The reforms generally encourage foreign investment in U.S. real estate. The enacted Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 (the Act) contains numerous reforms to the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act of 1980 (FIRPTA) and the taxation of real estate investment trusts (REITs). Highlights of these changes are discussed below. FIRPTA Reforms Foreign Pension Fund Exemption The Act exempts "qualified foreign pension funds" from FIRPTA taxation so long as such a fund is not already engaged in a business in...

Essilor announced today that it was ranked N(o). 5 in the 2016 Newsweek Green Rankings, created in partnership with Corporate Knights and HIP Investor. Since 2009, the Newsweek Green Rankings have been one of the world's foremost corporate environmental rankings which assess the overall environmental performance of the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States and the 500 largest publicly traded companies globally. With 61,000 employees in 63 countries, nearly 540 production sites on five continents and more...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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,...