Month: August 2026

On August 14, 2026, after a seven-day trial, the US District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the Federal Trade Commission a permanent injunction blocking Henkel AG & Co. KGaA’s proposed $725 million acquisition of the Liquid Nails brand from private-equity firm American Industrial Partners.

The FTC had challenged the transaction in December 2025, alleging that combining Loctite — the industry-leading construction adhesive brand owned by Henkel — with its closest competitor, Liquid Nails, would eliminate head-to-head rivalry in the US construction-adhesives market, leading to higher prices, lower quality, and reduced innovation to the detriment of American consumers.

Beyond the substantive antitrust holding, the decision marks the FTC’s new procedural approach of seeking permanent injunctions in federal court to block anticompetitive mergers outright, rather than continuing to full administrative proceedings before the Commission.

The ruling reinforces the current merger-enforcement posture in horizontal deals involving branded consumer and construction products, and is a useful precedent for advising on deal structure, remedy design, and litigation risk in transactions with meaningful US antitrust exposure.

Source: Federal Trade Commission

On August 14, 2026, the US Department of Justice announced a stipulated order under which Amazon.com, Inc. will pay a $2.25 million civil penalty and accept injunctive relief to resolve allegations that it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by failing to provide identity-theft victims, upon verified request, with records of business transactions allegedly resulting from the identity theft.

Section 609(e) of the FCRA requires business entities that provided credit to, or entered into transactions with, an identity thief to give the victim, at no charge and within 30 days of a verified request, application and business-transaction records related to the theft.

The DOJ alleged that Amazon systematically failed to provide such records, hindering victims’ ability to dispute fraudulent activity with credit bureaus and other creditors.

The order requires Amazon to establish and maintain compliant procedures, train personnel, and deliver records within 30 days of verifying identity-theft requests going forward.

The settlement is a clear enforcement signal for online marketplaces, financial-services platforms, and other consumer-facing businesses handling identity-theft complaints, including those serving Brazilian and Portuguese customers.

Source: US Department of Justice

On August 18, 2026, the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved by 3–1 vote the release of a proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, a tailored securities-offering framework for certain crypto-asset investment contracts.

The proposal would exempt from full Securities Act registration certain offerings up to $5 million over a rolling four-year period and up to $75 million in any twelve-month period, subject to principles-based disclosure requirements addressing token functionality, tokenomics, technology risks, governance, and issuer and management background.

The proposal would also, subject to conditions, provide a safe harbor from characterization as an “investment contract” once a network reaches a defined level of decentralization or functionality, mirroring elements of the “Safe Harbor 2.0” concept previously advanced by Commissioner Peirce.

Registration statements would be reviewed under a streamlined Form CA-1 process, and secondary trading of qualifying tokens on registered platforms would be facilitated. Comments are due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

The proposal is a significant step toward a formal SEC rulebook for token issuers, and is directly relevant to Brazilian, Portuguese, and other cross-border sponsors evaluating US-facing token offerings and secondary-market listings.

Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission

On August 1, 2026, the annual amendments to Delaware’s principal business-entity statutes came into effect, following approval by the Delaware General Assembly and signature by the Governor on June 10, 2026.

The package includes changes to the Delaware General Corporation Law (Senate Bill approved earlier in the 2026 session), the Delaware Limited Liability Company Act (House Bill 352), and the Delaware Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act (House Bill 353), and continues Delaware’s practice of periodically updating its entity statutes to preserve their national and international preeminence.

Highlights include refinements to stockholder ratification of defective corporate acts, updates to officer exculpation and indemnification, clarifications on the flexibility of series LLCs (including the treatment of protected and registered series, mergers, conversions and consolidations, and a new definition of “certificate of registered series”), and modernization of provisions on electronic signatures, notices, and records.

The amendments are particularly relevant to holding-company structures, M&A transactions, joint ventures, and fund vehicles that rely on Delaware entities as parent, blocker, or acquisition vehicles — including many Brazilian and Portuguese groups that use Delaware corporations and LLCs in their US and international structures.

