Trump Administration Targets Canadian and other Foreign Companies Involved in Cuba

Canadian companies with interests in Cuba should take note of our recent eUpdate, Trump Administration Allows Lawsuits Against Persons Who Have Used Assets Confiscated by the Cuban Government, Imposes More Sanctions on Venezuela and Nicaragua, regarding new potential exposure to litigation in the United States. On April 17, 2019, the Trump Administration announced that U.S....

US-Mexico-Canada Agreement Faces Uncertain Path Through U.S. Congress

The governments of the United States, Mexico, and Canada signed a trade agreement (“USMCA”) in November 2018, which would replace the existing North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”). The Trump administration has begun seeking support in the U.S. Congress for USMCA. The path for the agreement, however, remains uncertain, with criticisms leveled against USMCA from...

A WARN Act Warning

Under U.S. law, large employers have an obligation to notify their employees at least 60 days before a “plant closing” or “mass layoff.” This requirement can have serious implications for Canadian companies engaged in M&A deals with U.S. companies. The U.S. Federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN Act”) requires employers with 100 or...

What Cross-listed Canadian Companies Need to Know About the Impact of the U.S. Government Shutdown on SEC Operations

As a result of the partial U.S. government shutdown that began on December 22, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), one of nine federal agencies affected, recently published its Operations Plan Under a Lapse in Appropriations and Government Shutdown (sec.gov/files/sec-plan-of-operations-during-lapse-in-appropriations-2018.pdf), which went into effect on December 27, 2018. The Operations Plan offers important...

Canada-U.S. Trade in Marijuana-Related Products is Fraught with Peril

Now that Canada allows using and producing marijuana and marijuana-related products, and bordering U.S. states like Washington, Maine, and Michigan have similarly relaxed marijuana-related laws, it seems natural that industries on both sides of the border will look for cross-border business opportunities. But cross-border transactions between the Canadian and U.S. marijuana industries face a potentially insurmountable...

Clarifying “Muddy Waters:” EPA and Army Corps Propose Revisions to the Scope of CWA Jurisdiction

Canadian companies interested in cross-border natural resource projects should be aware of a regulatory development in the United States that significantly revises the jurisdictional scope of the Clean Water Act. On December 11, 2018, two federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, proposed a new rule dramatically altering federal...

Reviewing Compensation Arrangements for Employees Subject to U.S. Income Tax Before Year-End Could Avoid Costly Tax Penalties

We have written about this in the past [here], but the message bears repeating each year. It is easy to overlook that employment agreements, change-in-control agreements, and severance agreements with U.S. taxpayers frequently contain provisions that subject them to U.S. Internal Revenue Code Section 409A (“Section 409A”), and failure to comply can result in onerous tax...

The SEC Adopts New Rules Regarding Mining Disclosure

On October 31, 2018, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced that it adopted rules to modernize mining property disclosure in order to harmonize SEC disclosure requirements with international standards. The SEC had proposed rules in June 2016 which received numerous comments and as a result a number of changes were made...