Corporate and Commercial Law — global update

New and noteworthy developments in Corporate and Commercial Law.

Regulations across the globe are constantly evolving. New laws, new decrees and new case law are game changers in many jurisdictions from time to time. It is crucial for the C-Suite to be always informed of what’s new and what the consequence thereof would be for their business. Imagine the impact on corporate headquarters if a local subsidiary was not following a new set of laws. The results could be devastating. Still, staying on top of what’s new and useful in multinationals is a continued challenge. Companies must make a clear distinction between what’s nice to do and what’s required in this complex regulatory environment.

In this bi-annual Corporate and Commercial Law newsletter, EY Law looks to inform companies of the noteworthy and most recent legal news across a number of jurisdictions.

Included are articles from a total of 25 jurisdictions on current legal affairs around the globe, covering Western Europe, Africa, South America, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific. Certain countries implemented similar rules at the same time, such as Belgium, Luxembourg, Mexico; Serbia and Ivory Coast about beneficial owner registers. The ultimate beneficial owners register rules actually apply to most EU countries already since the EU Directives of 20 May 2015 and 30 May 2018. Such directives deal with the prevention of the use of the financial system for purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing and directed the creation in each EU country of a public register in which the identity of ultimate beneficial owners has to be stored and be generally accessible to the members of the public. Transparency of the market place is now key and some non-EU countries, such as Mexico, Serbia and Ivory Coast are implementing similar rules.

Simultaneously with those enhanced transparency rules, China and Russia try to make foreign investments easier by allowing re-domiciliation of foreign companies to Russia and promoting as well as protecting such foreign investments in China, while France and Australia’s foreign investment rules are becoming more complex and require government prior approval in certain sectors. This is a current trend in many markets to welcome and protect foreign investors, who are sometimes key to national economies, but at the same time protecting certain national sectors from foreign investments.

In the Corporate and Commercial Law newsletter, you will also find a number of new laws and market practices which are important to your businesses, such as share option schemes in Denmark, crowdfunding in Argentina, abolishment of minimum share capital in Finland, listing of dual-class shares in Singapore and many other noteworthy matters.