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CONTENTS Highlights of This Issue Conferences Webinars India's New Social Media Regulations The BVI; The Perfect Home for a Cryptocurrency Fund Anonymity... Reality or Fiction? Spymaster's Prism How to Carve Out Me-Time In Other News News & Notes
FROM THE PRESIDENT Highlights of This Issue Mark E. Ruddy
vol. 2, issue 1 - MARCH, 2021
This is a time of year that we are all seeing a change in seasons. This change in seasons is hopefully coming with positive changes. While life continues to be challenging, vaccines are being rolled out and COVID-19 restrictions are starting to lift in some areas of the world. I hope there is light at the end of the tunnel for all,. With so much of life being lived online, every industry is changing at an unprecedented pace. Some companies we always thought would be there are going to fall behind and disappear, and others will surge forward and take their place. In that vein, this edition of ABL Insights features an article on the new social media that parties will be facing in India. A surge in an interest in cryptocurrencies has also resulted from the pandemic. Inside you will find an article on cryptocurrency funds in the British Virgin Islands. Finally, we have articles on anonymization and how much personal tracking is actually done by your online footprint. ABL has adopted to the pandemic and made changes as well. We were able to develop and roll out an extremely effective webinar and virtual social platform. Many thanks for those of you that have contributed and participated. This newsletter offers links to recorded versions of the webinars in the event you previously missed them. I hope you enjoy this latest edition of ABL Insights. Stay safe, stay healthy and remember, we are all in this together!
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CONFERENCES
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ABL hosted a free webinar on the “Digital Asset Market”. Professor Patrick McCarty, Attorney at Ruddy Gregory PLLC, and Moderator Michael Brown, Partner at Brown, Gee & Wenger, LLP., shared their expert thoughts on US legislative and regulatory developments related to Bitcoin, Ether and the broader Digital Asset Market.
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The Digital Asset Market
Patrick McCarty has over 25 years of experience working on financial services issues in various regulatory agencies and political groups in Washington, DC, and New York, NY, including the US Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, where he was the Senior Professional Staff Member working on Dodd-Frank financial reform issues, as well as other issues concerning the derivatives industry. He has also held senior positions with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Managed Funds Association, the House Banking and Financial Services Committee, as well as four federal banking agencies and other private sector organizations. Mr. McCarty has spoken at many industry seminars and conferences. Mike Brown - Drawing on more than 35 years of law firm experience, Mike’s practice focuses on California business and real estate transactions and related entity formation and joint venture structuring. In addition, Mike has deep experience in all forms of dispute resolution. Mike takes a collaborative approach, viewing his role as a problem solver, strategic thinker and strong advocate for his clients and their interests. Mike serves as the firm’s Managing Partner, having served in that role in two larger law firms prior to founding Brown, Gee & Wenger LLP in 2011.
WEBINARS
WEBINAR RECORDING AVAILABLE | ABL hosted a free webinar on “How to Start an E-Commerce Business”. In this webinar panellists highlighted some of the most important legal aspects that companies shall take into account when starting an online business. Speakers included ABL lawyers from London (Neil Pfister, Druces LLP), Geneva (Blaise Krähenbühl, DGM Avocats) and San Francisco (Steve Lincoln, Brown Gee & Wenger LLP).
