Essilor UK is reaching out to local schools to help prepare pupils for employment while screening their eyes and raising awareness of the importance of healthy vision. This month, Essilor UK began an educational campaign with neighboring schools to its Thornbury site near Bristol. Volunteers from the company screened students to raise awareness of the importance of regular eye care and at the same time helped the students learn how to design and build telescopes. Hundreds of children were screened along with...

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PwC US and Vlocity to provide clients industry-specific, omni-channel cloud-based solutions to deliver high quality customer experiences. On June 10, 2016 PwC US announced it had launched a joint business relationship and collaboration agreement with Vlocity, a leading industry cloud company, to help organizations create omni-channel customer experiences tailored for industry-specific needs. As customer expectations continue to grow, organizations are turning to cloud technologies to create specialized business apps that deliver seamless customer interactions across any channel, giving organizations faster time-to-value. Through this...

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Recent research has found that human error now accounts for nearly two-thirds of information security compromises – a further testament to the paramount importance of every employer instituting a robust security awareness training program for employees. A recent study by a well-known information security company captures one of the most common information security fallacies: that information security is a technology problem. Most businesses view mitigating information security risks as falling squarely in the purview of their information technology department. However,...

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New York/New Jersey Foreign Freight Forwarders and Brokers Assn., PO Box 8217, Red Bank, NJ 07701, and EACCNY Member Grunfeld, Desiderio, Lebowitz, Silverman & Klestadt LLP, one of the nation’s leading law firms specializing in Customs law, are offering a courses in preparation for the October 2016 Custom House Broker License Exam.  This course also provides an excellent overview of customs law and compliance for importers not intending to take the broker's exam. These events are approved by The National Customs Brokers...

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Overview  “s we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult one.” — Former United States Secretary...

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On June 2, 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) released, for a 30-day public input period, proposed enforcement guidance addressing national origin discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”).  The EEOC last comprehensively addressed national origin discrimination in 2002, and the revised guidance addresses important issues and significant legal developments that have occurred since that time. Title VII protects individuals from employment discrimination (as well as retaliation) based on their race, color,...

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Last month, EACCNY member Trepp, LLC noted that the property behind the long-troubled, $41.3 million AT&T Consumer Services Headquarters loan would be auctioned off in early June. That auction took place and a Kroll email from yesterday indicated that the final bid was $9 million. That was said to have met the reserve price and the asset has been sold. Kroll is now expecting a 100% loss on the asset based upon that sales price. The face amount of the REO...

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The Netherlands is widely regarded as an attractive and sophisticated location for international business. Also in the changing international tax climate, the Dutch tax system is considered to be favourable for international transactions, due to the extensive tax treaty network, the generous participation exemption in corporate tax law, the absence of withholding taxes on royalties and interest payments, and the approach of the Dutch tax authorities. The Stibbe Tax team has considerable knowledge of and experience in domestic and international matters...

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World Trade Centers Association, Inc. (WTCA), the leading international trade association with “World Trade Center” Members around the world, has named Scott D. Ferguson its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). A senior executive with a concentration in building sustainable business models, Ferguson brings more than 30 years of experience in international business and the WTC Network to the role. Most recently, he was President and CEO of Trade Centre Limited, an Atlantic Canadian organization that operates “World Trade Center Halifax”...

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It is hard to resist the temptation to tackle business challenges with horsepower: big budgets, long timelines and large-scale technology solutions. But often, what is really needed is finesse, sleuthing and a commitment to the human experience. We tend to over-index the hard outcomes like revenue, margin and under-invest in discovering the critical intangibles that drive long-term business. What do I mean by “intangibles?” • A broker focusing on sales commission might not realize that he can improve his closing rate by...

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