Newsletter Momentum ENG

PUBLICAÇÕES SÉRVULO 07 Set 2017

Mark Twain once said “History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” That could be taken as the motto for this new edition of SÉRVULO’s newsletter, that is dedicated to picture some of the recent manifestations of evolution in core areas of law. In many cases, legal developments occur in cycles and often new legal interventions are indeed inspired by recycled ideas from the past.  

As a starting point of this newsletter, Alexandra Valpaços presents an important overview of the expedited arbitration according to ICC rules. This is followed by an article from Sofia Thibaut on the prohibition on the issuance of bearer securities, and the amendments of the Securities Code and the Commercial Companies Code. Both articles address topics with longstanding debate in the past. Miguel Gorjão-Henriques and Alberto Saavedra, from our EU and Competition department, discuss mortgage floors on their article and the position of ECJ as "the guardian of the EU Law". Teresa Pala Schwalbach, from our tax department chose to examine the latest controversy surrounding the qualification, for the purposes of the Municipal Property Tax of wind farms. The last article, written by Miguel Santos Almeida from the Corporate Crime and Regulatory Compliance department, is about the revision of the legal framework for sanctions concerning criminal and administrative infractions in the financial sector, a very hot topic in the aftermath of the most recent banking failures. Here again, a new law can be understood as a “rhyme” of other similar criminal law reforms in the past. Like Winston Churchill used to write “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”