By Greetje van Heezik | Houthoff On 25 July 2018, the CJEU set aside a judgment of the General Court (GC) that annulled a Commission Decision declaring a Spanish tax lease system to constitute incompatible State aid. The relevant tax system allowed shipping companies to acquire vessels via a specific contractual and financial structure. Under this structure, an Economic Interest Grouping (EIG) (formed by a bank and investors who purchased shares in the EIG) would take a lease out on a ship...

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Firms accessing this credit line will benefit from favourable terms of EIB financing The European Investment Bank (EIB) is providing financing for SME and mid-cap projects with a EUR 75m loan to Bankia. Under the agreement signed in Madrid, Bankia will match the loan with the same amount, meaning that a total of EUR 150m will be made available by the two institutions for financing Spanish businesses. This EIB loan to Bankia is being provided under the EU programme for SMEs and mid-caps....

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By Guenter Degitz | Sean Dowd | Cameron Gibbs | Charlie Laurence  AlixPartners’ sixth annual global anticorruption survey polled more than 275 corporate counsel, legal and compliance officers representing more than 20 major industries globally. This year, businesses continued to face strong FCPA enforcement activity due to increased international cooperation, data challenges from legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the emergence of new regions of concern. Our report examines the impact of these issues on organizations and effective compliance tools.  At a...

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By Mark Overmann | Vice President of External Affairs | InterExchange   International interns and trainees contributed $662 million to the U.S. economy in 2017, a just-released study indicates. The study, conducted by the research firm Eureka Facts, examines the Department of State's Intern and Trainee international exchange programs.    The major findings of the report include:    Intern and Trainee programs are valuable tools for U.S. diplomacy, fostering positive attitudes towards the United States: 95% of international interns and trainees reported a positive experience in the...

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By Melissa Manna  (Raleigh) | Ogletree Deakins The rate of requests for evidence (RFEs) and denials issued for H-1B and L-1 petitions by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is up considerably, according to a new report by the National Foundation for American Policy. The findings, which are based on data released by USCIS, corroborate what many employers had already suspected—that it is getting harder to secure work authorization for foreign nationals, even those that are highly-skilled. The report suggests that the increased scrutiny on...

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By Danny Boice | Trustify  When you ask a candidate for references, the smart candidate will give you the contact information to former co-workers and managers who have seen them at their best, who have favorable opinions of them. Unfortunately, this does not provide the complete picture. Backdoor reference checks avoid this situation because you are contacting individuals that weren't listed. These could be former co-workers, managers, and clients who worked with the candidate and can share their experience. This shows what a person...

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By Mark Overmann, Vice President of External Affairs, InterExchange Years ago, as an English teacher in China, I regularly failed due to cultural difference. I had no training in the Chinese culture or classroom, so I used what I did have: my own culture. The lessons I planned and the methods I used seemed right to me. But they bombed with my students. Eventually I adjusted, but it took trial and error, and it took time. My teaching career isn’t the...

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by Dana DiRaimondo and Sara Schroeder, D & S Boutique Business Immigration On April 18, 2017, President Trump signed the “Buy American and Hire American” (BAHA) Executive Order with the intention of making changes to the U.S. visa program to “protect the jobs of American workers. On its face, BAHA called for various government agencies to review existing regulations and policies, suggest reforms to the H-1B visa system, and propose new rules and guidance to combat visa fraud and abuse. The...

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by Johanna Collins-Wood, Associate, Pepper Hamilton Globalization is no longer sexy. Brexit, the election of nationalist leaders across both Europe and the United States, and Russia’s resurrection have clearly proven that in today’s world, countries are back to focusing on themselves. The disparate approaches to regulating blockchain and cryptocurrency technology taken by the European Union (EU), Switzerland and the United States (US) all seek to promote their own bloc’s needs and views on technology, rather than to promote a global...

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by Scott Ferguson, Chief Executive Officer, World Trade Centers Association It is no secret that cities are drivers of economic prosperity. As national governments and policy makers seem engaged in an ever-shifting tug-of-war, urban centers have found a way to create wealth and opportunity for their people in a way that larger governing bodies just haven’t mastered. But even among them, some cities seem to prevail where others continue to struggle. When we partnered with FP Analytics to craft and release...

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