The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) announced that all its six member states will simultaneously introduce a law to implement value-added tax (VAT) in 2018. The six include: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Netherlands has introduced two pieces of draft legislation that will impact registration of beneficial owners and of shareholders/other stakeholders in privately held entities.

While the world has experienced a massive wave of globalisation in recent decades, challenges still have to be dealt with. One of the most mundane is that while English is the lingua franca of the international business community, local laws and regulations still require compliance matters to be filed in the official language of each foreign country where subsidiaries or branches are based.

India recently advanced legislation to amend its existing Companies Act of 2013. The legislation has been passed by the Indian parliament’s House of the People and is expected to be approved by its Council of States soon.