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India's New Social Media Regulations
Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram face a catch-22 situation as India’s new social media rules threaten encryption. Encryption is a safety blanket for many. It is the night light to keep nightmares away. But, that may no longer be the case with India’s new social media regulations. The Indian government thinks that it has found a loophole. It claims that it does not care about what messages are being passed around, but if an incident is found to have been instigated through social media, they want to know who started it all — they want to find the ‘first originator’. “We don’t want the content, because the content is already out there in the form of tweets or messages. But, who began the mischief? This, they [social media platforms] will have to disclose,” said the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Ravi Shankar Prasad, while announcing India’s new IT rules on February 26. The catch-22 here is, “Who came first, the chicken or the egg?” Without being able to peep at the content, how can one know who started a particular incident? And, how far back do you go to assign blame? Platforms like WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram — who run their business on promising users’ privacy with end-to-end encryption — are going to have a tough time dealing with such a regulation once it comes into play after three months, when the new regulations are set to be enforced. To break or not break encryption End-to-end encryption is a fairly simple concept. This means that no-one except for you and the person you are sending messages to, can peep into your conversations. The content is private and according to India’s Supreme Court, privacy is a fundamental right. However, if platforms like WhatsApp do not adhere to the new IT rules, they will be answerable to the Indian government. “Failure to do so will make these intermediaries liable for any illegal third-party information that is made available or hosted by them without their consent and may even lead to an end of their operations,” Neeraj Dubey, partner at Singh and Associates, told Business Insider. Assuming then the involvement of a seasoned Mediator, in today’s environment as well as well into tomorrow, the most effective and efficient dispute resolution will be achieved through virtual/remote Binding Mediation. By Read McCaffrey Read is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, Martindale-Hubble pre-eminent A/V rating and Senior Counsel to Rasco Klock Perez & Nieto w
Like the tech giant Apple told the Federal Bureau of Investigation ( FBI) back in 2016, if the encryption is strong enough, even the companies implementing it have no say in unlocking it. According to the Silicon Valley firm, creating a backdoor that voids encryption would unlock a whole new set of security threats for users. “We don't know how the government expects platforms to comply with this requirement without breaking encryption,” noted Mishi Choudhary, the legal director of the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC). “It will limit the choices of users who have now come to expect encrypted messaging services as an essential part of their communications habits.” In the past, when the government has asked WhatsApp to identify the origin of messages, the Facebook-owned messaging service has always turned down such requests citing end-to-end encryption. “You can only tell how many times a thing has been forwarded. You can’t go back and trace the source in that context. If you are doing that, then it means you are reading the content,” Tarun Pathak, associate director with global analysis firm Counterpoint Research, told Business Insider. Even if a platform like WhatsApp were to break encryption in order to adhere with the government guidelines, it would be violating its own rules and regulations. “For an intermediary to collect the content of the messages, which it would need to trace the first originator of information, this would mean breaking encryption and storing the content of messages on servers, which would constitute violation of privacy guidelines,” explained Dubey. Social media may not be entirely doomed According to Induslaw’s Avimukt Dar, the underlying intent of the law is not to break encryption. “In the event the identity of the person sending the message is already visible to the messaging platform under its data harvesting protocols then it can be shared on lawful request without breaking double encryption,” he told Business Insider. WhatsApp offers users the option to back up their chats and messages onto the cloud — a change the company brought in three years ago. “Once the chats are backed up on a cloud storage platform, they are no longer protected by end-to-end encryption and can be accessed by Intermediary or any other third party,” said Dubey. Moreover, in the past, the Indian government has suggested alternative means of tracing messages like digital fingerprints or embed a user’s information within the messages themselves. Not that WhatsApp has complied because until now, intermediary platforms — like Whatsapp, Telegram, and Signal — have benefitted from the safe harbour protection available to them. “However, the safe harbour rules are also subject to compliance with the IT Act and the rules framed by the government,” explained Tanu Banerjee, a partner at legal consultancy firm Khaitan & Co.
subject to compliance with the IT Act and the rules framed by the government,” explained Tanu Banerjee, a partner at legal consultancy firm Khaitan & Co. Terms and conditions apply The government has mandated that finding the ‘first originator’ will only be in cases where the penalty is greater than five years. This includes instances where there may be a threat to India’s national sovereignty, security of state, public order, and other scenarios laid out under Section 69 of the IT act. This also implies that there has to be a valid court order in order to ask for the ‘first originator’. “The rules clarify that such an order should not be passed if less intrusive means are effective in identifying the originator,” explained Banerjee. Encryption is a hurdle that these companies will have to address on their own. For users, the bigger question is around freedom of speech. Section 69 of the IT Act is not very clear with respect to what constitutes a valid threat. What may be right for me, may not be right for you. “It is something that is needed but it should be executed in a way that the framework is clear at least,” said Pathak. Within the new rules, India has not specified who will be making the decision of whether or not the line has been crossed. With a wiggle of three months, it is possible that the guidelines can be tweaked to find a balance between what companies like WhatsApp are capable of, what users want and what the government is hoping to achieve at the end of the day. By Neeraj Dubey Neeraj Dubey is a corporate lawyer with 16 years of legal experience encompassing vast gamut of business law, IP, employment and technology law. He has routinely counseled manufacturing and service industry companies on a vast range of compliances in all elements of commerce and business including contracts (negotiation, drafting and review), corporate governance, competition, labor & employment, health & safety, environment and taxation. Neeraj’s industry focus spreads across automobile, banking, insurance, chemicals, energy, food, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, IT, e-commerce, health care, real estate & infrastructure, start-ups and waste management. Over the years, Neeraj has advised clients on entry strategies in India including choosing appropriate legal structures and their registration and licensing, conducted and supervised legal audits and counseled on issues arising in due diligences. Email: Neeraj Dubey Website: www.singhassociates.in
THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS:
the perfect home for a cryptocurrency fund
As I type out this article, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has just exceeded US$60,000 (increasing from less than US$5,000 in only a year) and Ethereum (ETH) is fast approaching US$2,000 (having been available for just over US$100 over the same period). This level of performance is truly staggering in an otherwise dizzying global macro environment. Everyone now wants to talk about “crypto”, from elderly relatives looking at the low performance of their pension all the way through to the world’s most (in)famous billionaires making outlandish statements on social media. Of course, these are just two of the most well-known cryptocurrencies that now stretch to over 4,300 available on the market today and accessible through household named exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance and Kraken. The regulators around the world are frantically trying to keep up; there are so many new complexities to deal with that just are not properly addressed with the traditional methodology, leading to some often heavy-handed and quickly rushed new legislation trying to deal with this latest craze. Fortunately for the British Virgin Islands (the BVI), the Financial Services Commission (the FSC) has very much retained its composure and focus on the critical matters at hand. When we began looking at these structures in 2015, the initial view at Harneys was that whilst there were some intriguing nuances to investment funds focused on this space, it was simply another asset class and as long as we understood it (at a very high level), it should be treated no differently to any other esoteric assets like fine wine, antique cars or art collections, all of whom we had successfully dealt with in the past. Although we were willing to work on these vehicles, finding other service providers who felt similarly was initially very tricky and our concern grew that the FSC might feel the same. But when we sat down to talk them through the first proposed launch, the FSC demonstrated nothing but academic intrigue and a desire to understand the approach that would need to be taken to areas like anti-money laundering, custody and traditional banking to ensure that these vehicles are offered the same flexibility and oversight that all of the other regulated funds receive.
all of the other regulated funds receive. A large number of the initial crypto launches we did were relatively small and fairly simple; purely based around buying and holding Bitcoin. At the time, the crypto market was worth very little and incredibly hard for a normal consumer to access, so the opportunity to invest into a fund that were operated and controlled by true experts in this space proved incredibly appealing to investors who believed in the concept but had no idea how to take the next step. Because of the smaller size of the launches, the traditional path for offshore hedge funds to domicile themselves in the Cayman Islands still held some appeal, but a jurisdiction that offered all of the same advantages but at a lower price point was very attractive to emerging crypto managers and so the BVI became a very attractive proposition. This was further enhanced by the launch in the BVI of the Incubator Fund and Approved Fund products in 2015. Both of which became extremely popular almost at once, due to the high levels of flexibility and genuine cost reduction opportunities to ensure that any manager trying to get started would not be overwhelmed by a level of cost that simply swamped any possible level of performance. Both products strip away as much of the complexity as possible, but still meet all of the requisite international standards, including FATCA and CRS. They are incredibly quick to launch which in the hugely volatile crypto market can be a critical factor in ensuring that the launch of a fund is successful immediately. Whilst the crypto winter of 2018 was a tough time for most managers in this industry, those that had minimised their costs and regulatory obligations were better equipped to steer calmly through that storm and have come out the other side in 2020 and 2021 stronger than ever. Once a fund gets to a certain size, it can very efficiently be upgraded to another type of fund to acknowledge its successful track record, and ensure the vehicle is very much ready for the institutional level of investors that are now looking very carefully at this sector. For those that are fascinated by DeFi, we are seeing a large number of private equity/venture capital style launches in this space, including those now looking at NFTs as well. These vehicles also cater very well to high frequency traders, looking to take advantage of the discrepancies and price changes between the exchanges and with so much concern about the wild price changes, we are seeing more and more market neutral strategies that seek to provide investors with a much smoother rollercoaster ride. Whatever it is, the BVI has a fund vehicle ready to provide the perfect platform for a successful launch and a regulator that only wants to embrace the space. That truly is a powerful combination. Article by Philip Graham, Partner and Global Head of the Investment Funds and Regulatory Team at Harneys
There are only two options if we, in the information age, claim that we are anonymous. Either we are living somewhere as a hermit completely cut off from the rest of the electronic world or we are blissfully unaware what are we talking about. We can only talk about different levels of privacy in that regard. The level of privacy is directly correlated to the amount of personal, business, and confidential information we are willing to put openly on the information highway. As professionals working with sensitive information daily, we do not have the luxury of ignorance and the option to not care. It is not our intention to scare you or convince you to leave all your electronic equipment at home. Our intention is to make you aware and to ignite a spark of doubt and even curiosity. Hern took 33 most installed apps on the average mobile phone and took the time to read all the corresponding terms of use. It took him 8 hours to do so. But the interesting part is that if we need the app, reading and disagreeing with the terms of use does not change anything. We still need to comply, hence in reality no one really reads those terms. (Hern, 2015) Valentino-DeVries and her colleagues explain in detail how you can obtain, through the process of deanonymization of the data collected just by Google, personal information that can be used to identify a person. In their article they show detailed maps of Lisa Margin’s whereabouts and travel routes. Seen in the figures below.
