A dynamic region for inward & outward investment

Katherine Evans | Senior Partner The MENA region has huge commercial opportunities for businesses wanting to bring their products and services to new markets, as well as for businesses from within the region looking outwards for investment opportunities and international markets for their own products and services. This activity is only going to increase with the opening up of trade …

The UK as a Business Location for MENA Companies

Katherine Evans | Senior Partner 8th January 2020. Brexit has given a perception to the world that the UK may no longer be open for business to the world, but the reality is that the UK remains a highly business friendly location for MENA headquartered corporations to set up their European operations. To start with, it is easy to set …

Playing By the Rules: establishing effective DLT communities

Katherine Evans | Senior Partner What is a distributed ledger? Distributed ledger technology (DLT) continues to enable the explosion of crypto-currencies, that we have seen over the last few years. As well as being the driving force behind Bitcoin, it has many other applications that make it useful and relevant to businesses in a range of industries. A distributed ledger …

Virtual Currencies in the European Single Market

What are virtual currencies? European Banking Authority (EBA) regards virtual currencies as being a digital representation of value that is neither issued by a central bank or a public authority nor necessarily attached to a regular currency, but is accepted by natural or legal persons as a means of payment, and can be transferred, stored or traded electronically. The leading …

VAT Rule Changes for UK Wholesale Telecommunications Supplies

VAT Reverse Charge Mechanism to apply to Certain Wholesale Supplies from 1st February 2016 Certain UK clients have asked me to explain the VAT rule changes for UK wholesale telecommunications supplies, and hopefully this blog will answer those questions. From 1st February 2016, providers of wholesale telecommunications services in the UK will no longer apply VAT to supplies to other …

Employee Monitoring

Personal Use by Employees of Employer Systems: Mr Bogdan Barbulescu vs the State of Romania Mr Barbulescu used certain business systems to send personal messages in breach of his employer’s stated Policy in this regard. The Employer monitored employee communications to ensure compliance with its Policy. Mr Barbelescu was found to have been in breach of the Policy and was …

IT Security Advice for Small Businesses

On 16th January 2016, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) published a useful advice note on IT security advice for small businesses, called “A Practical Guide to IT Security”, a copy of which can be found here. It is well worth a read for all owners and senior managers of small businesses, however tech savvy they may be as individuals …

Costs of Compliance with the UK’s Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

The UK Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee reported on 1st February on the UK Government’s draft Investigatory Powers Bill, including on the costs of compliance for UK communications service providers (“CSPs”). The draft Investigatory Powers Bill will require CSPs to retain the internet browsing history of all of their customers for the previous twelve months. The Government appears to have …

New Data Protection Regulation for Europe – Part 1: A One-Stop Shop for Multi-Nationals?

Multi-nationals have long complained that there is no one-stop shop under the existing EU data protection regulations, to facilitate EU wide compliance with data protection rules. The existing data protection regulations set minimum thresholds, which can and have been applied in different ways in different countries. It is in the light of hopes for that elusive one-stop shop, that the …