Author: Brian Sanchez
UN watchdog warns firms operating on Israel settlements
U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Zeid bin Raad Zeid al-Hussein has warned scores of Israeli and foreign companies about their operations in Israel’s illegal West Bank settlements, Israeli daily Haaretz reported late Wednesday.
According to the newspaper, al-Hussein began sending letters earlier this month to 150 Israeli and foreign companies warning them that they would be added to a blacklist of companies doing business in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.Haaretz quoted an unnamed Israeli official as saying that al-Hussein had informed these firms that they were “doing business in the occupied Palestinian territories and could thus find themselves on the U.N.’s backlist of companies acting in violation of international law.”
“The letters, copies of which also reached the Israeli government, request that these firms send the commission clarifications about their business in the settlements,” the same official said.
Haaretz also quoted a western diplomat who told the newspaper on condition of anonymity that half of the targeted companies were Israeli, while the rest were U.S.-based, German, South Korean or Norwegian.
The same paper went on to report that the companies had responded to the commissioner’s notice by saying that they did not intend to renew their contracts in Israel or sign new ones.
“These companies can’t make the distinction between Israel and the [illegal] settlements and are ending their operations all together,” the Israeli official was quoted as saying.
“They will not invest in something that reeks of political problems,” he added.
Israel occupied the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. It annexed the entire city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity there as illegal.
Nevertheless, roughly 500,000 Israelis now live on more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built on these territories since 1967.
The Palestinians, for their part, want these areas – along with the Gaza Strip – for the establishment of a future state of Palestine.
Japan Recognizes 11 Firms as Cryptocurrency Exchange Operators
The FSA is also reviewing registration applications from 17 other exchange operators, who also asked to be recognized as initial coin offerings (ICO) operators, it said in a statement.
Japan has been one of the first countries to recognize cryptocurrency as legal tender, to avoid repeating the failure in 2014 of the Tokyo-based Mt Gox, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange at that time.
It passed a legislation in April to establish the ICO as a recognized mode of payment, but prohibited the purchase or sale of digital coins by exchange traders who are not registered with the FSA.
The law is aimed at protecting consumers and to monitor that the exchanges meet risk management requirements, including verifying the identities of customers to prevent money laundering and building stronger computer systems.
As opposed to other countries, Japanese companies and users have enthusiastically adopted the ICOs since their legal recognition in April and raised the global quotation of these digital currencies, which expects to be accepted in up to 300,000 stores in the country by the end of this year.
Shell companies: NSE seeks clarification from firms on disqualified directors
As part of its fight against illicit fund flows, the corporate affairs ministry has disqualified more than 1 lakh directors for their association with shell companies. Photo: Reuters
Mumbai: The National Stock Exchange (NSE) said clarification has been sought from various companies about continuance of disqualified directors on their respective boards, amid the government cracking the whip on suspected shellcompanies .
As part of its fight against illicit fund flows, the corporate affairs ministry has disqualified more than 1 lakh directors for their association with shell companies.
Against this backdrop, the NSE has asked for clarification from various companies about the continuation of such directors on their respective boards. “We confirm that NSE has sent out the letters to concerned companies and has sought clarification on the subject matter,” an exchange spokesperson said.
The response came to a query related to whether the bourse has asked about 200 companies listed on it to consider whether directors disqualified by the ministry should continue on their boards. Specific details could not be immediately ascertained.
When asked whether the BSE has also issued such communications to companies listed on its platform, an exchange spokesperson declined to comment.
The ministry has “identified 1,06,578 directors for disqualification under Section 164(2)(a) of the Companies Act, 2013 as on 12 September 2017,” according to an official release issued on 12 September.
Under Section 164 of the Companies Act, 2013, a director in a company that has not filed financial statements or annual returns for three financial years continuously would not be eligible for re-appointment in that company or any other firm for five years.
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) had imposed trading restrictions on 331 suspected shell companies after receiving such a list from the ministry. Subsequently, the curbs on some of these entities have been lifted.
The ministry, which is implementing the companies law, has also cancelled the registration of more than 2.09 lakh firms that have not been carrying out business activities for a long period. More entities are likely to face such action.
Women-owned firms, crucial growth engine of global economy: VCCI leader
 |
Talking to the press on the fringe of the 2017 APEC Women and the Economy Forum in Hue city on September 28, he said in Vietnam, one in every four businesspersons are women.
