Wong v The Commissioner of Police & Anor, (1) the High Court released a party from an implied undertaking not to use documents for a collateral purpose. In this case, the documents in question had been provided by the second respondent (the respondent) to the police in support of its criminal complaint against the applicant. Copies of the documents were passed by the police to the applicant during their investigation. While the implied undertaking generally arises in the context of documents th...

The Supreme Court recently reached a decision concerning an appeal case against the National Court's annulment of a National Securities Market Commission agreement authorising a buy-out takeover. In particular, the Supreme Court took a stand on the potential conflicts of interest between the proposed evaluation report and the price offered in the takeover framework when the evaluation report is carried out by an independent expert.

Introduction On 25 January 2021 President Biden signed an executive order (EO) to direct more spending of the federal governments $600 billion procurement budget on American-made products, while rethinking the existing regulatory framework. By narrowing the loopholes that allow government purchases of foreign products, increasing agency accountability and directing agencies to seek out US suppliers, the EO aims to revitalise the domestic manufacturing industry and create American jobs in furthe...

The construction sector is one of the economic sectors that is permitted to operate during the second Movement Control Order (MCO 2.0). As such, on 14 January 2021 the Construction Industry Development Board of Malaysias website published the standard operating procedure (SOP) that companies with permission to operate during MCO 2.0 must comply with when carrying out construction works (Construction SOP). This article discusses the key points of the Construction SOP. Only critical construction ...

One of the welcome measures of the Swiss corporate law reform is the so-called 'capital band', which provides companies with more flexibility regarding changes to their capital structure. Since Swiss-listed companies could have used the capital band in an abusive manner to generate tax advantages for certain types of shareholder, the respective tax legislation had to be adapted. All Swiss companies which are considering introducing a capital band should carefully plan ahead.