15 June 2016
The latest edition of Red Tape, compiling King & Wood Mallesons’ insights into global regulatory developments and trends, was recently published. A PDF version of the publication is available.
This edition covers a range of issues facing our clients from key regulatory developments in Africa to considerations for clients in the debate on whether the UK should exit the European Union. Other issues examined are government transfer pricing approaches, taxation on foreign investors in China and Australia, the impact of international regulation on agri-food trade, and data security regulation in the EU and Australia:
- Rahul Saha and Cameron Firth, in their article on key developments in competition law in Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), provide an update on the COMESA Competition Commission’s revised guidelines for merger notifications and its increased focus on antitrust investigations. These recent developments indicate that a substantial effort is being made to prioritise competition law enforcement and ensure that the COMESA Competition Commission is regarded as a serious competition authority.
- Stephen Mason and Jodi Gray, in their article on key financial regulatory reforms in South Africa, outline the likely establishment of a “twin peaks” model of regulation in the near future and the South African government’s focus on improving arrangements for monitoring and managing financial stability.
- Simon Holmes and Naomi Inns, in their article on the impending UK referendum on whether or not to exit the European Union, questions the assumptions underpinning of the Brexit Campaign’s argument that exiting the European Union will reduce the amount of red tape faced by UK businesses. Although a seemingly attractive theory, Simon and Naomi examine whether it overlooks significant factors which are likely to lead in a different post-Brexit reality to that which has been suggested by the campaigners.
- Jerome Tse and colleagues highlight the need for multi-national enterprises to consider their global transfer pricing positions. Transfer pricing has lately gained prominence and governments across the globe have recently implemented a number of changes in their approaches to transfer pricing, which are examined in this article.
- Scott Heezen and colleagues, in their article on foreign investment in Australia and China, look at how these countries are approaching foreign investment to ensure that appropriate tax is being paid by multi-national enterprises operating in their jurisdictions.
- Scott Bouvier and his colleagues’ article focuses on barriers to international trade in agri-food. They provide an overview of recent developments in international trade treaties together with some of the challenges that continue to present barriers to trade in agri-food.
- Finally, Patrick Gunning and colleagues, in their article on data security, examine a number of recent developments in data security regulation in the EU and Australia following on from the significant rise in high-profile data security breaches over the past year.
Co-authored by Jodi Gray and Joe Saunders.
