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The scrutiny of the India unit as part of a review by Uber, for which it has hired law firm O‘Melveny & Myers LLP, will focus also on suspicious activity in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea, according to a Bloomberg report on Wednesday. The company has notified US authorities of the payments made by its staff to Indonesian police officers.

The incident also forced the government to bring in measures to regulate the app-based ride-hailing industry, a step that made it mandatory for these firms to verify drivers on the platform.

The victim woman has filed a lawsuit in a US court against Uber, Kalanick and Alexander of violating her for a second time by “unlawfully” obtaining and sharing her medical records.

India is the last large remaining market in Asia that Uber has a significant presence, having lost to local player Didi Chuxing in China and merged its operations with Russia’s Yandex. 

Interestingly, SoftBank, which has backed both Didi and Ola, is holding talks with Uber to invest substantially, a move that could potentially spark a merger between the two players in India. Both players are wary of a merger, unsure of which company would remain on top in the country.

Last month Uber named former Expedia CEO Dara Khosrowshahi as its new CEO after several months of hunt to replace Kalanick. 

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LEGAL services have long been seen as one of the safer bets in an ever-changing economic climate.

The world will always need lawyers to assist with everything from writing wills and house purchases, to large corporate transactions. But in an increasingly complex financial and tax regulatory environment legal firms are not immune to financial difficulties.

Effective law firm management is becoming increasingly more complex, which is highlighted through recent high-profile failures nationally and north of the Border.

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(New York) – China’s Ministry of Justice has launched probes into human rights lawyers and law firms in a least six provinces and municipalities, Human Rights Watch said today. This official scrutiny, which authorities say is “to strengthen” and “standardize” the supervision of law firms, indicates that the government’s abusive campaign against rights lawyers, begun in July 2015, may continue.

“While China’s human rights lawyers are no strangers to official harassment, these sudden, invasive probes send an alarming message,” said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. “Yet again, China’s authorities are putting lawyers on notice that they are subject to the whims of the government.”

Since early September 2017, officials from the Beijing, Guangdong, Guangxi, Henan, Hunan, and Yunnan Bureaus of Justice, along with government-controlled local All-China Lawyers Associations and police, began what they call “comprehensive evaluations” or “research” into at least seven law firms. The precise scope of these investigations varies. Lawyers told Human Rights Watch that in some cases the officials came for “chats” asking about the management of the firm, the number of criminal cases they have undertaken, their management, and how much they charge. In one case, a lawyer said officials asked to examine all his contracts and receipts. Officials told the director of a Beijing-based firm that they plan to investigate their “lawyers’ online speech,” among other issues. At a Guangdong firm, officials investigated only three out of over a hundred lawyers; at a Beijing firm, officials said they plan to speak individually to all 20 lawyers at the company.

While authorities have visited these law firms in the past, particularly ahead of the annual evaluation of law firms that takes place by May, the lawyers interviewed said that the current investigations were unusual and “stricter than usual.” The number and ranking of investigating officials involved has been higher than in previous incidents. One law firm director said that six officials, including the highest ranking judicial officials in the province, came to speak to him. The length of some of the investigations – on-site investigations that last for days at the firm –also were unusually long.

The new round of intimidation against law firms raises concerns of a renewed crackdown on human rights lawyers, said Human Rights Watch. The lawyers interviewed described their interviews with authorities as intimidating. Said one lawyer: “It made me worried. They didn’t use strongly worded language, but they asked about my parents and my children. This is unusual as I don’t know them well at all…[so] it made me feel scared.” Another lawyer said that an official said threateningly: “There are lot of problems with your firm,” but gave no details about the problems or how they would be resolved. Authorities told one firm that the lawyers would be required to sign some kind of pledge, but again without details.

China’s Bureaus of Justice, under article 52 of the Lawyers’ Law, have the right to “conduct routine supervision and management” of lawyers and law firms. The supervisory powers under article 64 of the Management Methods on Law Firms are broad and vaguely defined, and permit the examination of firms’ “compliance with laws, rules, and regulations” and their “internal management.” The bureaus are not required to apply a set procedure before subjecting the firms to these investigations. The Management Methods also explicitly require lawyers and law firms to “support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” and to establish Party branches in law firms. Lawyers are prohibited from expressing opinions that “reject the fundamental political system” of China or may “endanger national security.”

Harassment of the legal profession has intensified under President Xi Jinping, who assumed power in March 2013. During this time authorities have targeted some of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers, including Xu Zhiyong, founder of the New Citizens Movement who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014; Pu Zhiqiang, who was given a three-year suspended sentence for “inciting ethnic hatred” and “creating disturbances” in December 2015; and Guangzhou lawyer Tang Jingling, who was given a five-year prison term in January 2016 for promoting ideas of non-violent civil disobedience.

This latest probe also intensifies fears about the ongoing “709 crackdown.” Beginning on July 9, 2015, authorities rounded up more than 300 human rights lawyers, legal assistants, and activists across the country. Most have since been released, but the director of Beijing Fengrui Law Firm, Zhou Shifeng, was given a seven-year prison term in August 2016, while another lawyer, Wang Quanzhang, awaits trial. A number of those apprehended in the “709 crackdown” have formally been released, including prominent lawyer Wang Yu, but continue to be closely monitored and almost entirely isolated from friends and colleagues. Others have alleged that they were tortured and forced to confess to crimes in detention.

Authorities have also used other regulations or procedures improperly to punish activist lawyers, Human Rights Watch said. The Ministry of Justice and its lower-level offices revoke or deny lawyers’ licenses, which are issued annually, if authorities disapprove of the kinds of cases those lawyers or firms accept. For example, the authorities have not allowed prominent lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan of Fengrui Law Firm to pass the annual evaluation since 2015. Lawyers are at risk of being beaten, intimidated, and detained in their work by police, court officials, and others operating at the behest of authorities. On September 4, for example, police detained Chongqing lawyer Zhang Tingyuan overnight on suspicion of “soliciting a prostitute” after he investigated a suspicious case of death in police custody. Chinese courts can also order a maximum of 15 days of judicial detention for those who disturb court order, and police can arrest lawyers for “falsifying evidence,” a crime under article 306 of the Criminal Code, which has been brought against lawyers who encourage their clients to speak out about torture by criminal investigators.

“China’s leaders repeatedly claim adherence to the rule of law, but their actions reflect anything but when they intimidate and punish the very lawyers who seek to hold the state accountable for injustices,” Richardson said. “The Ministry of Justice should drop this campaign of intimidation immediately.” 

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KALAMAZOO, MI – The Honigman law firm will move out of downtown Kalamazoo early next year and become the first tenant of the latest of the Trade Centre Way office buildings off South Westnedge Avenue at I-94.

The move will put the firm closer to the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport, a spokesman says. It will put the firm’s 26 attorneys and 55-member professional staff on one level instead of the two floors they have used for the past several years at the Columbia Plaza Building in downtown Kalamazoo.

And it will make the law firm’s name noticeable to thousands of passing motorists on I-94, which is expected to give the firm greater public visibility.

“For us being a regional firm, having our signage on I-94 and having that quick access for our clients that do visit us locally – the ease of it (is significant),” explained Phillip D. Torrence, managing partner of Honigman’s Kalamazoo office. “It’s easy to get to.”

He estimated that about half of those who regularly visit the Detroit-based firm’s Kalamazoo office are from the Greater Kalamazoo area but the other half is from other parts of Michigan and other parts of the country.

Since it was opened in 2008, Honigman’s Kalamazoo staff has been specialists in corporate mergers and acquisitions, as well as intellectual property law. Mergers and acquisitions account for about half of the business done by the office. IP accounts for about 40 percent, Torrence said. The office has eight attorneys working in each specialty.

The firm is also involved in private equity, venture capital, life sciences, litigation and real estate law. It has four attorneys working in real estate law and six working in various forms of litigation.

Among other things, its practice in Intellectual Property law has grown around safeguarding pharmaceutical companies against overseas copycats, copyright infringements, and claims made by competitors.

“As we speak, Jonathan is in Munich and last week I was in New York for the 16^th time this year,” Torrence said Monday, Sept. 18, referring to Jonathan O’Brien, chairman of Honigman’s Intellectual Property Practice Group.

The frequency of travel isn’t expected to slow, making greater proximity to the airport a factor in the relocation. Honigman also opened an office in 2015 in Chicago and opened another last November in Grand Rapids.

“Both of us spend a fair amount of time there,” Torrence said, referring to him, O’Brien and those offices.

The firm has also grown in the number of major corporate cases it handles, he said.

“We’ve done $1 billion mergers and acquisitions,” he said. “We’ve done IPOs (initial public stock offerings). We’ve done really sophisticated transactions with some of the country’s most prominent law firms.”

Although he said he cannot disclose the names of many of the clients with whom the office has worked, he said it has eight to 12 such cases going at any time.

In 2016, it handled the initial public offering of Gemphire Therapeutics Inc., a Livonia-based biopharmaceutical company.

“You would have to go back to the 1970s or ’80s to find out when a firm in Kalamazoo led an IPO,” Torrence said.

Recently, he and colleagues represented Tronc Inc. (the parent company of the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune and a cluster of other large newspapers) in its acquisition of the N.Y. Daily News.

“This transaction, which was largely executed from our Kalamazoo office, represents the sophisticated work that Phil Torrence, Jonathan O’Brien and our team of experienced lawyers handle for major Kalamazoo-based clients as well as clients across the U.S.,” David Foltyn, chairman and chief executive officer of Honigman, Miller, Schwartz and Cohn LLP, stated in a press release.

The Kalamazoo office quickly grew from two attorneys (Torrence and O’Brien) and a couple of support staff members in 2008 to 21 attorneys with a support staff of about 30 in 2012. As it celebrates the ninth anniversary of opening the Kalamazoo office, the firm lays claims to being the largest law firm in Kalamazoo, with a total of 81 employees, including 26 attorneys.

They utilize the third and fourth floors of the Columbia Plaza Building at 350 E. Michigan Ave. That is a total of about 17,100 square feet. After it relocated in March, the firm will utilize the second floor of the newest Trade Centre Way buildings, some 18,600 square feet.

It will be able to organize the space for greater operational efficiencies, with plans to have: a universal size office for all its attorneys; an upgrade in its meeting spaces and technology; and an upgrade and enlarging of its collaborative spaces.

“The good news is we have the flexibility to grow, and grow in contiguous space,” Torrence said. “And I think it’s going to be wonderful for the firm and our clients.”

The Trade Centre complex is owned by real estate developers Roger Hinman of the Hinman Co., and Joe Gesmundo of AVB Inc.

Torrence said the firm has liked its space in the Columbia Plaza Building, loves downtown Kalamazoo, and its staff will continue to patronize the central business district.

“This has been great space for us,” he said. “I don’t view it (the relocation) as leaving here or picking one place over another, but as something that better suits our needs in 2018, rather than what we looked like in 2008 when we moved in.”

There was no word from the Columbia Plaza management about plans to release the space.

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by Gwen Moritz 
on Tuesday, Sep. 19, 2017 11:15 am  
1 min read

Allen Law Firm will merge with Williams & Anderson effective Oct. 1, the two Little Rock law firms announced Tuesday.

The firm will continue to be called Williams & Anderson and will remain in the Stephens Building at 111 Center St. 

Allen Law Firm was established by H. William Allen in 1986. Williams & Anderson was founded in 1988.

“The two firms have compatible practice areas in appellate advocacy, banking law, bankruptcy law, construction law, estate and tax planning, media law, public and corporate finance, real estate and class action litigation,” according to the announcement. 

The addition of Allen and Willie S. Haley will bring the number of attorneys at Williams & Anderson to 15.

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Dubai: Standing behind her stall at a Dubai exhibition centre, Dai Dong He offered passersby what looked like carefully wrapped biscuits or chocolates.

“This is dry beef, beef snacks,” said Dai, general manager of Anhui Central Asia Food Co., one of eight Chinese firms from Anhui Province displaying products at Halal Expo Dubai 2017.

