On 3 March 2011, the UK’s Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, announced that he intended to approve the acquisition by News Corporation ("NewsCorp") of British Sky Broadcasting Group plc ("Sky").

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) published on 27th March 2012 a consultation paper with proposals to amend certain income tax rules affecting interest payments.

On January 21, 2010, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (the "DOJ") announced that it had brought suit against pork processors Smithfield Foods, Inc. ("Smithfield") and Premium Standard Farms, LLC ("PSF") alleging that the parties‟ conduct during the statutory pre-merger waiting period violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the "HSR Act").

On July 26, 2011, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") adopted new Rule 13h-1 ("Rule") and Form 13H under Section 13(h) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act").

In our recent memorandum, “Supreme Court Establishes Standard for Reviewing ‘Strong Inference’ of Scienter in Securities Fraud Cases,” we discussed the Supreme Court’s decision in Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., which held that a securities fraud complaint may survive a motion to dismiss “only if a reasonable person would deem the inference of scienter [the required state of mind] cogent and at least as compelling as any opposing inference one could draw from the facts alleged.”

Earlier this week, the “Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2009” (the “bill”) was introduced in the Senate and the House.

On November 17, 2010, the Federal Reserve Board (the "Fed") proposed a rule (the "Proposed Rule") regarding the conformance period applicable to certain restrictions on a banking entity’s proprietary trading and relationships with hedge and private equity funds (commonly known as the "Volcker Rule") contained in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act ("Dodd-Frank").

On March 2 the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") announced a proposed rule (the "Proposed Rule") that would require "covered financial institutions.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the "CFTC") is proposing rules to implement new statutory provisions enacted by the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the "Dodd-Frank Act"), as well as soliciting comments in connection with the implementation of other provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act.

The SEC recently adopted amendments to the Investment Advisers Act custody rule that are intended to provide advisory clients with additional protections when a registered investment adviser has access to client assets.

The full details of the UK’s new Double Tax Treaty Passport Scheme ("Scheme") have now been announced by HM Revenue & Customs ("HMRC"

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) was signed into law on February 17, 2009, with the primary purpose of stimulating the American economy.

A discussion on a recent decision which arose out of the losses to landlords and tenants from Superstorm Sandy, where the Civil Court of New York County found that a retail tenant of a lower Manhattan property was not entitled to a rent abatement from its landlord based on the tenant's loss of electricity following the storm.

The European Union and Switzerland recently signed the first "second generation" antitrust cooperation agreement.

In June 2010, the Takeover Panel [the "Panel"] published a consultation document inviting comments on potentially far-reaching changes to the takeover regime.

On September 30, 2011, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice ("the DOJ") announced a settlement with Morgan Stanley ("MS") that requires MS to disgorge $4.8 million in profits resulting from a 2006 derivative agreement with KeySpan Corporation ("KeySpan").

The FTC has informally sanctioned a process that permits an acquiring person to voluntarily withdraw a pending HSR filing and resubmit it within two business days without paying an additional HSR filing fee.

Earlier this week, in a highly anticipated decision, the Supreme Court in American Needle v. National Football League unanimously held that the National Football League’s licensing activities pertaining to teams’ intellectual property should not receive single entity treatment and are therefore within the reach of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

In early February 2010, the highly-influential proxy advisory firm RiskMetrics Group ("RMG") announced it would no longer evaluate companies based upon its Corporate Governance Quotient ("CGQ"), but would instead use a new yardstick, called Governance Risk Indicators ("GRId").

The SEC recently approved a proposed change to Nasdaq’s rules regarding continued listing and compliance requirements.