On January 6, 2021, the Small Business Administration (the “SBA”) and the Department of Treasury released an Interim Final Rule called “Business Loan Program Temporary Changes; Paycheck Protection Second Draw Loans” (“Second Draw Rules”). These rules announced the implementation of section 311 of the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act (the “Economic Aid Act”) ...
Québec has passed and enacted Bill 96, also known as An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, a major reform to its Charter of the French Language ...
American universities have long attracted the best and brightest from around the world. They come both for the educational environment that protects free speech and open inquiry and for the sophisticated research opportunities that prevail in American academic labs – funded, in part, by American taxpayer dollars. Upwards of 9 in 10 students from some countries intend to stay, adding to America’s intellectual capital and its economic vitality ...
As part of the nuclear arrangement reached with Iran, the United States rescinded its nuclear-related sanctions imposed on entities outside the United States on January 16, 2016, which is the so-called “Implementation Day” under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“JCPOA”). At the same time, the United States also lifted sanctions on foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies. Apart from a few specific exceptions, however, including new exceptions for U.S ...
On 23 June 2023, the Council of the European Union adopted its eleventh package of restrictive measures against Russia, which supplements those discussed in our previous newsflashes_. This latest package aims to tackle the circumvention of previously adopted sanctions and also adds additional restrictions ...
By 15 February, councils must issue a final EHC plan for every child going through a phase transfer at school, i.e., from primary to middle or junior, from primary to secondary, or from middle or junior to secondary ...
Thirteen years after the filing of the initial complaint, the First Circuit recently revived a False Claims Act (FCA) suit, reversing the district court and holding a relator can be an “original source” without participating in or having contemporaneous knowledge about the alleged fraud. See United States ex rel. Banigan v. PharMerica, Inc., 950 F.3d 134 (1st Cir. 2020) ...
The past year has seen substantial activity by the federal courts in guarding against government overreach in False Claims Act cases. One of the principal areas courts have focused on is the FCA's knowledge requirement — i.e., FCA liability can only be imposed where a person violates the act knowingly. Two recent decisions, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the U.S ...
2011 saw steady increases of production throughout the Marcellus Shale play, a heavy emphasis on strengthening and expanding pipeline infrastructure, and a boom in the level of activity in the Utica Shale play ...
In the 2012 regular session of the West Virginia Legislature, several resolutions were passed with potential future impact on the shale gas industry. Below is a summary of those significant resolutions. Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 52 This resolution requests the Joint Committee on Government and Finance to study the viability of increasing severance tax rates on shale gas ...
In September, the National Customs and Tax Authority - DIAN - presented the third draft of the new Customs Statute, which will regulate most of Colombia’s customs law. Although scholars and business associations have presented their comments to the project, the draft seems to be definitive for the most part ...
Some favourable news on the global economic front has been trickling in. Markets around the world rallied as the US avoided the fiscal cliff-dive by a nanosecond; China's economy is showing signs of renewed strength, with the powerful manufacturing sector now performing at its best levels in almost two years; and share prices in most of Europe, Britain and even Japan have been trading solidly higher over the past few months ...
Further to our client alert of 25 May, we include here the full list of changes to the 2014 Negative List (DNI), as contained in Presidential Regulation No. 44/2016 and its attachments. Note, again, that existing investors’ licensing will be grandfathered. ASEAN investors have preferential arrangements in many cases ...
The Indonesian Government has released the long-awaited revision to the Negative List (“DNI”). The revised regulation (Presidential Regulation No. 44/2016) was promulgated on 18 May 2016 and circulated to the public on 24 May. The DNI regulates the sectors which are closed, open, or conditionally open to investment. The DNI revision is keenly awaited as it stipulates, amongst other matters, restrictions on foreign participation in various business activities in Indonesia ...
The next 60-day regular session of the West Virginia Legislature commences on Wednesday, January 9, 2019. While much of the nation seemed transfixed by the recent electoral changes, the most significant political change in the West Virginia Legislature actually preceded the 2018 general election. Indeed, the House of Delegates elected a new Speaker, Roger Hanshaw (R-Clay), in August 2018 to replace Tim Armstead who resigned to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court of Appeals ...
In a country with a significant number of mature fields and few discoveries made and/or developed in the last years, the Romanian National Authority for Mineral Resources has recently launched a public call for tender for the concession of 28 exploration, development and exploitation petroleum blocks, both onshore and offshore (Licensing Round XI/2019) ...
Dinsmore’s Government Relations team was involved in several significant legislative initiatives affecting the health care sector during the 2019 regular session of the West Virginia legislature. Most notably, Dinsmore was involved in the passage of HB 2010, relating to foster care ...
The 2020 election in California as pertains to national politics was never in doubt, but despite being a deeply blue state, Californians continued to show their divide on taxing businesses and making major changes to the statewide tax code. Several ballot initiatives, both at the state and municipal level, would have radically altered how businesses and executives are taxed ...
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued its Annual Report to Congress, which provides statistics concerning bid protest filings for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020, including the number of protests filed and sustained. The chart below, included in GAO's Annual Report, summarizes this information. Click here to view the summary table As shown above, most of the data points remained constant from the prior year ...
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has concluded the legislative session. COVID-19 significantly changed the format and content of the legislative session. The operating rules were amended to permit remote voting, and the legislative focus centered on the impact of COVID-19 on schools, communities, businesses and the Pennsylvania budget for the FY 2020-2021. Below is a snapshot of some of the key areas addressed during this session ...
With the New Year, California rings in a lot of legislative changes, including a new standard for evaluating independent contractor classifications. Here is what you need to know: Independent Contractors Effective Jan. 1, 2020, Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) became law in California by adding section 2750.3 to the Labor Code. AB-5 is the legislative response to the California Supreme Court decision in Dynamex v ...
In a slightly surprising, but nevertheless welcome, South African 2020 Budget Speech today, the Honourable Minister of Finance announced that there would be no significant tax increases to the major taxes for the forthcoming tax year. Widely anticipated increases to value-added tax (“VAT”), income tax, capital gains tax and estate duty did not materialise ...
Key Points In addition to five key victories for housing advocates discussed in an earlier alert, the California Senate passed many additional housing bills not included in their “Building Opportunities for All” Housing Package. Bills from the Housing Package that would have approved an affordable housing bond (SB 5), residential housing on certain commercial sites (SB 6), and local housing data reporting requirements (SB 477) all failed to win approval ...
