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Effective January 1, 2022, the California Franchise Tax Board (“FTB”) has the authority under Assembly Bill 466 to share information with the State Controller’s Office (“SCO”) relating to a taxpayer’s compliance with the California’s unclaimed property laws. To gather this information, the FTB has added a few questions to California’s business entity tax returns for tax year 2021, including whether…

While cryptocurrencies have increasingly become more mainstream, they are still relegated to the edges of financial systems because they are still not widely accepted as legal tender and are limited to private transactions between individuals online. Cryptocurrencies are global, and bad actors that use them to perpetrate fraud may be located in various jurisdictions around the globe. Not all countries…

As cross-border restructurings grow, especially in the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, global companies filing for insolvency relief in foreign countries may utilize chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code to facilitate the protection of assets located in the U.S. In Chapter 15 proceeding, assistance is available upon recognition of the foreign proceeding under Section 1521 (a) (4) of the…

The Supreme Court of Canada in H.M.B. Holdings Ltd. v. Antigua and Barbuda, recently considered whether foreign judgment creditors can seize assets in Canada when the party does not have an actual presence in Canada. There, the connection in British Columbia (B.C.) contracted with businesses in B.C. that were to pay a finder’s fee to the judgment debtor. The judgment…

On August 13, 2021, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law an amendment to the Illinois Freedom to Work Act, which will impact the enforceability of some non-competition and non-solicitation restrictive covenants in Illinois. Although the new law will not impact all restrictive covenants in Illinois (the amendment excludes from its scope restrictive covenants entered into ancillary to the sale…

This overview is offered to provide a structured analysis of how enforcement measures can be implemented in civil law jurisdictions such as France and common law jurisdictions such as the UK and Germany. Creditors need to adapt their approach given the options provided by local law for recovering a debt and assets. The conditions for application of interim collection measures…

As we move into harvest season, we here at Cover Your SaaS (CYS) have cultivated a fresh crop of updates for your enjoyment. Keen observers will note that there has been a somewhat larger gap than usual between newsletters and we admit, it has been a minute. Of course, absence makes the heart grow fonder so we are excited to…

The Letter of Request Procedure is the main means of evidence gathering under the Hague Convention. This process begins with a request made to the U.S. court where the action is pending to issue a letter of request seeking the production of specified documents or the taking of testimony from a particular witness. The court transmits the letter of request…

In 1998, The U.S. Supreme Court in Grupo Mexicano de Desarrollo S.A. v. Alliance Bond Fund, 527 U.S. 308, held that the District Court had no authority to issue a preliminary injunction preventing petitioners from disposing of assets pending adjudication of the respondents’ contract claim for money damages. Subsequently, courts have interpreted Grupo to carve out exceptions for equitable actions…

On August 30, 2021, the Second Circuit decided in Irving Picard, trustee for the Liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC v. Citibank N.A., 20-1334, on “appeals of the latest installment in the long-running litigation arising from Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme” whether the District Court properly dismissed actions brought against initial and subsequent transferees, to avoid and recover transfers,…

With the recent rise in popularity of special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”), expect an uptick in SPAC related litigation to follow. SPAC’s are referred to as “blank check” companies because they are shell companies formed by a sponsor group to raise funds in an initial public offering (“IPO”) for the purpose of acquiring a yet-to-be-identified privately held target company. After…

On July 7, 2021, Colorado’s Governor, Jared Polis, signed the Colorado Privacy Act (“CPA”) into law.  Colorado is the third U.S. state to enact a comprehensive privacy law, following the previous enactment of the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and the Virginia Data Privacy Act …

It is no secret that the rapid development of cryptocurrencies and sudden surges in their popularity presented challenges to victims trying to recover their losses. Cryptocurrencies are a secure, decentralized and anonymous way to conduct transactions outside the customary banking channel. Criminals flocked to cryptocurrencies …

The CARES Act, which sought to provide economic assistance during the global health pandemic, is exalted as an essential federal initiative. One of the most visible pieces of that Act is the PPP, which seeks to provide immediate financial assistance in the form of SBA-guaranteed …

On January 21, 2021, the Chicago Department of Finance (“Department”) issued an anticipated Information Bulletin (“Nexus Bulletin”) providing guidance on nexus and establishing a prospective “safe harbor” for certain taxes, including electronically delivered amusements under the Chicago’s Amusement Tax (“Amusement Tax”) Ordinance and nonpossessory computer …

The 2021 pandemic environment is showing trends toward evasive debtors trying to protect their wealth by moving assets fluidly around the world as creditors evaluate the value of assets and the ability to recover claims and debts.

With the economy on troubling grounds, there is a greater desire to protect assets. But, there is a difference between hiding and protecting assets. Hiding assets is a form of protection, but done for illicit purposes to keep away from current creditors.

The economic upheaval caused by the pandemic has forced persons to focus on asset preservation. The desire to protect wealth and business assets in a well-run, regulated and safe jurisdiction has led to a marked increase in business for the financial sector in places such …

On November 16, 2020, the City Council for the City of Chicago (“City Council”) amended the Chicago Personal Property Lease Transaction Tax Ordinance (“Ordinance”), eliminating the lower rate of tax on a nonpossessory lease of a computer, which includes “cloud” software products.

With the holidays upon us, it seems like a good time to take a pleasant stroll through the cloud computing and digital product SALT developments you and your clients should be aware of. We returned to the “classic” format for this edition, organizing the stories …

Welcome to the third edition of Cover Your SaaS. Following a brief mid-summer hiatus from which the authors returned pale as ever, we dive once more into the cloud computing and digital product SALT developments you and your clients should be aware of. This is …

Welcome to the second edition of Cover Your SaaS, your new favorite(ish) semi-regular publication from HMB Legal Counsel’s State & Local Tax team. Far from accepting a sophomore slump, this edition boldly delves into SALT developments in the digital products sphere, the importance of separately …

Welcome to the first edition of Cover Your SaaS, a new semi-regular publication from HMB Legal Counsel’s State & Local Tax team. Using the latest in news-scanning technology, i.e., the daily emails that land in our inbox, our goal is to keep you updated on …

The first step in implementing your estate planning is to prepare lists of personal and financial information.  These should include lists of assets, estate planning documents, personal information, important people and personal directives.  Once gathered and organized, keep the information up-to-date and stored in a …

As you undoubtedly know by now, on January 1, 2020, Illinois became the 11th state to legalize the possession and use of adult-use cannabis. The new law, the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, 410 ILCS 705, et seq., (the “CRTA”) – all 610 pages of …