August 13, 2018
Bulgaria has recently adopted new appeal procedures related to public procurement. Designed to speed-up appeals and to bring an end to bad faith actions, the new rules are designed to place Bulgaria in line with more general European norms. Public procurement makes up approx. 9% of Bulgaria’s annual GDP; thus, the new measures are designed to protect and enhance this very important aspect of Bulgaria’s economy. Prior to the adopte…d measures, Bulgaria has found it difficult to implement large infrastructure…
read more
July 24, 2018
Russia has slowly moved forward in terms of its response to a recent push by the US to levy sanctions in April 2018 against certin Russian state-controlled entities and individuals, and the companies they control. Last month, legislation was passed in Russia providing the Russian government with the authority to impose certain restrictive measures against certain foreign persons and goods and services in accordance with a decision of th…e Russian president. This new law does not in itself impose restrictions….
read more
July 5, 2018
The EU has introduced new cross-border transaction reporting requirements. Recently in May, the EU quietly adopted Council Directive 2018/822/EU on the reporting of “potentially aggressive” cross-border tax-planning arrangements. Reporting requirements will kick-in on August 31st, 2020, after the Council Directive is implemented by EU Member States. What is important is that the Council Directive is simply an instruction to Member States to create new national laws according to the principles of the directive; the directive itself is not itself a…
read more
July 2, 2018
The US has put the WTO Appellate Body into crisis mode. Since the advent of the Trump administration, the US has consistently blocked appointments and reappointments to the WTO Appellate Body. As a result, the appellate body has now shrunk to four from its original seven members. In October this year, it is expected that this will go down to three members. WTO rules specify that three members must server on a case, selected by rotation. This will be meaningless in…
read more
June 27, 2018
The Hungarian government has recently proposed legislative changes designed to enable regulatory screening of foreign acquisitions of certain Hungarian companies. Designed to protect strategic businesses, the proposed changes would include oversight of certain services (such as finance and telecoms) and critical infrastructure and technologies subject to potential interest by non-European bidders. Legislative motivation is on national security and public policy grounds. Proposed oversight would be applicable for acquistions in excess of 25% of Hungarian companies (10% if the target is…
read more
June 22, 2018
Quite recently, a Romanian government emergency ordinance regarding certain amendments to Romania’s public procurement regime (“GEO 45/2018”) has been approved and gazetted. Essentially, GEO 45/2018 amended and supplemented four laws and two government emergency ordinances as follows: Law no. 98/2016 on public procurement; Law no. 99/2016 on sectoral procurement; Law no. 100/2016 on concessions of works and concessions of services; Law no. 101/2016 on remedies and appeals; Government Emergency Ordinance no. 13/2015 regarding the establishment, organization and functioning of the…
read more