Asia-Pacific

Today with the increase in online transactions, we have also been witnessing a huge spike in cyber crimes. It is therefore essential to secure...

The government has expanded the tax incentives given to taxpayers that are affected by COVID-19. Some taxpayers that were not entitled to tax incentives under Minister of Finance Regulation No. 23/PMK.03/2020 ("MOF Regulation 23") may now enjoy those tax incentives under Minister of Finance Regulation No. 44/PMK.03/2020 ("MOF Regulation 44"). The government has also expanded the types of tax for which tax incentives are given. MOF Regulation 44, which revokes MOF Regulation 23, came into force on 27 April. The Directorate General of Taxation has also issued Circular Letter No. SE29/PJ/2020 on 30 April 2020 as an implementing regulation of MOF Regulation 44.

In brief The Prime Minister of Malaysia unveiled the National Economic Recovery Plan, also known as the Pelan Jana Semula Ekonomi Negara ("PENJANA") on 5...

Whistle-blowers have been a prominent feature of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. From the medics across the globe who have blown the whistle on supply shortages, misleading information regarding effective treatments and risk measures, whistle-blowers have been a vital source of information during the pandemic. Companies have also been challenged with increasing numbers of whistle-blowing reports during this period in areas including fraud, corruption and harassment.  Although there is no comprehensive law in Hong Kong requiring companies to implement a whistleblowing policy and procedure, it is a best practice component to any compliance program and an essential tool to combat internal misconduct and to ensure compliance with laws and regulations.

Financial technology, or fintech, has been transforming a wide range of financial services, receiving warm- welcomes by a fast growing number of adopters and attracting hundreds of billions of USD in global investment value in recent years. As at 30 September 2019, from only 0.4% in 2018, Vietnam rose to rank second in ASEAN in terms of fintech funding, attracting 36% of the regional investment, second only to Singapore with 51%. However, the financial areas transformed by fintech are quite limited, with 98% of the funding concentrated in the payment sector and 1% in blockchain tech related, according to a joint report by United Overseas Bank (UOB), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and (Singapore FinTech Association) SFA.  Vietnam is still considered as having limited fintech activities and remains an unlikely home base of choice for fintech firms. One of the factors largely impacting the local fintech growth include an unprepared regulatory framework where regulations mostly evolve around fintech in the payment industry.

The recent changes to continuous disclosure  obligations under the Corporations Act  have been welcomed by listed companies and their boards but don’t go as far as their stated purpose in the press release accompanying the legislative instrument implementing the changes, so companies will still need to be very careful in providing guidance or making other disclosures to the market.

With the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) now in effect, businesses across the EU are obliged to follow the regulation and compliant when it...

Directors of Australian companies face significant personal monetary -- and potential criminal and adverse professional -- consequences if they allow the company to trade...

The Cabinet has acknowledged the necessity to postpone the effective date of the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA).

On 1 June 2020, the corporate liability provision under Section 17A of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 (the Act) is set to come into force. As highlighted in our earlier client alert (see Link), a company may be held criminally liable for acts of corruption by its directors, employees or other associated persons.