TheCorporateCounsel.net

April 21, 2015

Foreign Subsidiary Sleeper? Commerce Department’s Upcoming Survey Deadline

Ever since I dealt with this in our “Q&A Forum” a few months ago (#8333), I’ve been meaning to blog about it. This is a sleeper for those with foreign subsidiaries because it’s an action item for you with an upcoming deadline. As noted in these memos posted in our “Foreign Subsidiaries” Practice Area, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (known as the “BEA”) has a deadline of the end of May (or the end of June if you have more than 50 foreign subs) for a survey about your company’s direct investment abroad. This survey is in the form of the “Form BE-10.” The last survey was conducted five years ago – and the BEA gave guidance on this new survey in this rulemaking last November.

Note that the BEA requires all entities subject to the reporting requirements to file responses, regardless of whether they are individually contacted by the BEA. Given that the scope of this survey has been expanded to cover many industries & companies that didn’t previously report, you should evaluate whether you are now required to submit a Form BE-10, even if you haven’t in the past…

US Sentencing Commission Approves Changes to Guidelines

A few weeks ago, the US Sentencing Commission approved changes to its sentencing guidelines. As noted in this memo, the major changes are:

– Revise the definition of “intended loss” at §2B1.1, comment (n.3(A)(ii)) to mean the pecuniary harm “that the defendant purposely sought to inflict”
– Revise the victims table at §2B1.1(b)(2) to incorporate “substantial financial hardship” as a sentencing enhancement factor
– Revise the meaning of the specific offense characteristic for “sophisticated means” contained in §2B1.1(b)(10)(C) to apply to the defendant’s individual conduct, rather than the overall scheme
– Revise Application Note 3(F)(ix), which sets forth a method for calculating loss in cases involving securities fraud; the revised guidelines provide that the formula set forth in the note is no longer a rebuttable presumption in calculating loss and allows the court to use any method that is appropriate and practicable under the circumstances, including the formula

More on “Subway Marketing to the SEC Continues”

Folks were loving the pic on my blog Friday regarding the poster ads in the subway station near the SEC’s HQ – and a member sent in three more (below and at the bottom of this list):

Washington-20150410-00439

Washington-20150410-00440

Washington-20150410-00438

– Broc Romanek