He said in its business development and gender equality strategies, the country wants to raise the rate of enterprises run by women to about 35% of the total business number in 2020 and higher in the following years. It expects to have one million businesses in 2020, which means there would be 300,000 women-owned firms.
They form a very important force of the Vietnamese economy since most of companies owned by women are of small, medium, and even micro sizes. These businesses are mainly involved in trade, services and production activities.
Women-run firms usually employ many workers, especially female workers, while being able to be better tolerant of a business climate full of vagaries. They also outdo men-run companies in terms of some business performance criteria, social welfares, environmental protection, and green growth strategy implementation, Loc noted.
Support to women-owned businesses and micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) is becoming a priority in APEC economies’ policies, the VCCI leader said, expressing his hope that with policies promoting businesswomen and women-owned firms, the global economy as well as the Vietnamese economy will have a new momentum to develop in a more sustainable manner.
This time’s APEC meetings aim to enhance inclusive, innovative and sustainable economic growth, and developing women-owned businesses are one of the critical measures to realise that target, he added.
The recently approved Law on Support for SMEs requires policies that prioritise SMEs owned by women. On the basis of the law, the Government will have programmes and solutions to meet this requirement.
“It is of utmost importance to issue programmes and solutions that can help them improve their governance capacity and competitiveness. Subsidy or traditional support measures won’t work,” he stressed.
It is also necessary to step up communications and give advice and training to women entrepreneurs while boosting their access to technology, market and partners.
Support policies targeting SMEs in general and businesswomen in particular must focus on raising their capacity and internationalising the firms, instead of implementing subsidy measures. That will ensure the sustainable development of these enterprises, VCCI Chairman Loc said.
‘Business cults’ in China prey on young job seekersSome look like high-tech firms, promising young college graduates a fast track to riches. Others pose as charitable groups on a membership drive, or companies building a sales network for a new…
TIANJIN, China: Some look like high-tech firms, promising young college graduates a fast track to riches. Others pose as charitable groups on a membership drive, or companies building a sales network for a new product. Tens of millions across China are signing up – and learning that all is not as advertised.
Behind these groups is a looming challenge for the ruling Communist Party: A proliferation of pyramid schemes that have attracted enormous followings and huge sums of money, exploiting – and exacerbating – widespread anxiety over a slowing economy.
More than 40 million people are now ensnared, perhaps many more, according to the China Anti-Pyramid Selling Association, a nongovernmental group. One scheme shut down this summer was reported to have registered more than 5 million people alone, while another in southern China took in at least $54 million. Last year, the authorities investigated more than 2,800 cases, a 19 percent increase from 2015.
New recruits are asked to hand over cash and persuade others to do the same. The more people they bring in, the more they and their bosses earn. But if too many people quit or the schemes run out of new members willing to pay, the pyramids collapse, bankrupting families in a chain reaction and adding to the strains on the Chinese financial system.
The schemes take many forms, but China’s news media has labeled the worst of them “business cults” because they masquerade as elite companies or startups hiring college graduates, use high-pressure indoctrination tactics and demand cultlike loyalty. Sometimes, they resort to kidnapping and violence to keep the money coming in.
“They promise the dream of making a fortune,” said Liu Libing, a former victim who runs a business helping families find missing relatives. “In reality, they brainwash you and hold you against your will.”
The government announced a nationwide crackdown on the schemes in August after the death of Li Wenxing, 23, a recent college graduate whose body was found in a pond in the northern city of Tianjin.
Li had moved to Tianjin for a position as a software developer, desperate for a job his parents in rural China would deem worthy of the education they helped pay for. But when he showed up for work, the people there demanded he borrow hundreds of dollars and hand it over, according to his family and the police.
Li’s death and a spate of similar cases have prompted a national uproar, in part because college graduates have long enjoyed special status in Chinese society. For many Chinese, the groups preying on them are a symptom of broader problems in the country: vast inequality, a crisis of values and a freewheeling economy that can sometimes resemble the Wild West.
The party has long worried about the destabilizing effect of pyramid schemes, which have thrived in China since it began loosening controls on the economy in the 1980s. For many years, the authorities even banned multilevel marketing tactics, likening companies such as Amway and Avon to “secret societies,” before lifting the prohibition in 2006.