ANONYMITY ... REALITY OR FICTION?
Figure 1 - Tracing with Google Source: (Valentino-DeVries et al., 2018)
Figure 2 - Collected data in the period of four months Source: (Valentino-DeVries et al., 2018)
Valentino-DeVries shows that there are at least 75 companies that do obtain precise geolocations from Google. Just in the USA they follow 200 million devices every day. In some cases, the data for a single device were collected more than 14,000 times per day. This data is supposedly used for targeted advertisement. (Valentino-DeVries et al., 2018) As investigators we know from experience that there is much room for abuse and exploitation. We see it every day. Awareness of the problem gives us even more questions. Is this specific to Android devices? How deep does it go? Does that have an impact on the quality of my life? Why should I care? What can I do about it? There are no simple answers and solutions. To take a deeper look into the problem we can study Schmidt’s experiment. He divided the data collection to active and passive. Active is when the user knows he is sending data (when he logs on to Gmail, YouTube etc.). The passive collection of data is more problematic since it happens behind the user’s back and without his knowledge. For data collection Google uses its two most used platforms – Android and Chrome. But the interesting thing was that even on iOS devices, when Schmidt tried to avoid Google platforms like Gmail, Chrome, the collected data by Google was still enormous, almost equivalent. The research showed that this was due to Google’s advertising platforms like Google Analytics, DoubleClick and AdWords. (C. Schmidt, 2018) The experiment was designed so that Schmidt used four devices. Two Android devices and two iOS devices. The experiment lasted for 24 hours. One Android and one iOS device were used as a regular, average device would have been used during that period and the other two devices were left in sleep mode for the same period. The sleeping Android device collected about 11.6 MB of raw data and the iOS device around half of that. The study showed that Google has the capability to turn the data marked as “user anonymous” to actual users – to deanonymize the data. (C. Schmidt, 2018)
Figure 3 - Average day from an average user Source: (C. Schmidt, 2018)
In the next two figures Schmidt shows how much data was collected on all four devices. On the sleeping devices Google requested data from the device 40.2 times per hour and 0.73 times per hour from an iOS device. Apple requested data 4.2 times per hour. On an active device Google requested location data from an Android device 90.3 times per hour and 50.6 times from an iOS device. Apple requested data 17.9 times per hour. The numbers are shown on the figures below. (C. Schmidt, 2018)
This article is provided by Bernarda Škrabar, CEO of the Detective and Security Agency Ltd. (Detektivsko varnostna agencija, d. o. o.). The Detective Agency is recognised both in Slovenia and abroad, since the team takes part in international investigations, surveillances, and the development of investigation activities on a global level. For more information: http://www.detektiv-dva.si
There are a lot of ways that Google collects data even from devices that have their location services turned off. iOS is not immune to Google’s data accumulation. So just turning the location services off is not a good enough solution. We covered only the collection of localization data. But we all know there is a lot more data on our mobile devices. So how do we protect our data? The solution is awareness. But in a competitive business environment where we use sensitive information, awareness is not enough. The solution is the use of modified phones that are especially created for anonymization purposes and can be used for secure and encrypted communication. Since every user is unique and has unique requirements, the solution must be tailor-made to users’ needs. We were able to develop such phones in a way that ensures security and safe communication. Such phones are an essential tool for secure business communication.
