Foley Hoag LLP - Global Business and Human Rights (JD Supra Myanmar/Burma)

Burma’s Hluttaw, or Parliament, passed a new Foreign Direct Investment Law on September 7. Few details on the legislation are yet available, and we have seen only partial translations, although the final version reportedly is preferable to its draft predecessor. President Thein Sein has not yet signed it into law.

The U.S. decision to ease financial and investment sanctions on Burma for the first time since 1997 is a landmark – and controversial – moment. It presents Western businesses with an opportunity to enter a largely untapped market, albeit one that suffers from weak rule of law and internal conflict. In response to such concerns, although the Obama Administration will now allow U.S. companies to...

On July 11, the U.S. government eased sanctions on financial services and new investment in Burma, while requiring that U.S. persons (including U.S.-organized entities) with cumulative investments in Burma exceeding $500,000 report on processes they have in place to address social and environmental impacts. This is the first time that the United States has explicitly used a sanctions regime to...

I recently published an op-ed in The Christian Science Monitor cautioning companies seeking to make investments in Burma (Myanmar) to make sure that the inflow of new investments does not end up harming the country's long-suffering citizens.

On April 2, one day after its Parliamentary by-elections, Burma (Myanmar) floated its currency, the kyat. This is an important first step in normalizing the country’s investment climate and curbing corruption. For years, the official kyat exchange rate has been more than 100 times lower than the black market rate, which has led to endless headaches for organizations operating in Burma, as well as

Following the success of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (“NLD”) party at the polls and today's announcement that the United States will soon lift some of its sanctions against Burma, companies are closely scrutinizing the possibility of conducting business in the long-isolated country.