Charter documents, LLC and LP agreements, and closing checklists should be reviewed against the new framework.

Source: Delaware General Assembly; National Law Review

In early August 2026, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System issued a proposed rule updating anti-money-laundering and countering-the-financing-of-terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements for Board-supervised banking organizations, including state member banks, bank holding companies, savings and loan holding companies, and US operations of foreign banking organizations.

The proposal aligns the Federal Reserve’s expectations with FinCEN’s modernized AML program framework under the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, formally requiring covered institutions to implement effective, risk-based, and reasonably designed AML/CFT programs, to establish written governance and board-approval processes, to conduct enterprise-wide risk assessments that incorporate FinCEN’s national AML/CFT priorities, and to reinforce independent testing and training.

It also updates supervisory expectations for cross-border banking activities, correspondent relationships, and technology-enabled monitoring.

For Brazilian and Portuguese banks with US branches or agencies, and for cross-border groups that rely on US correspondent accounts and dollar-clearing relationships, the rule signals continued tightening of AML/CFT oversight and heightened scrutiny of governance, sanctions-screening, and beneficial-ownership controls.

Comments will be due after Federal Register publication, and institutions should begin gap analyses against current programs.

Source: Ncontracts

On July 27, 2026, Brazil filed a formal request for consultations with the United States at the World Trade Organization under the Dispute Settlement Understanding, and the request (WT/DS646/1) was circulated to WTO members on July 30 and became public on August 3.

The dispute targets two Section 301 measures adopted by the Office of the US Trade Representative under the Trade Act of 1974:

• an additional 25% ad valorem duty on Brazilian products, in force since July 22, resulting from an investigation into Brazil’s practices concerning digital trade and electronic payment services (including Pix), preferential tariffs granted to Mexico and India, anti-corruption enforcement, intellectual-property protection, ethanol market access, and illegal deforestation; and
• an additional 12.5% ad valorem duty, in force since July 24, resulting from a separate Section 301 investigation covering 60 economies on the enforcement of bans on imports produced with forced labor.

Stacked, the two measures reach 37.5% for products caught by both actions, and, according to Brazilian government figures, affect roughly 23.1% of Brazil’s exports to the United States, with the fully stacked rate hitting approximately 16.5% of the export basket in sectors such as machinery, timber, fats and oils, footwear, furniture, and clothing.

Brazil argues that the measures are unilateral and discriminatory and breach US obligations under GATT 1994 (including Articles I and II) and Article 23 of the Dispute Settlement Understanding, which prohibits WTO members from seeking redress for alleged violations outside the WTO dispute-settlement system.

The parties now have up to 60 days to attempt a negotiated solution; if consultations fail, Brazil may request the establishment of a panel.

In parallel, Brazil has signalled that it will invoke countermeasures under its Reciprocity Law.

Brazilian exporters, US importers of Brazilian goods, and their advisers should map exposure by tariff heading and plan for a prolonged dispute period during which the surcharges remain in place.

Source: Government of Brazil, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Reuters; Datamar News

On August 5, 2026, the US Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service issued Notice 2026-28, providing guidance on the permanent expansion of the employer credit for paid family and medical leave under the “Working Families Tax Cuts” enacted as part of the Trump administration’s tax package.

Beginning in 2026, the credit — previously a temporary Section 45S provision — becomes a permanent feature of the Internal Revenue Code, and eligible employers can claim it for wages paid to qualifying employees during periods of family or medical leave and, at the employer’s election, for a portion of insurance premiums paid to fund such leave.

The credit ranges from 12.5% to 25% of wages (or premiums), scales with the percentage of the employee’s regular wages that are replaced during leave, and applies for up to 12 weeks of leave per employee per year.

The notice also expands eligibility by lowering the minimum employee-service requirement to six months and clarifies interactions with state and local paid-leave mandates.

Employers, including those with US operations of Brazilian or Portuguese groups, should revisit their leave policies and payroll systems before year-end to capture the credit and align documentation with the new guidance.

Source: Internal Revenue Service