But the government recently warned that pyramid schemes were spreading faster and getting bigger, in part through social media. The high returns they promise are all the more enticing as economic growth has slowed, especially given the dearth of reliable investment options for ordinary Chinese.
A key concern has been the unflinching loyalty that some groups inspire, threatening the party’s tight grip on society. A recent mass protest in Beijing reinforced such fears: The demonstrators were not demanding compensation or an investigation into a pyramid scheme but protesting the arrest of its founder.
The state-run Legal Weekly newspaper later reported that in the span of a year, more than 5 million people had enrolled in that scheme, Shanxinhui, or Kindness Exchange, which had presented itself as a sort of charitable enterprise.
While pyramid swindlers in China have traditionally focused on older people, the business cults exploit highly educated youth from poorer families, law enforcement officials say. In doing so, they are seizing on the anxieties of a generation willing to go to great lengths to avoid the shame of unemployment.
After expanding access to higher education, China now suffers a glut of college graduates and a scarcity of high-paying jobs. While a college degree was once a ticket into the middle class, many recent graduates are now stuck in low-paying positions or have given up looking for work.
Hundreds of young people across China have been caught in the schemes in recent months, according to Chinese news reports, including many in Tianjin, a cosmopolitan port city and tech hub near Beijing.
The groups have grown skilled at playing into the ambitions of young Chinese eager to join startups. Victims are often lured to remote rural areas, where they live in closed communities and are indoctrinated with rags-to-riches tales. Some groups advertise on popular job-hunting sites and explain drab facilities and cramped conditions by saying they are cultivating a “startup environment,” former members said.
Several participants have died under mysterious circumstances.
China Youth Daily, a state-run newspaper, recently reported on hordes of young people with “dreams of a gold rush” flocking to a hot spot of pyramid schemes near Beijing. Leaders of one scheme told participants they could turn an investment of $7,500 into nearly $700,000.
In reality, law enforcement officials say, many of the investment schemes are sophisticated ruses with the sole purpose of enriching the founders.
Li Wenxing, the young man found dead in a pond, was duped by a posting for an $800-a-month position as a Java programmer at the Tianjin branch of a real Beijing technology company.
He had hoped the job would allow him to repay his parents for the money they spent on his programming classes, according to a friend, Wang Xing. He was so determined to save money, Wang said, that he skipped going out to meals.
The police have detained five members of a 7,000-person group known as Diebeilei in connection with Li Wenxing’s death, according to the state news media.
The authorities have said it was unlikely Li was murdered, but they have not determined how he died, according to an uncle of his who asked not to be named. Friends and relatives of Li said the government considered the case politically sensitive.
In his final phone call home in July, the uncle said, Li told his parents not to give money to strangers.
How draft law seeks to change polls rules
SUMMARY
- Jubilee Party used its numerical strength to fast-track the process of amending the raft of election laws
- The Bill seeks to principally address the shortcomings that led to the invalidation of the August presidential vote
If only one candidate remains in a fresh presidential election, he/she shall be declared president-elect without polls being held, proposes a Bill on electoral reforms.
The proposal in the Bill introduced in the National Assembly on Thursday during a stormy session seems to address threats by NASA presidential candidate Raila Odinga not to enlist his candidature for the repeat polls scheduled for October 26.
ALSO READ:
NASA leaders won’t get security back, Matiang’i says
“Where only one candidate remains after the withdrawal, the remaining candidate shall be declared elected forthwith as the president-elect without any elections being held,” states a clause in an amendment to Section 86 of the Election Act on the procedure of a repeat presidential election.
The Bill seeks to principally address the shortcomings that led to the invalidation of the August presidential vote, watering down the requirement for electronic transmission of the results and instead placing manual transmission as the legally binding process.
It also prescribes a custodial sentence of up to 15 years for any presiding or returning officer who knowingly refuses to sign, submits incomplete forms or wilfully alters or falsifies documents relating to elections.
Irregularities and illegalities in electronic transmission of results and claims that some poll officials failed to sign forms used to declare the poll outcome were at the centre of the Supreme Court reasoning for invalidation of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s re-election.
