GRANITO is pleased to announce its support and endorsement of Impact Funds, evidenced by its joining the Women's Impact Fund, a collective giving organization of 400 women operating in the Charlotte community. GRANITO's support is based on its believe that collaborative sources of funding can help drive progress by spurring change, growth and innovation, especially in situations where other sources of financial support are either non-existent or buried with restraints. GRANITO welcomes others to collaborate and grow globally with them in 2014. More...

The current Dutch Government is focusing heavily on innovation. The Ministry of Economic Affairs, for example, has established a whole raft of subsidy schemes via which the government is pumping millions of euro per year into the Dutch economy. This, however, is not the only way in which the government can encourage innovation. Innovation should also be encouraged by constant efforts on the part of government to respond to technical developments. This in turn requires that legislation be rapidly...

Expectation of Privacy Workers do not leave their privacy and data protection rights at the door when they come into work each day. Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“ECHR”) provides that “everyone has a right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence”. The European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) has found that this privacy right also applies in the workplace, as workers are not...

The European Electricity Target Model ("Target Model") is a set of harmonised arrangements for the cross-border trading of wholesale energy and balancing services across Europe. This will impact on all participants in the market and ultimately consumers, and will be implemented on the island of Ireland via the Integrated Single Electricity Market ("I-SEM"). The Single Electricity Market (“SEM”) Committee, comprised of both the Commission for Energy Regulation and Northern Ireland's Utility Regulator, published its final decision on the high level design...

Elena Cuatrecasas moves from Barcelona office to manage the firm’s US office Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira gives fresh impetus to its New York office, and appoints Elena Cuatrecasas as its managing partner there. The partner will move from the Barcelona office to take over from Miguel Ángel Melero, who held the position in New York between 2010 and 2014 and is now returning to the Madrid office. Elena Cuatrecasas will promote the firm’s international expansion from a strategic position. She stated: “Combined...

Forty years ago yesterday, Stevie Wonder had the number one song on the Billboard charts with "You Haven't Done Nothin." (Incidentally, Wonder is playing New York's Madison Square Garden tonight.) If you know which superstar group provided background vocals on the politically charged funk song you will be immediately inducted into the TreppWire Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. While US stocks saw a nice little post-election bump, you could say the CMBS market didn't do nothin' on Wednesday. Trading volume...

Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C. (Ogletree Deakins), one of the largest labor and employment law firms representing management, is pleased to announce that the firm has been named “Law Firm of the Year” in the Labor Law - Management category in the 2015 edition of the U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” list.This is the fourth consecutive year that Ogletree Deakins has been named a “Law Firm of the Year” and the second consecutive year...

We are happy to announce that Claude Kremer, one of the founding partners of Arendt & Medernach, was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Investment Funds Association (IIFA) at their annual meeting in Canberra on 21 October 2014. Claude has dedicated his professional life to investment funds and is one of the top specialists in the European fund industry. In 2005, he was a member of the EU Commission expert group on market efficiency for the asset...