Top 10 Headlines from All Regions On December 23, 2008, President Bush signed the Worker, Retiree,and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (H.R. 7327) (the "WRERAct"), which provides that owners and beneficiaries ofIRAs and other defined contribution plans who are required to takerequired minimum distributions ("RMDs") from their plans in tax year 2009, will generally be able to leave their money in their plans (hopefully to grow) without suffering anypenalty for failure to withdraw. The normal rules still apply for 2008. More than ever telecommunications are central to our lives and work. Economic and social activities have come to rely on telecoms services and infrastructure, with internet access, mobile phones and TV services used every day by millions. California Superior Court's decision last month in the Apple litigation should be considered by any water's-edge California franchise taxpayer that has received a foreign dividend. The inclusion, following the Group of Twenty ("G20") summit in London in April 2009, of the Channel Island financial centres of both Jersey and Guernsey on the "white list" of jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed standard for the exchange of tax information is an acknowledgement that Jersey and Guernsey are cooperative, responsible and well regulated, low tax international financial centres meeting the highest standards of transparency and regulation. The latest version of the Digital Economy Bill has been published, incorporating recent amendments agreed in the House of Lords. Do you think an employer could be liable if one of its employees, while driving and using a cell phone, causes an accident and injures another party? For the past two years, the worldwide business press has been full of stories about potentially thousands of U.S. taxpayers who may have undeclared accounts in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and other foreign countries. In our earlier article "Whose E-mail Is It Anyway," we discussed whether the Fourth Amendment and/or the attorney-client privilege protects an employee’s personal documents and e-mails stored on a company computer or sent through a company’s network. Many employers already know that it is unlawful to spy on employees who are engaged in union organizing activity. On December 9, 2009, Bill 168, the Ontario government’s detailed proposal to amend the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) to require worker protection from violence and harassment, and establish new specific worker rights relating to violence, received third reading. | 