Dubai is hosting the show for the ninth year running, with the Gulf emirate positioning itself as a major hub for the halal industry, a booming $3 trillion market for goods and services that are permissible under Islamic law.

In recent years Chinese firms have increasingly looked to tap the market, with organisers of the two-day show, which was set to close on Tuesday, saying the Chinese halal sector is forecast to hit $1.9 trillion by 2021, an average growth rate of nine percent from its 2015 level.

Exhibitors from China said one of the keys to gaining a foothold in the market was winning the trust of consumers. “We make sure our food is halal,” Dai told AFP, noting that the company buys meat from Chinese Muslims to ensure slaughtering is done according to Islamic tradition.

Nicholas Hsiu, a manager with ARA Halal Development Service Center, said the show was an opportunity to promote the company´s exports.

“We want to export to Muslim countries… We hope to introduce our products and export to the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East,” he told AFP.  The company manufactures various types of halal noodles and has obtained certificates from recognised Islamic accreditation bodies in Hong Kong and elsewhere, Hsiu said. Seventy-five exhibitors from 15 countries, including Malaysia, the global leader in halal exports, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Switzerland and others took part in the show. The industry encompasses food, beverages, fashion, cosmetics, tourism, and the $2 trillion Islamic financial industry. For food products the key is ensuring no traces of pork or alcohol, which are strictly banned by Islamic teachings. Exhibitors from Malaysia displayed a wide-range of cosmetics, beauty care products and agricultural seeds that one firm claimed “are better than Viagra”.

Mountain honey processed to conform with Islamic requirements was displayed by one Pakistani firm, while exhibitors from Kazakhstan presented various types of chocolates.

Standing at a stall packed with natural cosmetics, Nur Syarifatun Nadzirah, the managing director of Gaveno Green Resources in Malaysia, said the company ensured its products comply with halal rules. “We make sure that all the ingredients are halal… We have certification” from well-established Malaysian bodies, she told AFP.

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Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC says it will repeal a law to force the transfer of foreign-owned firms to local ownership if it wins power in the 2018 elections.

MDC shadow Finance minister Tapiwa Mashakada said the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act has eroded investor confidence and created a sceptical international business community that has developed a wait-and-see attitude.

“Maintaining indigenisation threshold of 51 percent is a zero sum game. The MDC will review the indigenisation policy threshold in a manner that is investor friendly. Regarding domestic investment, lending rates will be slashed for sure. Long-term trade finance as opposed to short-term finance is the key. And capital markets are awash,” Mashakada said.

The law requires foreign companies to sell at least a 51 percent stake to local shareholders in a bid to redress colonial imbalances in a process known as indigenisation, but handing majority control of businesses to locals is putting off investors.

“Addressing confidence issues and corruption will be the first order of business,” Mashakada said.

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BEIJING — A top European business lobby said yesterday it hopes the new leadership to emerge from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) meeting will show a commitment to market opening, but that its members were not optimistic and suffering from “promise fatigue”.

China’s ruling elite will hold a once-every-five-years congress starting on Oct 18, at which the Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in Chinese politics, will be fitted with a new line-up of leaders under President Xi Jinping.

Foreign businesses in China, long critical of what they see as unmet market opening pledges, are eager for Mr Xi to match the anti-protectionism messages he has been delivering to the world with reforms at home.

“We hope that the new line-up after the 19th party congress will show that there are people in place that are committed to further opening up,” said European Union (EU) Chamber of Commerce in China president Mats Harborn. “If you ask our member companies … they are not very optimistic that these changes will happen,” Mr Harborn told reporters in an interview ahead of the chamber’s launch of its annual position paper.

The chamber said in the paper that companies have been “suffering from accumulated ‘promise fatigue’, having witnessed a litany of assurances over recent years that never quite materialised”.

While noting progress in some industries, such as pharmaceuticals, Mr Harborn said Beijing should abolish its myriad foreign investment catalogues and lists of restricted industries for foreign investors, and “let one company law rule the activities of companies in China”.

The chamber urged the Chinese government to not rely on “short-term financial incentives” in designated investment zones, and instead focus on creating a predictable and transparent business environment based on rule of law.

