General Election in Ireland kicks off Taoiseach Leo Varadkar ended weeks of speculation on Tuesday as went to the President to ask him to dissolve parliament, paving the way for a general election on Saturday, February 8. His Fine Gael-led minority government served in power for four years, with support from the main opposition party Fianna Fáil, through a ‘Confidence and Supply’ agreement. With the immediate risk of a ‘no deal Brexit’ averted through the passing of the Withdrawal Agreement,...

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On January 13, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued final rules fully implementing the new powers granted to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS or the Committee). Congress provided these new powers via the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA), which significantly enhances the Committee's ability to conduct national security reviews of inbound investments. For the last 15 months, CFIUS has operated a temporary "pilot program," which implemented only a few...

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By Joanna Dodd Massey, CEO, JDMA Inc I had a conversation at dinner with a colleague about the different ways younger and older generations communicate. Broadly speaking, Millennials prefer email, text, Instagram DM and Slack (or other instant-messaging business apps). Gen Z favors text, Slack and Snapchat. Gen X and Baby Boomers are still into email with Gen X gravitating to Slack and text. The Silent Generation, also known as the Traditionalists, like a good old-fashioned phone call or face-to-face...

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The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing the state-owned housing company Gewobag with a 240-million-euro loan, which is earmarked for the construction of 2,000 new residential units by 2023. The new buildings will predominantly meet “energy-efficient house” standards and therefore surpass the requirements of the applicable energy saving regulation (EnEV). The contract for financing the project between the European Investment Bank and Gewobag was already signed. This cooperation will secure further affordable housing for Berlin. “The low-interest loan from the EIB...

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Ogletree Deakins, one of the largest labor and employment law firms representing management, is pleased to announce that the firm has named Lisa Ellis-James as its Chief Operating Officer. Ellis-James, who will be based in Ogletree Deakins’ Greenville administrative office, joins the firm from The Boston Consulting Group, where she served as Senior Director, Global Operational Innovations, and was the Chief of Staff for the Global Operations Leadership Team. As Ogletree Deakins’ Chief Operating Officer, Ellis-James will lead the firm’s...

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On January 6, 2020, the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released an interim final rule controlling the export of certain artificial intelligence software relating to geospatial imagery analysis (Geospatial AI software). The rule adds Geospatial AI software to the Export Administration Regulations' (EAR) Commerce Control List (CCL) and imposes a license requirement for the export, reexport (shipment from one foreign country to another foreign country), or transfer in-country (collectively "export") of the Geospatial AI software...

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Trepp, a leading provider of information analytics and technology to the structured finance, commercial real estate, and banking markets announced today that it has been selected to be the exclusive manager and administrator of the life insurance commercial mortgage whole loan index known as LifeComps™. LifeComps provides a quantifiable investment performance index and serves as a benchmark for privately held commercial real estate mortgages. Going forward, Trepp will generate the LifeComps Index, all underlying reports, and analytics for each of...

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Key Events This Week   Brexit: Phase 2 begins  On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took a trip to London to meet with Boris Johnson, their first face-to-face encounter as the new leaders of their respective blocs. In a speech to the London School of Economics, von der Leyen said the EU would “go as far as we can” on a deal of “unprecedented scale”. Keep reading Digital tax dispute rumbles on France and the United States have agreed to “double their...

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