Following President Trump’s Presidential Proclamation on April 22, 2020 to temporarily suspend immigrant visa processing and entry of certain immigrants into the United States, the White House has issued a new Executive Order entitled “Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the U.S. Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak”. This new order is directed at foreign nationals and their dependents who seek to obtain visas in the following classifications: H-1B and H-2B, L-1, and J-1 for participation in...

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The EU State Aid regime has long protected the EU internal market from anti-competitive subsidies granted by EU Member States. On 17 June 2020, the European Commission published a White Paper that proposes a new set of tools designed to address distortive effects in the internal market caused by subsidies granted by states outside the EU. The White Paper outlines three complementary tools, or “modules”, intended to tackle the distortive competitive effects arising from foreign subsidies. These modules would be implemented by “supervisory authorities”,...

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The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including shelter-in-place directives and widespread business closures, have many business-to-business (B2B) companies anticipating the restart of the economy. These companies are planning to prepare to move decisively from surviving the crisis to restarting growth. To succeed in the restart, smart business leaders should be ready to rapidly reset post-pandemic offerings to reflect new customer behaviors and desires, recognizing the likely requirement that, for example, office workers will have to integrate their remote and...

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After having founded and led the New York office of Houthoff for eight years, Helena has decided to retire from the law firm on July 1st. She has built the New York presence of the independent top Dutch law firm to the successful practice it is today. Alexander Kaarls will be the partner responsible for the New York office and its practice going forward. He will divide his time between the New York and Amsterdam offices of Houthoff. In addition,...

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The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a draft notice seeking public comment on a proposed repeal of the Care Labeling rule for Textile Wearing Apparel and Certain Piece Goods (the “Care Labeling Rule”). The notice is expected to be published in the Federal Register in the near future. The Care Labeling Rule requires manufacturers and importers of textile wearing apparel and certain piece goods to attach labels to their products disclosing the care needed for the ordinary use of the...

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Ahead of their first in-person summit since February, to be held in July in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte discussed the EU’s next multi-annual financial framework and the Commission’s proposal for a €750 billion Recovery Fund on Tuesday (23 June). As European Council President Charles Michel announced that EU Heads of State and Government would convene physically for the first time since the COVID-19 crisis, on 17-18 July, the French and Dutch leaders convened...

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EIB debt instrument will support BioNTech’s global development of BNT162 for prevention of COVID-19 infection as well as scale-up of manufacturing capacity in Europe as part of the company’s global development and supply strategy The project benefits from Horizon 2020 InnovFin and the European Fund for Strategic Investments, joint instruments of the European Commission and the EIB The European Investment Bank (EIB) and BioNTech, a German immunotherapy company, concluded a €100 million debt financing agreement to support the development of...

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The UBP Investment Advisor teams in Zurich and Geneva started working from home as of March 16th, 2020, which is consistent with our business continuity plan and necessary for the safety of our team members given the early spike in COVID-19 incidents in Switzerland. Transitioning to remote working was relatively seamless as many in our team travel regularly and have the necessary equipment to remain connected at all times. The main challenge to overcome early on was the lack of...

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