The Bill further explains the candidates who are supposed to take part in the repeat elections, where the polls are nullified through a petition, clarifying that only those who successfully petition an election are eligible to contest in the repeat polls.
“Where the petition was filed by a person or persons who are not candidates in the original election, then each of the candidates in the original election may participate in the fresh election,” states another clause. Thirdway Alliance candidate in the annulled election Ekuru Aukot is currently before the High Court seeking to be included in the ordered repeat poll, after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) only listed President Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila as the only nominated candidates for the polls.
On Thursday, Jubilee Party used its numerical strength to fast-track the process of amending the raft of election laws, disregarding uproar from their NASA counterparts who protested the haste with which the draft law was being pushed.
Uhuru’s administration has made no secret its desire to make several changes to the election laws following the nullification of his re-election in the August polls.
ALSO READ:
Why IEBC suspended talks with presidential candidates
His party’s legislators laid ground for the amendments through the Bill to change the Elections Laws (Amendments) Act 2017, tabled in the House by Majority Leader Aden Duale.
Proposed changes
But apart from the transmission process, the amendments target both the IEBC Act and the Elections Act.
The proposed law makes changes on who is supposed to be the national returning officer of the presidential election, stripping the IEBC chairman of the mandatory powers of declaring the results.
The proposed changes to the IEBC Act seek to arrest a possible crisis in the event of the resignation or otherwise of the IEBC chairperson, giving the vice chairperson the legal mandate to assume full powers of returning the vote for the presidential election.
The proposed new clause in Section 6 of the IEBC Act also states in the absence of chairman and vice chair, other commission members will elect one of them to act and exercise the chairperson’s powers and responsibilities until the position is substantively filled.
Currently, the law only allows the chairperson the mandate for such duties as acting as the national returning officer.
ALSO READ:
Why IEBC suspended talks with presidential candidates
The draft law also removes the strict requirement IEBC chairperson must be a lawyer, and qualified to hold the office of Judge of the Supreme Court.
Silicon Valley Legal Tech Accelerator accepts two RTP firms
Updated Sep. 28, 2017 at 1:03 p.m.
Silicon Valley Legal Tech Accelerator accepts two RTP firms
On The Web
Raleigh, N.C. — Two Research Triangle companies are among the seven second round participants in the Silicon Valley Legal Tech Accelerator program. They will participate at the Raleigh Technology Center for LexisNexis on the North Carolina State University Centennial Campus.
This is the first time the program will be based both at the Menlo Park, California offices of Lex Machina and the Raleigh Technology Center.
The program launched in April to give startups a leg up in the rapidly expanding legal tech industry. The Legal Tech Accelerator program leverages deep expertise in legal, technology, startup domains, and industry-leading market positions of LexisNexis and Lex Machina to guide and mentor program members.
Participants receive hands-on mentoring, enjoy access to cutting-edge tools, technologies and data, and are given use of a workspace within an award-winning legal tech startup in Silicon Valley for up to three months for three employees.
After a thorough evaluation process, two NC companies made the cut.
Raleigh-based Vijilent automates people search for the legal industry. It is a data science company using machine learning to gather insights using social media data and working with law firms to harness the richness of that data and turn it into actionable knowledge for litigation support, jury selection and social media discovery.
{{a href=”external_link-16687999″}}vTestify{{/a}, based in Cary, is a virtual testimony platform that is developed to leverage advances in technology to improve both the quality of testimony and the methods through which it is obtained. vTestify addresses the needs of lawyers, legal professionals, and above all, the clients it serves, by tackling inefficiencies in the system through the use of technology.
The other five companies selected for the second round are:
- Contract Wrangler (San Francisco, CA): Contract Wrangler uses advanced machine learning technology to uncover hidden data in business relationships and help clients maximize profitability and reduce risk.
- dealWIP (Baltimore,MD): Cloud-based workflow integration platform for complex legal transactions that provides a secure, frictionless and transparent environment for transactional attorneys and their valued clients to plan, manage, automate and streamline every element of their most important high-stakes corporate legal matters.
- Lawcountability (New York, NY): A cloud-based software platform designed to help lawyers network more effectively for their business and professional development. It is a cost-effective way to offer regular marketing and business-development training online and on-the-go.
- Medilenz (Philadelphia, PA): AI-powered technology at the intersection of legal and health care helping companies and law firms, for example, mine medical records for critical data and providing medical expert services to life sciences clients, addressing business and scientific needs.
