Pearse Trust Blog

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has introduced new regulations in respect of application of LIBOR (London Inter-Bank Offered Rate) rates.

When Is A Receiver Appointed? 

Receivers may be appointed by secured creditors as a means by which they can enforce their security. The appointment of receivers by banks to companies in default of mortgage repayments has featured quite frequently in news reports over the last number of years.

Revisiting FATCA 

In our recent blog post Does FATCA affect your business?, we provided an overview of the US FATCA legislation and the resulting obligations, when it comes into force on 1 January 2013.

A Certificate of Good Standing (COGS) is a document which indicates that a Company is in continuous existence since its date of incorporation and that all Annual Return filings for the Company are up to date.

In March last, the Central Bank of Ireland published its ‘Review of the Regulatory Regime for the Safeguarding of Client Assets’, declaring its plans to strengthen the protection of client assets held by investment firms.

The Facts

Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (LBIE), the principal European trading company in the Lehman Brothers group, regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), was placed in administration in 2008, following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. The administrators sought the assistance of the UK Supreme Court to interpret the FSA’s Client's Assets Sourcebook Chapter 7 (CASS7) and the treatment of funds that had been paid to LBIE before it entered administration.

In recent years, in an effort to crack down on international money laundering and tax evasion, nations like the United States, Germany and the UK began investigating just how widespread the practice was. With the assistance of international organisations like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), US and European Governments began putting pressure on not only the Swiss, but also tiny Liechtenstein and small Caribbean island nations.

The US FATC Act

The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), due to come into force in 2013, will in its current form require overseas financial institutions to report American clients with accounts of more than USD$50,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.