As the public conflict between the European Commission and the British-Swedish pharma giant over apparent shortages in COVID-19 vaccine deliveries continues to heat up, the Commission has today implemented a new export transparency regime, allowing Member States to potentially block their exports. In recent days, Commission considerations of whether to institute greater oversight of which, and crucially how much, Covid-19 vaccines, manufactured in the EU, have raised considerable fears across the globe of an EU “export ban.” Under the new mechanism,...

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This article is part of Portolano Cavallo’s monthly “INFORM@ Digital & IP” Newsletter. Click here to subscribe. | The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has highlighted the central role that digital platforms play from both an economic and a social perspective, along with the challenges arising from online flow and concentration of Big Data. In response to political pressure for reforming the rules governing digital markets and services, on December 15, 2020 the European Commission (Commission) published the text of two proposals that undoubtedly represent...

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As 2020 drew to a close, Indivior PLC, a global pharmaceutical company and manufacturer of the opioid treatment Suboxone, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia for making false statements to the Massachusetts Medicaid program about the relative safety of Suboxone Film around children to increase its sales, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1035. The Indivior sentencing closed out yet another significant, multifaceted investigation led by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ...

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Key insights Labor laws depend on the jurisdiction from which your employee works, not your organization’s location. You may need to adjust benefits for an employee working in another state. Tax laws vary by state, and employers with employees working in other states may create new tax or insurance liabilities. Carefully consider how remote employees working internationally may be subject to additional requirements regarding the right to work and taxation. When many businesses made the swift decision to embrace remote...

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When Congress overrode President Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act on January 1, 2021, it enacted the Anti-Money Laundering Act (AMLA), which was part of the defense authorization bill.  In doing so, Congress implemented the most sweeping anti-money-laundering statute since the USA PATRIOT Act.  In addition to a number of regulatory reforms and new disclosure requirements, the AMLA has put into place new whistleblower protections, adding to the range of statutes that have effectively created anti-retaliation provisions...

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This newsletter provides a status update on the most important (draft) legislative proposals in the field of Dutch company law and looks back at some of the legislation that entered into force in 2020. PENDING LEGISLATION Bill on the management and supervision of legal entities The Management and Supervision of Legal Entities Act (Stb. 2020, 507) will enter into force on 1 July 2021. This act standardises the rules on the management and supervision of legal entities and will have consequences for...

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In the last decade alone, the accounting industry has seen general ledgers evolve drastically from paper and Excel-based programs to more sophisticated platforms. But even with the widespread availability and cost-effective features of these new tools, many nonprofits are still relying on general ledgers that are local to the organization's devices or housed in onsite servers that require VPN login when working remotely. The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder of the limitations these systems impose on a finance department's...

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On January 1, 2021, Congress enacted the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (the “AML Act”), which contains the most significant reforms to U.S. AML laws since the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. Below are some key provisions of the AML Act, and here is a more detailed description of the statute’s major provisions. Key Provisions Beneficial Ownership Registry. Creates a new, long-awaited central registry for beneficial ownership information of shell companies and other smaller, less regulated entities, which will be available to financial...

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