- ThreadKM (Alpharetta, GA): A web-based, real-time legal knowledge management platform that allows lawyers and other professionals to securely and effortlessly build cases and work together. It combines the benefits of broad-based document and knowledge management with the precision of a purpose-built tool for lawyers.
Throughout the rigorous, 10-week curriculum, Legal Tech Accelerator participants will gain knowledge and expertise in a variety of topics, including technology and product development, running an agile product development organization, building a strong company culture,selling to legal departments and law firms, leveraging legal data, and identifying best practices in customer success, marketing and fundraising. In addition.
They will have access to a vast collection of enriched legal data and cutting-edge tools and technologies from LexisNexis, and will be able to leverage the company’s established relationships with Stanford University, North Carolina State University, Silicon Valley businesses, VCs and influencers to grow their companies.
WRAL TechWire any time: Twitter, Facebook
Copyright 2017 WRAL TechWire. All rights reserved.
A new law heralds a new era for Europe’s financial markets
… depositors, retail investors and small firms. The most pervasive form of … ” (off centralised exchanges). The new law pushes it towards electronic-trading venues … for firms trading on their own account, central to the law’s … firms, for their part, need to move beyond grumbling. The new law …
Go to Source
Telecom firms may get interim sops now, full relief package later
The government’s inclination to offer telecom firms relief came in the wake of the tepid response to the last round of spectrum auctions in October 2016. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik?Mint
New Delhi: The Telecom Commission may offer interim, piecemeal sops to debt-laden telecom firms, pending a comprehensive relief package that’s still some distance away, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The apex telecom policymaking body is still awaiting clarifications it has sought from an inter-ministerial group (IMG) dealing with the issue, the person said on condition of anonymity. “We will take a little time… it (comprehensive package) may take a little longer. They (IMG) have given other clarifications… on some of the things, we are still waiting for clarifications,” the person said, without disclosing the clarifications the commission has sought.
In the interim, the commission may offer “piecemeal” relief measures, the person said.
On some matters such as calculation of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) in spectrum trading, the commission is expected to seek legal opinion from the law ministry, which will further extend the process of putting together a comprehensive package.
Telecom firms pay roughly 8% of AGR as licence fee and an additional 3% as spectrum usage charges, which are the two key avenues of government earnings from the telecom industry.
The IMG recommended to the commission that instead of taking into account the full present value of the spectrum for calculating AGR during the sale or purchase of spectrum, telecom companies should pay only the “differential”, which is the difference between the current value of the radio waves and the rate at which spectrum was bought in the first instance.
“So, one of the recommendations made was to look (only) at the differential. To which, TC said that since it is a part of the AGR, it is better to take a legal opinion. Maybe we (will) seek a legal opinion from the ministry of law,” the person said.
The Telecom Commission will take up these issues in its meeting on Friday.
The commission is believed to favour the IMG’s suggestion of extending the fee-payment tenure for auctioned airwaves to 16 years from 10 years and lowering the interest rate payable on unpaid dues.
Telecom firms sought a lowering of licence fees and spectrum usage charges, which the IMG has rejected. In a 22 August letter to telecom minister Manoj Sinha, Vodafone Group chief executive officer (CEO) Vittorio Colao had expressed the hope the IMG will recommend a reduction in the interest rate for deferred spectrum payments to 6.25% from over 9%, besides an increase in the payment period.
New entrant Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd has opposed any relief being extended to the sector; the incumbents have lobbied hard to push their demands, citing fierce price competition from the company led by Mukesh Ambani and their own debt, which was Rs4.5 trillion at the end of 31 March. They owe close to Rs3 trillion in spectrum payment charges, according to industry estimates.
“The financial state of the sector… taxation is up to 32%, which is very high. With taxation being highest in the world and tariffs being lowest in the world… all of this needs to change,” said Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel Ltd.
The government’s inclination to offer telecom firms relief came in the wake of the tepid response to the last round of spectrum auctions in October 2016, in which some of the bands received no bids. The government collected 20% less than its targeted non-tax revenue from the sector in 2016-17 at Rs78,715 crore. For 2017-18, the ministry has conservatively estimated its receipts from the sector at Rs44,342 crore.