Please find attached the eighth edition of Mayer Brown’s “Global International Arbitration Update”, a bi-annual publication that summarises key events in international arbitration from the preceding six months.

On January 25, 2019, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”) issued an order clarifying its position with regard to bankruptcy filings that seek to reject Commission-jurisdictional wholesale power purchase agreements. This Legal Update provides details.

The agreement to end the partial government shutdown means that the operations of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) have resumed.

On December 27, 2018 the Ordinance No. 574 ("Ordinance 574") by the former Ministry of Transport, Ports and Civil Aviation (“MTPA”), which is currently part of the Ministry of Infrastructure, was published and established rules to the decentralization of activities related to the management of organized ports, delegating duties to the respective port administration.

On January 25, 2019, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that the agency would reinstate premium processing for H-1B petitions filed last April under the FY 2019 annual quota (the “cap”), including those eligible for the advanced degree exemption (i.e., holders of US master’s degrees or higher).

The Paris Employment team would like to draw your attention to some interesting developments regarding the application of the capped damages scale applied to unfair dismissals.

Nick looks at three recent cases. The first is a Supreme Court decision on how to establish if someone has been treated disadvantageously for the purposes of s15 of the Equality Act 2010. It is not as easy as it looks. Secondly we have an update on the Uber case, and then a reminder of the rules about privacy in the public Employment Tribunal Register.

Lawyers in Mayer Brown’s dedicated Africa practice group have worked on deals in more than 20 countries throughout the continent. They offer practical experience, technical skills and commercial knowledge of the various African markets to its clients and understand the challenges and rewards that exist for clients doing business in Africa.

After months of speculation, it is now official: PG&E (both the parent, PG&E Corporation, and its subsidiary, Pacific Gas & Electric Company), having faced extraordinary challenges relating to catastrophic wildfires in 2017 and 2018, expects to file for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code on or about January 29, 2019.

Regulation (EU) 2019/5, which was published a few days ago in the Official Journal of the European Union, amends the EU pharmaceutical legal framework in several ways.

Today the European Commission (the "EU Commission") authorized the free flow of personal data to Japan. This Legal Update discusses this "adequacy decision," which was issued jointly with a mirroring decision by the Japanese government and allows personal data to transfer between the European Union (the "EU") and Japan freely and under strong guarantees of protection.

Bylined article by Insurance Regulatory partner Lawrence Hamilton (Chicago) and associate Sanjiv Tata (New York), Intellectual Property & IT partner Oliver Yaros (London), Cybersecurity & Data Privacy partner Charles-Albert Helleputte (Brussels), counsel Kendall Burman (Washington DC) and associate Diletta De Cicco (Brussels) and Litigation & Dispute Resolution counsel Evan Wooten (Los Angeles).

On 8 January 2019, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), formerly the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) of the People's Republic of China (PRC") published the draft new Regulation on the Environmental Risk Assessment and Control of Chemical Substances (Consultative Draft) (the draft "New Regulation") for public comments until 20 February 2019.

On December 13, 2018, the US Internal Revenue Service released an initial set of proposed regulations addressing a number of open issues under the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) rules.