The BVI Commercial Court, consistent with its reputation as a world-class centre of dispute resolution, has long shown itself to be arbitration-friendly.

In this issue we discuss the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and the EU, which is being negotiated during a period of increased debate about the merits of investment treaty dispute settlement mechanisms. Our interview is with Lim Seok Hui, the chief executive of SIAC; we find out her views on Singapore’s new mediation centre (SIMC).

In Q3 2015, we saw continuation of the strong industry trends that the Bermuda insurance market has been driving in recent years. The ILS market remains robust, with US$3.725 billion in new cat bond issuances in the first half of the year alone – a record volume.

On 16 June 2015, the Department of International Tax Cooperation of the Cayman Islands (the “DITC”) announced that it would be implementing the CRS into domestic law.

On September 24, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio denied the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent the merger of Steris Corporation and Synergy Health plc, two providers of sterilization services for manufacturers predominantly in the healthcare industry. Merger cases are rarely litigated, and the decision marks the first trial defeat in recent years for either of the U.S. antitrust agencies (the FTC and the Antitrust Division of the U.S.

n the wake of Yahoo Inc.’s announcement that the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) has declined to issue a private letter ruling with respect to its widely publicized spinoff of its small business unit (which included Yahoo’s remaining portfolio position in Alibaba stock), on September 14, 2015, the Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the IRS announced a significant shift in IRS ruling policy with respect to certain tax-free distributions under Section 355 of the Internal Revenue Code and, potentially, in the IRS’s interpretation of the law applicable to such distributions.

The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (“CIMA”) has recently released a Statement of Guidance (“SOG”) on Outsourcing for all regulated entities (excluding regulated mutual funds, excluded persons under the Securities Investment Business Law (Revised) (“SIBL”) and private trust companies). The SOG will apply inter alia to, banks, administrators, insurance companies and SIBL entities regulated in the Cayman Islands.

Every Cayman Islands company is required to keep at its registered office a register containing the names and addresses of its directors, including alternate directors and officers (the “Register”). Further, a Cayman Islands company is required to notify the Registrar of Companies (the “Registrar”) of changes to the Register in a timely manner.

On 28th August 2015 the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands finally had the opportunity to give judgment in an appraisal action brought by dissenting shareholders in a statutory merger transaction under Part XVI of the Companies Law.

The confluence of a number of overlapping factors – including an uptick in global and cross-border M&A activity, a resurgence in unsolicited takeover offers, the continued flow of tax inversion transactions, and the growth of activism in non-U.S. markets – means that U.S. companies and investors are more often facing unfamiliar takeover (and antitakeover) regimes as they evaluate and pursue offers for foreign targets.