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Global rules on foreign direct investment (FDI)
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
Canada | Publication | June 29, 2020
On June 9, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy in British Columbia made Ministerial Order No. 182 (MO 182), which amends the Contaminated Sites Regulation (CSR) to align with Bill 17, the Environmental Management Amendment Act (Bill 17). Together, these amendments alter the contaminated site identification process in BC.
Bill 17 was approved in May of 2019 after a multi-year review and consultation process that identified a number of weaknesses in the contaminated site regime. The amendments will take effect on February 1, 2021, and are intended to streamline site identifications while capturing contaminated sites that were previously left unregulated. Bill 17 makes the following notable changes to the Environmental Management Act:
MO 182 provides complementary amendments to Bill 17. Effective February 1, 2021, the CSR, which houses exemptions to submitting site disclosure statements, will include clarified and new provisions to capture sites where proposed developments or redevelopments in land use are occurring. While the amendments are intended to bring more contaminated sites into the identification process, they also provide for new exemptions that exclude developments undergoing minor changes. Further, the CSR amendments place greater responsibility on an owner or operator of a contaminated site, as well as on municipalities in their duty to oversee the site identification process. The following are notable features of MO 182:
In addition to these amendments, the ministry also intends to improve waste soil relocation regulations within the contaminated site regime. For more information on the ministry’s proposed soil relocation amendments, please see this legal update.
The author wishes to thank law student Max Waterman for his help in preparing this legal update.
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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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