Reaching the 2.5 billion people worldwide who do not have access to the vision care they need took a step closer to reality this month when the Essilor Group launched the Vision For Life program. Jayanth Bhuvaraghan, Essilor’s Chief Corporate Mission Officer and Chairman of the two boards that will administer the funds, explained how it will work. “Vision for Life is a global strategic giving program that will fund, monitor and measure the impact of projects showing the most potential...

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When UK emerging companies venture outside the UK, they quickly need to address whether – and how - to extend equity-based compensation to non-UK employees.  However, few jurisdictions offer a regime as favourable as the UK’s Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) scheme for providing equity compensation to emerging company employees. The discussion below provides guidelines for making this work.  Although the focus is on extending equity-based compensation to US employees, the issues addressed have broader applicability. 1. Provide for non-EMI grants of...

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When the Danish company Coloplast needed a venue and activity to complement their global sales training kickoff, they chose Dream Racing. We helped them custom build an integrated program for their 70 sales managers that would enhance their sales strategy and celebrate their successes of the previous year. Starting with a morning of presentations in the state-of-the-art Media Center they then headed down to the track for a pit stop competition. Dressed in team unfiorms and feeling very competitive, sparks...

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Daniel Glazer, co-leader of Fried Frank’s Tech Group, explains what European startups need to take into consideration when looking to raise capital from US VCs. Fried Frank regularly meet with UK and other European startups who are interested in raising funding from US-based VC investors. As we’ve previously written, it’s difficult for non-US startups to raise early-stage funding from most US VC investors without existing traction from American customers and/or business partners, and with no US operations in proximity to the US VC...

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The IRS recently released an internal memorandum concluding that typical 'bad boy guaranties' provided by a partner for partnership debt should be treated as a recourse liability of the guarantor for purposes of allocating the debt, and associated deductions, among the partners. That result could reduce the amount of depreciation deductions that would be allocable to the non-guarantor partners. The memorandum was severely criticized in the tax community, as its conclusion was inconsistent with the way in which most practitioners...

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The European Union Article 29 Working Party (Article 29) issued an opinion on the proposed EU-U.S. Privacy Shield framework agreement (Privacy Shield) earlier this week, stating that although the Privacy Shield was a “great step forward,” the Article 29 group identified several areas in which it found the Privacy Shield to be unacceptable, including that it permits the U.S. to carry out “massive and indiscriminate” bulk surveillance of European Union citizens. On the other hand, just a day later...

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Manufacturing’s pivot East in recent decades has opened up new opportunities for DS-Concept across the globe, but more recently we have registered demand to open up an office in Los Angeles to allow domestic clients to expand overseas and for foreign businesses to operate with ease in the US. The manufacturing industry’s rapid growth in California has been one of the main drivers of the state’s growth, with $149.79bn in manufactured goods exported in 2014, more than 11% of the state’s...

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RPL Managing Partner, Emmy Award®-Winning Executive Producer Celebrated as Social Justice Champion On April 12, 2016, the Women’s City Club of New York (WCC) announced Helen D. “Heidi” Reavis, Esq., Managing Partner and Principal at Reavis Parent Lehrer LLP, among the Honorees of the 2016 Civic Spirit Award.  In addition to her outstanding law practice in employment, media, intellectual property and other practice areas, Ms. Reavis  is an Emmy Award®-Winning Executive Producer who, with her husband, Steven...

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According to April remittance data, the $40.0 million 100 Nassau Park Boulevard was recently sent to special servicing. Scheduled to mature in February 2017, the loan makes up 2.40% of the remaining collateral behind BSCMS 2007-PW15. The loan is backed by a 215, 143 square-foot, three-story office building in West Windsor, New Jersey. E.R. Squibb and Sons, LCC, a subsidiary of the biopharmaceutical firm Bristol-Myers Squibb, is the sole tenant with a lease that expires in December 2016. Bristol-Myers Squibb plans...

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This week, the Fraud Section of the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a pilot program that extends additional “mitigation credit” to qualifying companies that “fully cooperate” in matters involving the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Under the new program, companies that self-disclose and satisfy the DOJ's expectations for cooperation and remediation can obtain up to a 50 percent reduction off the low end of the potential fine range that would otherwise be applicable to the violation. The program furthers the...

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