It also proposed hundreds of possible changes to open the state-dominated economy wider or simplify rules in fields from cosmetics to medical devices.

China says that it is an ideal country for foreign investment, and that foreign companies have benefited greatly from decades of growth in its huge market.

But in recent years, Beijing has sought to address slowing growth by promoting innovation in strategic industries, such as information technology and robotics, plans that have riled foreign companies and their governments with their extensive “buy China” requirements.

Business groups have warned that China risks a protectionist backlash from Europe and the United States if it does not open up major sectors, such as financial services, healthcare and logistics, in which foreign firms often face far greater restrictions than their Chinese competitors do abroad.

“The current lack of reciprocity in market access is becoming politically unsustainable,” said Mr Harborn. “We are worried that if this is not quickly changed, there will be a backlash against economic globalisation.”

Germany, France and Italy welcomed the European Commission’s proposal last week on vetting non-EU investments, having pushed for tighter oversight of foreign acquisitions of sensitive European technology following a rise in such deals by Chinese players. AGENCIES

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As per the data shared by the mines ministry, of a total land area of 32.8 lakh square km, the country has 5,70,000 square km of obvious geological potential (OGP). (Representational image)

With the Central government starting the process to revamp the National Mineral Policy (NMP), 2008, the Niti Aayog has told the Union mines ministry that in order to boost mineral exploration, companies need to be given the “right of first refusal” over the mining area that is being explored.

Currently, if a company has got an area’s non-exclusive reconnaissance permit (NERP), which is required for preliminary exploration, it can either keep the resultant data with itself or submit it to the respective state government so that the latter can initiate the auction of mining licence (ML) or composite licence (prospecting licence-cum-ML). The company that has got an area’s NERP and the resultant data cannot make a direct claim for ML or composite licence, according to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2015.

On August 28, 2017, V S Gaur, joint secretary, Niti Aayog, participated in the first meeting of the committee that has been constituted to review the NMP 2008. According to the minutes of the meeting: “The NMP 2008, he (Gaur) said, though being very good, failed to work the results as there was a mismatch between the policy and the statute… For encouraging exploration, he stressed the need to strengthen the state government departments and buttress the efforts of the private sector in exploration by giving them the ‘right of first refusal’.”

Gaur said while earlier the law assured “seamless transition from reconnaissance to prospecting and then to mining, not much of investment came and there was hardly any big level of exploration”. He added that the present statute — the new mining law passed in 2015 — has slowed “down the activity even further” as it “does not assure seamless transition from reconnaissance to prospecting policy” and this is “actually a dampener on exploration”.

Under the 2015 mining law, the Central government established the National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) and notified its rules on August 14, 2015. The NMET is a non-profit body run by the Central government with the primary objective of promoting regional and detailed mineral exploration in the country. The holder of a mining lease or a composite licence shall pay to the NMET a sum equivalent to two per cent of the annual royalty paid to the respective state government.

“He (Gaur) said the challenge before us is how to really go ahead for taking up exploration in a big way; and said that no mineral-rich county has taken up exploration through government’s funding. In the coming decades, he said, the sector will witness a shift in focus from bulk minerals to non-bulk minerals; and that we should really focus on rare earth minerals and take the present opportunity to encourage private sector participation in exploration and development of rare earth minerals which are strategically and economically valuable for the country,” the minutes stated.

As per the data shared by the mines ministry, of a total land area of 32.8 lakh square km, the country has 5,70,000 square km of obvious geological potential (OGP). As of 2012, as per the ministry, only 5,046 sq km was under mineral lease, less than 1 per cent of the OGP. Most exploration activities in the country are of the conventional type with restricted input from geochemistry, geophysics and remote sensing. The finds so far are located near the surface, mostly up to a vertical depth of 100 m.

Along with the NITI Aayog, various other stakeholders including Geological Survey of India (GSI), Union steel, finance, railway, shipping, roads, coal ministries, various industry groups and state governments participated at the August 28 meeting. Steel major JSW also participated in the meeting. Most of the stakeholders at this meeting advised the mines ministry to incentivise exploration.

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