According to Socrates "Man must rise above the Earth - to the top of the atmosphere and beyond - for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives." The trouble is that having suffered severe economic pressures in 2008/9 the aviation and space industries also face a number of other significant hurdles undermining the operating climate. From 2010 all airlines operating to and from Europe will be compelled to purchase and surrender carbon emissions allowances for their flights. Perhaps by then ICAO States will have implemented 2 new Conventions governing the liability for third party surface damage (including environmental damage) caused by accidents including those caused by terrorism. These will have profound implications for the aviation industry and their insurers. In 2010 the shuttle fleet is expected to retire at a time when galactic space exploration by private civilian operators is in its infancy and when the amount of space debris is at a record high.

Sub Topics:

1. Feasible and Cost Effective Environmentally Friendly Designs for Construction Projects.
2. Options available for Use of Recyclable Materials.
3. Regulatory environment necessary for sustainable development.
4. Necessary terms/penalties in project concession / construction contracts regarding pollution and damage to the environment; and preferential treatment to tenderers proposing environmentally friendly designs and construction methods.

Two questions that are ALWAYS top-of-mind with General Counsels and their advisors in any M&A deal: “What are the deal-breakers?” and “What’s market?” For cross-border M&A, these questions are far more complex and challenging. Based on the framework of benchmark studies on market terms for commonly negotiated deal points, this session will compare and contrast market practices in the US and Asia in negotiating common yet distinct forms of acquisitions. The panelists are the respective project leaders of the Private Target and Public Target Deals Points Studies published by the ABA's Committee on Mergers & Acquisitions and the LBO Legal Issues Study published by Kaye Scholer.

The program would deal with issues that arise in restructuring of distressed corporations and what role cross-border investment could play in this.

The program will examine existing regulations and the need for new regulations for banks and schemes for protection of individual depositors in view of the experiences during the financial crisis.

The development and use of clean technology is widely acknowledged as a priority in the battle to manage climate change. This issue will require inventors, companies, and governments to work together. But the interests of these parties are not always in harmony. Companies want to pursue the development and adoption of clean technology as good business. Governments want to support the development of clean technology with stimulus packages and investment incentives, yet business competitors may view these measures as unfair subsidization.

Other governments and NGO want the intellectual property protections of clean technology innovators held in abeyance or modified to enable clean technology to be deployed for the benefit of all to address the pressing crisis of climate change.

The three Committees will team to address the important legal issues surrounding the clean technology industry, including the creation, protection and commercialization of that technology through patents or other intellectual property rights; regulatory approvals and compliance; supply chain issues; technology acquisition and licensing; and the governing international trade and investment regimes regulating government intellectual property protection and incentive programs such as the WTO's Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) and the Subsidies and Countervailing Measures Agreement (SCM).

Having in mind recent developments in unilateral conduct, this program will explore the increased enforcement of antitrust laws against aggressive competition by single, dominant firms. Whether characterised as "monopolization" or "abuse of dominance," discounting, rebates, bundling, refusals to license intellectual property and other strategies are being scrutinised more closely than ever before by numerous competition law jurisdictions throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The program will consider recent enforcement actions in the region, including the U.S. antitrust agencies under the Obama Administration and China's State Administration of Industry & Commerce under the new Anti-Monopoly Law.

This Program will address and summarize recent regulatory and investment climate changes in various jurisdictions and also provide a comparison of different approaches being adopted by different countries/regions. It will be highlighting changes from the legal, regulatory, investment structures in various jurisdiction

Cross Border Disasters involve multiple actors (States, NGOs and victims) and a multitude of complex issues including jurisdiction, locus standi, forum, non conveniens, environmental degradation, personal injury, pollution liability etc. A panel representing diverse jurisdictions (common law/ civil law) will discuss these issues in a Q & A format with an emphasis on practical answers based on settled law of that jurisdiction (rather than theoretical propositions.)

How tax laws around the world have evolved since the Kyoto Protocol as a barrier to increase of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission and effectively address acquisition/disposition of GHG emission reduction credits, respective implementation standards, challenges to regulators and the industry in dubious areas of the law, and providing tax incentives to encourage development of environmental friendly and related advanced technology to combat hazardous emissions and pollutants that affect climate change or bring adverse consequential effects to our world and future generations?

The session will conduct a comparative analysis of developments in tax law and practice in countries that first acceded to the Kyoto Protocol since 16th February 2005 and those that subsequently ratified the same, the direct and indirect taxes that have been introduced, how income arising from compulsory sale of GHG and emission trading contracts may be taxed, provisions concerning tax in trading contracts, the grey areas of the law, how they interact with existing tax legislation and latest interpretations. The panelists will also discuss introduction of tax laws that seek to protect our environment and to save natural resources, covering tax reduction, tax holidays, qualifying standards, and tax saving structures to maximize tax saving in transactions with related companies.