CII Member and legendary former spymaster Jack Devine has published his second book, Spymaster’s Prism. In Spymaster’s Prism the legendary former spymaster Jack Devine details the unending struggle with Russia and its intelligence agencies as it works against our national security. Devine tells this story through the unique perspective of a seasoned CIA professional who served more than three decades, some at the highest levels of the agency. He uses his gimlet-eyed view to walk us through the fascinating spy cases and covert action activities of Russia, not only through the Cold War past but up to and including its interference in the Trump era. Devine also looks over the horizon to see what lies ahead in this struggle and provides prescriptions for the future.
Based on personal experience and exhaustive research, Devine builds a vivid and complex mosaic that illustrates how Russia’s intelligence activities have continued uninterrupted throughout modern history, using fundamentally identical policies and techniques to undermine our democracy. He shows in stark terms how intelligence has been modernized and weaponized through the power of the cyber world. Devine presents his analysis using clear-eyed vision and a repertoire of better-than-fiction spy stories, giving us an objective, riveting, and candid take on U.S.-Russia relations. He offers key lessons from our intelligence successes and failures over the past seventy-five years that will help us determine how to address our current strategic shortfall, emerge ahead of the Russians, and be prepared for what’s to come from any adversary. "My goal in writing Spymaster’s Prism was to offer my perspective on Russia’s decades of unceasing attempts to subvert our democracy and how to devise strategies to counter these assaults. Americans are facing a high level of internal division, and as we strive to address what divides us, it is critical that we not lose sight of the need to defend our democracy from nefarious external actors, including Russia.", says Jack. Spymaster’s Prism can be ordered at Potomac Books and Amazon.
When you’re working overtime, it can feel like all you do is work, eat, sleep, work, eat, sleep, and work, eat, sleep some more. And the seemingly unceasing flow of work can make you feel fatigued, resentful, and burnt out. Even in the midst of working overtime it’s essential that you find time for yourself. This is because, if you don’t take time for yourself intentionally, you will take time for yourself unintentionally. Typically the less conscious “me time” such as mindlessly scrolling through social media in the afternoon or watching YouTube videos until the wee hours of the night consumes quite a few hours each week but doesn’t actually satisfy our desires for downtime. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re working excessive hours (but also want precious time for yourself)—here are a few strategies that can help you. SET WORK-FREE TIMES When you’re working overtime, you likely do need to put in some hours on evenings and weekends. But if you never define what those hours are—and what they are not—you’ll have a vague sense that you “should” be working all the time. That feeling is exceptionally draining. To avoid the “always on” feeling, set some work-free hours. Maybe that looks like a break from 6 to 8 p.m. to exercise and eat dinner and then work-free time after 10 p.m. Maybe that looks like designating Saturday morning as working hours but then taking yourself off-the-clock on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Maybe that looks like not logging into your computer or checking your work phone until 8 a.m., even if you get up much earlier. Whatever it is, have some time every day, as well as longer stretches each week, when you feel like you’re truly “off.”
HOW TO CARVE OUT "me time' WHeN WORK NEVER SEEMS TO END
With meetings moving to a virtual format, now is the perfect time to brush up on your video conference skills. Here are some quick tips that will help you look your best on Zoom, when presenting on a panel or attending a virtual meeting.
Not only will this reduce your feelings of guilt, but it will also help you to really focus on finishing up work because you know you have a true break waiting for you. DEFINE HEALTH MUST-HAVES As a general rule, it’s good to have a general sense of the basic wellness activities you need to be healthy and to prioritize those activities, even when you’re working overtime. This may look like getting seven hours of sleep a night or drinking enough water or taking 5- to 10-minute breaks during work hours to walk around or stretch and give your brain and body a break. Yes, these activities take time. But they keep you from falling into burnout, and they make you much more productive. When you take care of your body, your mind is sharper, you can get things done more quickly, and you’re less likely to succumb to the urge to escape into a social media rabbit hole. GIVE YOURSELF WHAT YOU REALLY WANT Everyone has certain activities that really make them happy, which they find really satisfying, refreshing, and enjoyable. Maybe it’s going on a run, connecting with friends, reading, practicing an instrument, cooking, playing with your kids, or bingeing a TV series. Everyone is a little different. But we all have our “happy activities.” Whatever those are, try to make time for at least one of them on a daily basis. It could look like taking just 15 minutes to read a book before bed, go on a walk at lunch, or text a friend in the evening. And on a less busy day or on the weekends, you can potentially invest hours in these activities. You don’t need to have long stretches of time to do activities you find satisfying. But when you make time for what you truly enjoy, it gives you back energy and enthusiasm for the rest of your life and work. Working overtime doesn’t need to mean working all the time. When you’re clear on when you’re “off duty” and you make time for what you need to feel healthy and happy, you can still have extra time for yourself, even in the midst of a lot of work. Source: Fastcompany.com Author: Elizabeth Grace Sounders
"" If you’re not proactively making time for yourself, your overworked body and mind might make it for you.""
