Dropping all the hype about the Great Resignation and stiff competition for talent, we invite you to look at investing in your people from a few rational down-to-earth perspectives. Based on a number of PwC surveys, you might end up finding a good argument in your budgeting process in favour of investment initiatives targeting your people.

The business community keeps asking questions about restrictions imposed by the sanctions and how this affects doing business with existing and new clients in the future. The EU has adopted a number of sanctions packages since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. This article explores the eighth package launched on 6 October.

In March 2021 the European Commission passed a proposal for a new directive  aimed at putting mechanisms in place that will help employers provide equal pay for men and women. According to the draft directive, the pay disparity is still about 14%. Inequality becomes evident when we convert this percentage into days: compared to men, women actually have to work 51 days a year without pay. The main aim of the new rules is to minimise gender inequality in pay. While gender equality is a topic that has been discussed in public at length, statistics do not give us a reason to believe a balance has been achieved on the issue of pay. To achieve this, the European Commission has come up with new solutions that will mean new statutory obligations for employers.

We informed our MindLink.lv subscribers some time ago that the State Revenue Service (SRS) is increasingly exercising its statutory power to demand that a company’s overdue taxes be recovered from its board member if the tax debt cannot be recovered from the company. This article explores how we successfully resolved a court case to release a construction company’s former CEO (a client of ours) from the company’s tax debt of close to EUR 150,000.

Several EU member states are taking the taxation of employee share ownership plans in startup companies a step further. Their national rules make share plans far more attractive to startup employees and provide a more founder-friendly environment. While the rules aim to ensure startups give their employees a stake in the company, there are many solutions countries can use to achieve this goal.

As stated in the conclusion of the first instalment of this article, foreign markets offer various litigation funding models. In addition to the model we analysed before, where the claimant’s litigation is funded by an institutional litigation funder – an investment fund specialised in litigation funding, in this article we are looking at available alternatives. This overview covers some of the less familiar and sometimes unusual sources of litigation finance whose successful use would reduce the number of cases where a lack of finance limits the legal remedies available to a litigant.

The rules for implementing the aid programme “Financial instruments for encouraging digital transformation of businesses” under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility came into force on 5 July 2022. The programme is designed to encourage the digital transformation, development and revenue growth in businesses by supporting investment in digital information tools aimed at productivity gains. The aid is targeted at Latvian-registered businesses regardless of size. This article takes a closer look at the aid programme.

When it comes to performing accounting or any other duties where data processing takes a long time or where you regularly need to perform some repetitive or similar activities and processes, it’s great to keep easy-to-use tools handy. As we are putting together courses at PwC’s Digital Academy, we would like to tell you about a tool that will make your daily tasks much easier to do. Power Query is a data preparation and transformation tool available in Microsoft Power BI and, starting from the 2016 version, in Microsoft Excel and other programs. This tool allows users to obtain data from a variety of external data sources and from files stored on computer. It allows you to group and transform data and perform other activities. This article offers a few practical examples to raise awareness of how this functionality can be used and what benefits it offers.

Amendments to the Proof of Identity Act that came into force on 1 September 2022 will also affect entities that are subject to the Anti Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism and Proliferation Financing Act (“AML/CTPFA subjects”). If you want to keep your client relationships then you should evaluate how the amendments will affect them, and you should adopt solutions that will allow you to legally continue those relationships.

As company balance sheets become increasingly saturated with liabilities and future cash flows less certain, the scope for obtaining bank finance on balanced terms is limited. Yet companies need fresh capital to continue investing and to make their business more resilient to energy shocks and lack of raw materials, and to cope with rising costs, which often cannot be offset by an increased price of the end product.

Ever-changing legislation puts additional pressure on businesses and individuals. To make sure you haven’t missed any important changes and to spot potential risks early, the best solution is to keep up with the changes and know your way around the relevant resources.

To adopt aid measures early and ensure business continuity, the government is proposing new rules on wage subsidy aid to help taxpayers stay in business in a Covid-19 crisis. This article explores the content of the proposals so taxpayers know what industries are eligible for this aid and how they can apply.

The global entertainment & media (E&M) industry’s revenue strongly outpaced overall global economic growth last year. Following a pandemic-related 2.3% decline in 2020, E&M revenue rose a strong 10.4% in 2021, from US$2.12trn to 2.34trn. With the industry becoming more digital, more mobile and more youth-oriented, virtual reality (VR), gaming and digital advertising are the main growth drivers. These are findings from PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2022–2026, the 23^rd annual analysis and forecast of E&M spending by consumers and advertisers across 52 countries and territories.

Litigation tends to be costly. In addition to upfront duties payable when a claim is filed, claimants wishing to protect their rights and interests in court have to pay legal costs such as lawyer fees for representation at court hearings.

Russia’s military aggression has significantly affected some of the businesses importing metal products from Russia and Belarus, as well as industries such as metalworking, defence, construction, mechanical engineering, and information & communication technologies. To promote market stability, the Ministry of Economics intends to implement aid measures as an immediate solution in the form of financial instruments to ensure traders’ future business.