金杜应邀出席创业板注册制首批企业上市仪式
8月24日上午，深圳交易所举行创业板注册制首批公司上市仪式，首批18家企业同时挂牌交易。创业板改革并试点注册制是习近平总书记亲自研究、亲自部署的资本市场重大改革举措，是党中央交办的重要任务，也是全面深化资本市场改革的重要安排。创业板改革并试点注册制的落地实施，对于我国多层次资本市场体系的进一步建设，提升资本市场服务实体经济能力，更好地支持粤港澳大湾区和中国特色社会主义先行示范区建设均具有重要意义。…
Is a SICAV a PFIC for IRS Tax and Reporting?
Commerce and Treasury Departments Sanction Entities Supporting Iran’s Mahan Air
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against several persons and entities determined to be supporting Iran’s Mahan Air in violation of U.S. sanctions toward Iran. According to both agencies, the involved companies have provided key parts and logistics services for Mahan Air, which was first sanctioned in March 2008 for providing support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF)…
ITC Section 332 Investigation Seeks Public Comment on COVID-19 Related Industry Sectors and Products
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) announced on August 21, 2020 that it has initiated a Section 332 general factfinding investigation on COVID-19 related industry sectors and particular products. The investigation, COVID-19 Related Goods: The U.S. Industry, Market, Trade, and Supply Chain Challenges, was requested by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance in an August 13, 2020 letter. In a final report…
The Sustainable Finance Regulation Video Series
Volume 1: Foreign Banks Operating in the UK
Over the next few months, Norton Rose Fulbright’s financial services conduct team will be releasing a series of videos focussing on sustainable finance regulation issues affecting financial services firms. In volume 1 of the series, Hannah McAslan discusses the sustainable finance regulation issues impacting on foreign banks operating in the UK.…
Treasury and State Departments Continue to Tighten Sanctions Against Syrian President Basher al-Assad’s Regime
On August 20, 2020, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Department of State sanctioned six Syrian individuals in President Basher al-Assad’s office and the Syrian Ba’ath Party who have contributed to the oppression of the Assad regime. The sanctioned individuals are: (1) President al-Assad’s media adviser, Luna al Shibl; (2) senior Ba’ath party official Mohamad Amar Saati; (3) Yasser Ibrahim, National Defense Forces commander; (4) Fadi Saqr, 42nd…
United States and the European Union Agree to Certain Tariff Reductions
On August 21, 2020, the United States and the European Union (EU) agreed to tariff reductions on several products unrelated to ongoing trade disputes involving Section 232 national security tariffs on aluminum and steel products and retaliatory tariffs under the WTO dispute involving large commercial aircraft. In a Joint Statement issued by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the EU will eliminate tariffs on imports of U.S. live and frozen lobster products, valued…
USTR Retroactively Excludes Two Additional Chinese Products from Section 301 Tariffs and Amends Other Product Exclusion Descriptions
On August 21, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued a Federal Register notice exempting Section 301 import tariffs for two additional List/Tranche 3 products from China (import from China with an annual trade value of $200 billion):
Wallets, whether or not with wrist straps, of reinforced plastics, each measuring at least 17.5 cm long by 2 cm wide by 11 cm high and not more than 19 cm long by 2 cm…
BIS publishes speech on reg tech and sup tech
On 21 August 2020, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) published a speech by Benoît Cœuré, Head of the BIS Innovation Hub, which focussed on the main challenges to the development of reg tech and sup tech in the financial services sector.
Cœuré begins by describing the differences between reg and sup tech – namely that the former is used by financial institutions to assist with regulatory compliance whereas the latter is used by supervisory…
CCPA regulations take effect with a few minor changes
On August 14, the California Attorney General (AG) announced that the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) approved – after two and a half months – the final California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) regulations. The final approved CCPA regulations take effect immediately and are virtually unchanged from the regulations that the AG submitted to the OAL on June 1, 2020 (you can review our analysis of that version here). The AG also released an …