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If adopted, Bill S-285, and in particular its proposed amendments to section 122 of the CBCA, would transform the CBCA’s approach to a corporation’s stakeholders from an incidental consideration to a central one, whereby the benefits provided to various stakeholders would no longer derive from pursuing the best interests of the corporation, but would instead form part of the corporation’s purpose, enshrined in law, and would be protected through redefined directors’ and officers’ duties.

Executive Summary/Highlights For the first time since 2021, global dealmaking is up year on year for the third consecutive quarter, with significant increases in volume attributable to U.S. M&A and mega deals. Global M&A volume was US$797 billion in Q1 2024, a 36% increase from Q1 2023 but an 11% decrease from Q4 2023. Global … Continued

*Originally distributed on February 26, 2024.  In July 2023, Nidec Corporation, the largest motor manufacturing company in the world and listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (“TSE”) Prime Market, proposed to acquire and take private Takisawa Machine Tool Co., Ltd., which specializes in manufacturing machine tools and is listed on the TSE Standard Market. Remarkably, … Continued

*Originally distributed on February 20, 2024.  In 2023, there was a 6.7% decline in the number of mergers and acquisitions involving Japanese companies as compared to 2022. This decrease can be attributed to a combination of macroeconomic factors, interest rate trends, regulatory changes, and geopolitical influences. Despite this overall trend, one standout deal was the … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights Global M&A volume in 2023 declined relative to 2022 and 2021, when it set a record. M&A activity in the second half of 2023, however, exceeded that of the second half of 2022. Global M&A volume in 2023 was US$2.9 trillion, down from US$3.6 trillion in 2022 and below the annual average of … Continued

*Originally distributed on January 13, 2024.  On December 29, 2023, the National People’s Congress passed the new amendment to the Company Law of the People’s Republic of China (the “New Company Law”), which will take effect on July 1, 2024. This marks the second comprehensive revisions of the PRC Company Law since its initial promulgation … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights Despite signs of recovery in Q2 2023, global dealmaking slowed in Q3 2023, and annualized year-to-date M&A volume is now on pace to be the lowest total since 2003. Global M&A volume was US$655 billion in Q3 2023, a 16% decrease from Q2 2023 and an 11% decrease from Q3 2022.  If the … Continued

Despite frequent frictions in recent trade relations, the growing scale of the economic relationship between the world’s two largest economies—the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States—has given rise to an ever-greater number of civil and commercial disputes. For decades, the common assumption among American lawyers was that enforcing a U.S. court judgment … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights Global dealmaking is showing signs of recovery: although M&A volume in H1 2023 was lower than H1 2022, deal volume in Q2 2023 was the second highest of the last four quarters. Global M&A volume was US$753 billion in Q2 2023, a 31% increase from Q1 2023, but a 33% decrease from Q2 … Continued

*Originally distributed on June 25, 2023 Directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance is still new to Chinese mainland. Although it was introduced to China in the late 1990s, it did not appear to be important to many Chinese companies and the uptake was rather slow. Now the D&O market is set to boom due to … Continued