In the summer of 2009, the Russian legislative authorities amended the federal legislation in order to recognize the validity of agreements among shareholders of Russian joint-stock companies. The Amendments recognize shareholders agreements as a special contractual type and list general issues which may be addressed in such agreements, basic legal restrictions, and disclosure requirements. This Article outlines the most important provisions of the Amendments and analyzes the possibility of their successful use in practice.
The CJELO – Recent Developments In Russian Corporate Legislation
The Rudd government appears to be changing its tune, when the Minister for Corporate Law, Chris Bowen, released a set of proposals to reform insolvency law to give company directors more protection from distressed companies and enhance the chances of company survival. The government seems intent to attach the problem of “phoenix companies”. Phoenix companies refer to the practice of closing a company one day and, like the bird in Greek mythology, rising from the ashes and opening another company with the same assets and similar name to avoid paying taxes, wages and other bills with the sole purpose of cheating creditors out of their money. The problem, is that the new measures may create significantly more compliance issues than the eliminate, and may well serve to generally reduce the level of entrepreneurship.
The Sydney Morning Herald – Half-baked laws will stifle businesses
Following the inextricable match towards the socialist utopia, and the destruction of the Venezuelan economy, President Hugo Chavez announced the seizure of French-Colombian supermarket chain Exito, on the grounds that it had broken the law by raising prices following the devaluation of the country’s bolivarian currency. The currency is sinking like a stone, the economy is in tatters and inflation (devaluation notwithstanding) is rising rapidly. Even on the basis relied on by Mr. Chavez, it is difficult to see how this benefits the people of Venezuela. Beyond that, foreign investment in that country will cease to exist.
Columbia Report – Venezuela began the nationalization of French-Colombian supermarket
A standoff between Argentina’s government and central bank has sharpened debate in neighboring Brazil over the need for Congress to pass a bill making the country’s central bank formally independent. While most developed nations struggle to ascertain the right level of financial regulation following the Global financial crisis, there is a degree of uniform thought on the issue of central bank independence. This article compares the relative independence of the Argentine central bank, with that of its neighbor in Brazil.
The Guardian – Argentina cenbank crisis sharpens Brazil debate
Sebastián Piñera, Chile’s president-elect, has promised to apply the entrepreneurial skill that made him a billionaire to reinvigorating the national economy. Mr. Piñera maintains that by cutting red tape, enhancing investment incentives and administering the public sector more efficiently, he will steer Chile to a growth rate averaging 6% annually during his term, roughly twice the rate of the past decade.
WSJ – Chile’s New Leader Faces Economic Hurdles
Malaysia is poised to move from a general sales and services tax to a more broad based comprehensive Goods and Services Tax (“GST”). The benefits of this sort of move is well documented in other countries, including Canada. For a well research and comprehensive review of the new Malaysian GST, see this recent article from The Star (Malaysia).
The Star – What you should know about GST
France, a country still recovering from the massive “egg on face” tax policy debacle of creating a “carbon tax” that exempted 93% of the population, only to be struck down by the constitutional court, on the grounds that the tax “violates the equality enjoyed by all in terms of public charges”, has now gone one step further. Sarkozy et. al., are at it again. They now suggest that the government should focus on raising still more tax off that existing but ever reducing segment of the French population: those actually engaged in commerce! They suggest that, firms such as Google, Yahoo and Facebook should pay a new tax on their online ad revenues. Is this going to augment France’s intention to go head-to-head with Google over its plans to digitise the world’s books, with a project to set up its own digital library financed by the government to the tune of £700m.
BBC – France considers tax for Google, Yahoo and Facebook
A delay in Greymouth moving forward with oil and gas production for over a year, and an intervening change in New Zealand tax law (as it relates to offsetting exploration costs in other countries against their New Zealand income), has caused Greymouth to commence extensive government lobbying, to allow Greymouth to utilize the prior income tax offset.
Scoop Independent News – Greymouth Chilean oil project frustrated by policy
Increased M&A activity has occurred in Brazil over the past few years for several reasons, including the effectiveness of the Federal Law # 11.101/2005, the Brazilian Judicial Recovery Act, which has an important role in restructuring companies in critical economic situation. This Act has updated the laws regarding companies’ bankruptcy and financial recovery in Brazil. It regulates the suspension of existing lawsuits against company and also that the company provides a Judicial Recovery Plan with the purpose of recuperating from the financial loss. It intends to offer to the company in distress an opportunity to recover from the collapse situation, making possible the maintenance of the operations of the company, employees’ jobs and creditors’ interests, allowing, this way, the preservation of the company, its social function and the encouragement for the development of economic activities in Brazil.
Lex Universal – Potential opportunities for distressed transactions in Brazil in view of the Brazilian Judicial Recovery Act
