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Global rules on foreign direct investment (FDI)
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
United States | Publication | January 18, 2022
Cal/OSHA has revised its emergency temporary standard (ETS) for COVID-19, to take effect on January 14, 2022. What follows is a summary of those changes.
Employers must continue to properly notify employees, employee representatives and any other workers at a worksite of possible COVID-19 exposures within one business day. This section was updated to give employers more clear instructions on how to notify workers who were at the same worksite as the COVID-19 case during the high-risk exposure period. Specifically, employers may provide notice “in the manner the employer normally uses to communicate employment-related information,” which may include e-mail or text messages. As before, employers should maintain a copy of this notice for its files.
The definition of “worksite” has been narrowed to exclude locations where someone worked alone, a worker’s personal residence, or “alternative work location chosen by the worker when working remotely.”
The revised ETS imposes additional requirements regarding “face coverings.” For face coverings other than a respirator, surgical mask or a medical procedure mask, the covering must be made of fabrics that “do not let light pass through when held up to a light source [and material] that completely covers the nose and mouth and is secured to the head with ties, ear loops or elastic bands that go behind the head.”
In addition, “a face covering is a solid piece of material without slits, visible hole or punctures, and must fit snugly over the nose, mouth and chin with no large gaps on the outside of the face.”
Employers must ensure that employees who are exempted from wearing a face covering due to a medical or mental health condition or disability and cannot wear a non-restrictive alternative must physically distance at least six feet from others and either be fully vaccinated or tested at least weekly for COVID-19. The testing must be during paid time and at no cost to the employee.
A COVID-19 test may include an FDA-approved over-the-counter (OTC) test, administered in accordance with the authorized instructions, but—as with the Fed OSHA ETS—may not be both self-administered and self-read unless observed by the employer or an authorized telehealth proctor. In FAQs for its vaccine-or-test ETS, Fed OSHA has indicated that employee photographs of the OTC test results also do not satisfy the standard. Until Cal/OSHA issues an FAQ to the contrary, it is prudent to assume that California will follow the lead of Fed OSHA.
In addition:
For those who are not fully vaccinated, the period of time before an employee can return to work after “close contact” has been revised (via FAQs issued on January 6, 2022) to be consistent with current California Department of Public Health guidelines:
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Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
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On February 2, 2024, the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union confirmed that the Committee of Permanent Representatives had signed the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Regulation, referred to as the AI Act. Approval by the EU Parliament followed on 13 March 2024, and the AI Act is likely to appear in the EU’s Official Journal around May 2024. The AI Act aims to establish a stringent legal framework governing the development, marketing, and utilisation of artificial intelligence within the region, thereby marking a significant advancement in the regulation of this burgeoning domain.
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The private credit market and direct lending have grown and diversified immensely in the past decade, offering alternative sources and terms of debt compared to those historically provided by the syndicated leveraged loan and public issuance markets. Consequently, they are fast becoming pivotal components in the capital ecosystem, so much so that the Bank of England consider that the private credit market is currently responsible for approximately $1.8 trillion of debt issuance, which is four times its size in 2015. This growth has been particularly pronounced in Europe and the US but there has also been significant activity in Asia.
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