Asia-Pacific

In brief Recognizing that retrenchments may now be inevitable for businesses continuing to be negatively affected by COVID-19, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the National...

Regulators around the world are responding quickly to the rapidly evolving financial technology, or fintech, landscape. As new or emerging financial products, services or...

From 13 to 17 October 2020, the 22nd Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress (“NPC”) deliberated on the third...

The Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution (Amendment) Bill 2020 (“Bill”) will be introduced this month and it will establish the SIP. Under the SIP, qualifying micro and small companies (“MSCs”), which are companies with an annual revenue of less than $1 million and $10 million respectively, can benefit from the two simplified but temporary processes that has been adapted from the existing framework in the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 (“IRDA”). These processes are the simplified debt restructuring and simplified winding up programme. It is envisioned that the SIP will provide simpler, faster and lower-cost proceedings.

In brief On 5 October 2020, the Parliament approved the job creation law (RUU Cipta Kerja, commonly known as the "Omnibus Law"). As an effort...

On 5 October 2020, the Parliament approved the job creation law (RUU Cipta Kerja, commonly known as the "Omnibus Law"). As an effort to foster more investment opportunities from offshore investors into Indonesia, especially from other sovereign and private funds, the central government will establish an Indonesian sovereign wealth fund ("SWF") under the Omnibus Law.Indonesia's SWF will be officially named "Lembaga Pengelola Investasi" ("LPI") but has been widely introduced as the "Indonesia Investment Authority". This institution should not to be confused with the existing Indonesia Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM), which is a regulator overseeing domestic and foreign capital investment in Indonesia.

In brief Malaysia caught up with the global trend of taxing cross-border supplies of digital services by introducing a 6% service tax on imported digital...

Under the new Investment Law 2020, which will take effect on 1 January 2021 (“New Investment Law”), the most notable change is the introduction of the “negative list” approach, according to which foreign investors will be entitled to market access conditions applicable to domestic investors for any sectors not included in the list of sectors, which foreign investors are restricted from accessing ("List of Restricted Sectors"). The government recently released a draft regulation that guides market access by foreign investors and provides the List of Restricted Sectors applicable to the foreign investors, which is to be included in the decree guiding the implementation of New Investment Law (“Draft Decree”).

In brief This client alert covers a new guideline on assessment of mergers, acquisitions and consolidations ("2020 Merger Guide") that was issued by the Business...

In brief On 5 October 2020, the Parliament approved the job creation law (RUU Cipta Kerja, commonly known as the "Omnibus Law"). The Omnibus Law...