Thompson Hine | Government Measures Taken in Response to COVID-19: Country-by-Country Guide 2.0

Since April 2020, we have collaborated with our foreign law firm partners to provide a chart summarizing the economic, labor and employment, health and safety, and export and import measures taken by governments around the world in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a short break, we are back with version 2.0 of our chart with substantive changes to reflect the most pressing and interesting government measures concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. The new version of the chart includes a concise, corporate-focused and user-friendly list of government measures and includes areas of interest such as tax, insolvency/restructuring, business immigration, government contracts and international trade.

Please feel free to contact us or the firms listed on the chart directly with any questions.

**View/Download: Government Measures Taken in Response to COVID-19: Country-by-Country Guide 2.0

This update includes new information through the first week of November 2020 for Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, El Salvador, European Union, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Panama, Philippines, Poland, Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam.

After a brief period of relaxing restrictions on public gatherings during the summer, many countries recently started re-introducing measures to restrict public gatherings or movement of persons to address the rising number of COVID-19 cases.

In Europe, some countries, including France, imposed country-wide lockdowns at least until the end of November 2020. Many other countries continue to keep social distancing requirements in place and introduced new regional lockdown requirements based on the infection numbers of local populations. In the United States, states and counties continue to differ in their approaches to business closures and reopenings as well as face mask requirements. In Asia and the Americas, the general trend indicates that countries adopted a risk-based system to identify high-risk populations and restrict their activities as such.

Many governments also continue to support workers affected by the economic instability caused by the pandemic with measures including short-time compensation procedures, social security benefits or otherwise introduced regulations to ensure that workers receive personal protection equipment or are not discriminated against.

In connection with economic/corporate measures, most governments have taken various tax measures, including tax exemptions, to address the difficulties endured by businesses affected by the pandemic-related economic instability. Similarly, some governments have introduced new measures to provide more liquidity to support small, medium-sized and large businesses.

As to government contracts, some governments issued measures to address COVID-19-related economic difficulties, including easing the termination of contracts for force majeure or introducing emergency procurement regimes to speed up the procurement process. In the area of international trade, some countries continue to restrict exports of certain personal protection equipment and introduced new measures to subject foreign investments to increased scrutiny, especially investments linked to public health emergencies.

Compliments of Thompson Hine LLP – a member of the EACCNY.