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On June 8 2018, the Act to Partially Amend the Consumer Contract Act (Amendment) was published by the Japanese Diet and is scheduled to come into force on June 15 2019. The Consumer Contract Act is intended to protect the interests of consumers, and address circumstances of disparity in the quantity and quality of information and bargaining power between consumers and business operators. The Amendment, among other things, sets forth the circumstances where a contract may be unilaterally cancelled or where unreasonable clauses may be considered invalid.

On July 6 2018, the 196th ordinary session of the Diet passed the Work Style Reform Act (Act) into law. The Act, which amends the Labour Standards Act (LSA) and other laws and regulations concerning working hours and annual paid leave, is intended to ensure that employees do not work long hours and enjoy a diverse work-life balance that suits their individual circumstances.

Over the past decade, the real estate market in Colombia has grown tremendously and new horizons have opened for investors, including in the urban renovation and real estate project segments, renewable energy, and public private partnerships (PPPs) generally.

The Irish legislature is considering draft legislation which would regulate purchasers of non-performing loans (NPLs). The draft legislation is at an advanced stage in the parliamentary process. While credit servicers are regulated in Ireland, credit owners (in the main, entities that have purchased loans and loan portfolios from banks looking to reduce their exposure to NPLs) are not. However, the regulation of owners of credit would be a substantial extension of the regime. Furthermore, it would run contrary to EU policy in this area which proposes to regulate credit servicers (as is the existing position in Ireland) but deliberately stops short of regulating loan owners because such an extension is neither necessary nor desirable.

Occupational accidents can occur for many reasons. They can arise because of short-term inattention, lack of caution or even inconsistency. It is important to take the strongest possible measures to minimise the risk of occupational accidents. Legal regulations governing the duties of employers in the field of health and safety at work state directly that sometimes it is not possible to fully eliminate the risk of occupational accidents. However, it is important to take all possible steps to limit them and to prepare measures to eliminate them.

In just a matter of minutes, anyone can use the internet to download or stream copyrighted content for free. Unfortunately, most of that content is posted and distributed without the consent of the author – the exclusive holder of the rights to the work. In other words, it is illegal. The practice of accessing copyright-protected work in just a few minutes, without paying for it, is very widespread.

As is well known, anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer rules (KYC) are obligations of service providers like banks and other financial institutions. Their aim is to facilitate investigations into the real identity of customers and the purpose and source of their transactions, so that the services provided to customers will not be used for money laundering, financing of terrorism, tax evasion, or other illegal activities. As transactions involving cryptocurrencies are by nature global yet anonymous, there is thus much room for misuse, so we cannot emphasise enough the importance of AML/KYC in the crypto space.

A law providing for the regulation and supervision of payment systems has been proposed and is now pending before the Philippine senate for transmission to the president for final approval (the House of Representatives adopted the Senate version of the bill as an amendment to the House version and this was transmitted to the Senate on October 3 2018). If the proposed law is passed in its existing form, it will grant the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) supervisory and regulatory authority over payment systems in the Philippines. The proposed law mandates the registration of payment system operators and limits those allowed to operate payment systems to persons and entities that obtain advance approval from the BSP.

Offshore activities in Macau are ruled by Decree-Law 58/99/M (the offshore regime). Under this Law, such activities are categorised into financial and non-financial offshore operations, under the supervision of the Monetary Authority of Macau (AMCM) and the Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM), respectively.

On November 15 2018, the Chief Executive of the Macau Special Administrative Region announced the 2019 policy address at the Legislative Council with a headline of 'Seize opportunities for balanced development'. Some highlights of the tax relief measures mentioned are as follows: