Forum

Highlights:  Businesses operating in Canada should be aware of a recent trend towards greater regulation and enforcement action surrounding pricing representations where additional costs are not clearly disclosed up front. The federal government’s planned regulation of airline advertising, the Competition Bureau’s recent aggressive enforcement initiatives regarding price representations as well recent class actions involving pricing … Continued

Highlights: Changes have been proposed to the Singapore Code on Take-overs and Mergers (“Code”). The main changes include updating the language of the Code to incorporate current practices on the takeover of real estate investment trusts and business trusts, setting out when collective shareholder action amounts to acting in concert, and dealing with joint offers … Continued

Highlights:  On January 16, 2012, the Public Private Partnerships Act (“PPP Act”) was published and amendments were made to several related laws (the Law of Acquisitions, Law of Public Works, Expropriation Law, and National Assets Law) with the intention to consolidate a market practice that has been carried out without a clear legal framework. The … Continued

Executive summary:  The linked memorandum identifies the issues facing financial institutions that do not have sufficiently positive and proactive relationships with their regulators to influence the ways in which new regulatory principles and rules will be applied to them, explains how some of the traditional responses of financial institutions to regulatory change are now outdated, … Continued

Highlights:  New legislation reduces the income tax applicable to income from debentures issued by special purpose companies (SPCs) incorporated to carry out infrastructure investment projects or projects for intensive economic production in research, development and innovation that are deemed “priorities” by the federal government. Legal entities domiciled in Brazil are subject to a 15% tax … Continued

Highlights:  New amendments to the Federal Law on Foreign Investment in the Russian Federation and the Federal Law on Foreign Investment in Companies of Strategic Importance for National Defence and Security generally improve the environment for foreign investments in Russian strategic companies. Transactions involving international financial institutions set up in accordance with international treaties of … Continued

Highlights:  The Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) conditionally approved Seagate’s acquisition of Samsung’s hard disk drive business, making it the 4th conditional approval of this year and the 10th conditional approval by MOFCOM since China’s Anti-Monopoly Law went into effect. While MOFCOM still relies heavily on market share and market structure, it also takes in … Continued

Highlights:  The Supreme Court of Canada issued a unanimous decision that the proposed federal Canadian Securities Act, as currently drafted, is unconstitutional as it is not a valid exercise of the Federal Government’s power to regulate trade and commerce. The Court expressly noted that there were specific aspects of the Act aimed at addressing matters … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights: New legislation, expected to become effective on July 1, 2012, introduces for the first time one-tier Dutch board structure, a single board comprising both executive and non-executive directors, as an alternative to the historical Dutch two-tier board structure where there is a management board and a separate supervisory board. Once the new bill … Continued

Highlights: One of the key drivers of the M&A sector in Spain in 2011 was the restructuring of the Spanish financial sector.  This process is still ongoing and represents an opportunity for foreign investors interested in acquiring strategic interests in the Spanish banking sector, entering the market on a stand-alone basis through asset purchases or … Continued