in other news
The Biden administration has made good on threats of new sanctions on Russia over the poisoning and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, designating seven individual Russian officials and more than 12 government entities. The sanctions announced thus far were designed to work in coordination with EU sanctions, and the Biden administration is also planning new sanctions related to Russian hacking of U.S. government entities and private sector companies. Separately, the U.S. announced a $125 million military aid package for Ukraine, which will include two patrol boats for the defense of its territorial waters, radar equipment, satellite imagery and analysis, and military training. Another $150 million is congressionally approved for military aid to Kyiv for 2021, conditional upon demonstrable progress on military reforms, including improved transparency in procurement. U.S. actions thus far this year address two of the major flashpoints in the U.S.-Russia relationship – cyberattacks on the U.S. and military aggression in Ukraine.
"In Other News" is provided by Jack Devine, former chief of worldwide operations for the Central Intelligence Agency and co-founder of The Arkin Group, a New York based international risk consulting and intelligence firm. More information on The Arkin Group may be found at https://thearkingroup.com
Joe Biden’s virtual bilateral meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) marked a pivot on U.S. immigration policy, with Biden signaling a desire to return to full cross-border trade relations and openness to expanding pathways to legal immigration. However, despite Biden’s intention to reverse a number of the previous administration’s immigration policies, he has left in place a Trump-era policy that authorizes immigration enforcement agents to immediately deport persons found to have crossed the border illegally back to Mexico before providing them with a chance to request asylum, likely to prevent a flood of new entrants large enough to trigger a border crisis. In the days leading up to the meeting, AMLO expressed support for large increases in the number of work visas available to migrants from Mexico and Central America more broadly, though no concrete agreements were reached on that issue. AMLO has been largely pragmatic in his dealings with the U.S. and will need to work with the new administration to tackle the pandemic, which has killed nearly 190,000 people in Mexico so far, to accelerate economic recovery following a staggering 8% GDP contraction last year.
Vincenzo Piccarreta of our Milan office Franzosi Dal Negro Setti has been listed as Recommended Attorney in IP Litigation by Global Law Experts, the premier guide to leading attorneys thoughout the world. Druces LLP (London) welcomes Rabah Saadeddine, who strengthens its Capital Markets Team. Antony Cotton has been promoted to become Head of Banking & Financial Services. Druces has been added to the Chambers & Partners Directory of London law firms in the field of "Private Wealth" law. Harneys (BVI) welcomes Henry Mander as the new global head of Trusts and Private Client. The firm acted as BVI counsel to Equatorial Palm Oil plc (EPO) on its £15.84 million acquisition of Capital Metals Limited (CML) by way of a reverse takeover under AIM Rule 14. Singh & Associates' (New Delhi) Founding Partner Manoj K Singh has been conferred Distinguished Leading Lawyer by Legal Era- Legal Media Group in its coffee table book 2019-20. The firm has also received the "Dispute Resolution Law Firm of The Year" Award and has been recognized for its expertise across several practice areas in the Legal500 ranking 2021. Mona Bhide, ABL Director and Managing Partner of Dave & Girish & C° (Mumbai), has been named in IFLR1000 Women Leaders 2020 as one of India's leading female transactional lawyers. R.Amaral Advogados (Fortaleza) is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Congratulations and keep up the good work! The Legal 500 has recognised Claudia D. Riedel of DDSA Law (São Paulo) as Recommended Tax Lawyer 2021. Two other firm partners, João Claudio de Luca and Guilherme Filardi, have been named as 'highly regarded leading lawyers' by IFLR, one of the most important reference publications for law firms focused on corporate and M&A law. Ana Luisa Derenusson was recognised by Best Lawyers for Aviation Law.
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