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Introduction

In R (on the application of KBR, Inc) (Appellant) v Director of the Serious Fraud Office (Respondent) [2021] UKSC 21 the Supreme Court held that the Serious Fraud Office ("SFO") may not compel a foreign company to produce documents held overseas under section 2(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 1987 ("CJA 1987").

Introduction

Towards the end of 2020, while businesses were reeling from the challenges of grappling with a global pandemic, the end of the Brexit transition period and LIBOR transition, the Law Commission published a paper analysing the current law underlying intermediated securities - Intermediated securities: who owns your shares? A Scoping Paper.

China Huiyuan Juice Group Limited [2020] HKCFI 2940 (date of decision: 19 November 2020)

The Hong Kong courts have developed over time three core requirements by reference to which the court assesses whether or not a good reason for making a winding-up-order against a foreign incorporated company in Hong Kong has been demonstrated.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Sevilleja v Marex Financial Ltd [2020] UKSC 31 of 15 July 2020 provided much needed clarity on the scope of the rule against “reflective loss”.

On January 12, 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the first civil settlement resolving allegations of fraud involving loans issued pursuant to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). SlideBelts Inc., an internet retail company, and Brigham Taylor, the company’s president and CEO, agreed to pay $100,000 in penalties and damages to resolve alleged violations of the False Claims Act (FCA) and the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA).

Introduction

Editor, Jonathan Spearing

Welcome to the ninth edition of Commodities in Focus (CIF); our bulletin for clients engaged in the production, trading, carriage, storage and financing of commodities.

Recent months have brought unprecedented challenges to businesses, with no sector immune to the economic repercussions of the pandemic. Yet despite headline news of certain high-profile restructurings and insolvencies, such as Virgin Atlantic, Debenhams, and Edinburgh Woollen Mill, it seems the emergency measures implemented by the UK Government have, to a degree, staved off wide spread economic collapse that may otherwise have been inevitable.

On October 27, 2020, the National Labor Council (NLC) adopted a new set of recommendations (Advice no. 2.184 – you can find the full text here). These recommendations result from and are in line with the agreement reached by the social partners on December 17, 2019 (see our Alert of January 14, 2020).

This note considers how the recent changes to UK insolvency law introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 ("CIGA") might affect those involved in the sale and purchase of commodities. In particular, it looks at the impact of Section 14 of CIGA on contracts for the supply of goods or services, and on the typical rights and remedies of the seller / supplier under such contracts.