For the first time since, 1990, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has revised the Bonded Warehouse Manual for Customs and Border Protection Officers and Bonded Warehouse Proprietors. The Manual is supplementary to the bonded warehouse regulations (19 C.F.R. Parts 19, 144) and is designed to assist in understanding those regulations and bonded warehouse operations in general. The manual now also address duty-free enterprise operations, with limited information on centralized examination stations (CES) and container freight stations (CFS). A copy...

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Fulbright Alert -- The Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") just announced increases to the reporting thresholds under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the "HSR Act"). These changes result from amendments to the HSR Act enacted in 2000 that require the FTC to revise the reporting thresholds annually based on changes in the U.S. gross national product. The increases will apply to all transactions that close after the effective date, which likely will be in late February...

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A senior bankruptcy lawyer has joined the international law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski. Ancela R. Nastasi joins Fulbright as the head of the New York office's bankruptcy and insolvency practice group. Her extensive experience includes prominent roles in complex restructuring and chapter 11 cases, including insolvency and bankruptcy related litigation and transactions. Nastasi represents lenders, investors, debtors, chapter 11 trustees and creditors in matters involving myriad industries, including financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing, hospitality and real estate.  "Ancela is an...

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EACC member Grunfeld, Desiderio, Lebowitz, Silverman & Klestadt LLP has provided us with an COAC-Parallel-Imports-Directive prepared by the Advisory Committee On Commercial Operations Of Customs And Border Protection (COAC)

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From The New York Times By STEPHEN CASTLE BRUSSELS — Croats voted by a two-to-one margin on Sunday to join the European Union, signaling that the bloc retains its allure despite the debt crisis engulfing the euro currency that many of its members use. The state referendum commission said that with almost all the votes counted, about 66 percent in Croatia supported membership, while 33 percent were opposed and 1 percent of the ballots were invalid. The commission put the turnout...

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Pepper Hamilton LLP Client Alert At a December 2011 conference of the Consumer Federation of America, the Director of the Division of Enforcement of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Robert Khuzami, delivered a clear message to all members of the securities industry - SEC enforcement activity will increase significantly in 2012. The SEC's commitment to increasing enforcement is part of its ongoing efforts to "investigate and hold accountable those who had contributed to the financial crisis," and to...

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Fulbright has been named by Financial Times to its FT Law 25 as part of the 2011 US Innovative Lawyers Report. The Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Report—now in its sixth year—was conceived as an alternative way to measure law firm success. The project breaks with the traditional method of looking at fees and profits as the measure of success. As the category rankings are based primarily on client reviews, the FT Law 25 shows firms that were consistently found to be...

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Stuttgart - MORI SEIKI and GILDEMEISTER AG ("DMG") are combining their sales and service activities in Europe. The sales and service functions of Mori Seiki GmbH in Germany are being integrated into a new Company within the GILDEMEISTER Group, DMG MORI SEIKI Deutschland GmbH. Mori Seiki GmbH is the German subsidiary of MORI SEIKI Ltd., Japan, a world leader in machine tool engineering. The sales and service operations of MORI SEIKI and GILDEMEISTER in other European countries will also...

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On 14 December 2011, the Irish Funds Industry Association issued a Corporate Governance Code (the “Code”) for Irish Investment Funds and their Management Companies. It simultaneously issued a Frequently Asked Questions document (“FAQ”), to complement the Code and support its introduction. The introduction of the Code arises from an invitation from the Central Bank of Ireland (the “Central Bank”) to the funds industry in 2010 to develop such a code, as part of a process of introducing corporate governance codes...

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The Central Bank of Ireland (the “Central Bank”) has launched a new Probability Risk and Impact System (“PRISM”). The aim of this risk-based supervision framework is to supervise all financial firms using an approach that would make it materially less likely that a firm would fail, and less likely the firm would fail in a manner which would endanger financial stability or consumers. In addition to being a framework for risk-management, PRISM is also a software application and has...

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