“Commercial Awareness Is Global.”
By: Eran D. Grossman, Esq. More problems are on the horizon between government regulators and local U.S. banks (smaller, regional and/or community banks) over how to handle falling commercial property values. Currently, banks are holding roughly $1.9 billion in commercial real estate loans, which equals about a quarter of all outstanding loans, according to Moody’s. The values of such loans
By: Ainsley Brown Four white farmers who had their farms unlawfully seized under the regime of President Robert Mugabe are to seek by all accounts gain compensation in South Africa. A South African court has ruled recently that the farmers have the right to seek out and seize Zimbabwean government property in South Africa. The North Gauteng High Court ruled
By: Ainsley Brown This forms part of the Middle Passage Law Series on Law Is Cool. American International Group, better know by its acronym AIG, it seems these days can rarely catch a break. It just seems negative news follows negative news for this company. This time the negative news for this too big to fail company – deeply wounded
By: Ainsley Brown The European Union (EU) and Vietnam have now officially stated free trade talks after Karel De Gucht, the EU Trade Commissioner, met with the Vietnamese Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi. The talks come after the successful conclusion of the 2 year in the making deal signed with South Korea in October of last year. This
By: Ainsley Brown Global trade was expected to drop as much as 10% in 2009; instead it fell by 12%. That extra two percent may not seem like much but it represents the largest drop in global commerce since 1945. This greater than expected drop has lead to renewed calls from Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the World Trade
By: Ainsley Brown While terrorism, terror financing and constitutional principles such as the rule of law and Parliamentary supremacy are not the usual subjects covered here at Commercial Law International, this seeming break from tradition is in fact not such a stretch. As our moniker indicates Commercial Awareness is Global – it is important to note and as will soon
By: Ainsley Brown Canada now joins a score of other nations, including Brazil, Japan, Norway, India and Turkey, as third parties in a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel on China’s export restrictions on certain raw materials. A WTO panel is the third step established under the Dispute Resolution Understanding (DSU) – the DSU being the lynchpin that transformed the General
By: Ainsley Brown The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the agency charged with policing trade practices – read unfair trade practices – has launched a study into the high cost associated with business insolvency. The study will focus on the way insolvency practitioners, namely accountants and lawyers are appointed and how they set their fees. The importance of the study
By: Ainsley Brown In what is clearly a sign of the continuing rise of tensions in global trade relations, China last week imposed duties US and Russian steel. The target of the duties is flat rolled steel used in the electric power sector. According to the Chinese the steel products were being dumped – that is being sold at below
By: Ainsley Brown In a very surprising move HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) has extended it tax amnesty program – the New Disclosure Opportunity (NDO). The NDO was set to expire on November 30 of this year but has been extended to January 4 of next. Under the program tax payers with undisclosed offshore accounts nestled away in any number