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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 | March 2021
California Labor Code section 226 requires detailed wage statements containing nine items of information, including "the name and address of the legal entity that is the employer," and "all applicable hourly rates in effect during the pay period and the corresponding number of hours worked at each hourly rate by the employee." Section 226 further provides that an employee must be able to "promptly and easily determine" these items of information "from the wage statement alone," which means that "a reasonable person would be able to readily ascertain the information without reference to other documents or information." With transparency as the putative goal of the wage statement requirement, courts have strictly applied section 226 even to employers who act in good faith. Penalties and class action exposure loom large in cases alleging section 226 violations.
Now, section 226 has been extended to interstate transportation workers who are based in California but do not perform the majority of their work in any one state. In Ward v. United Airlines, the Ninth Circuit rejected constitutional and federal law challenges to applying section 226 to pilots and flight attendants who spend most of their time working outside of California if they are "based" in California in that the employee performs at least some work in California and (quoting an earlier state Supreme Court decision) "California serves as the physical location where the worker presents himself or herself to begin work."
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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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