This article also exists in French, Italian and Luxembourgish.

_The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented both in terms of its immediate and prolonged economic effects, and the organisational disruption it has caused to financial market participants, which now threatens their ability to respond effectively. Firms are faced with a series of rapidly changing challenges that they must prioritise with limited resources.

_On March 19th, the European Data Protection Board adopted a formal statement on the processing of personal data in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak via written procedure.

• Governments, public and private organisations throughout Europe are taking measures to contain and mitigate COVID-19. This can involve the processing of different types of personal data. 
• Data protection rules (such as the GDPR) do not hinder measures taken in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

_In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Luxembourg government has decided to enact a series of direct and indirect tax measures. Please find some of them below.

Direct tax measures

The deadline for submitting tax returns has been extended to 30 June 2020. This measure applies to both legal entities and natural persons (Luxembourg residents and non-residents).

What is force majeure?

Lawyers around the world are currently asking the question as to whether the COVID-19 pandemic can be considered an event of force majeure. There is an important distinction between the approaches of common law and civil law jurisdictions here; under common law there is no doctrine of force majeure, it is simply a term used to describe contractual clauses that have the same intention (i.e. to relieve a party from performance of its contractual obligations where that performance is impacted by events outside its control).

_This is the third episode of our COVID-19 webcast series. Partner Mark Shaw wants to turn to the regulatory developments coming from European Securities and Markets Authority. In this episode he speaks on call recording under MiFID II, their IFRS 9 guidance and the implementation delays to SFTR and tick size regime.

_This is the second episode of our COVID-19 webcast series. Partner Mark Shaw wants to turn to the regulatory developments coming from European Securities and Markets Authority. As there is a lot of ground to cover, Mark Shaw will split this over two webcasts. In this episode he speaks on general COVID-19 response, short position disclosure and bans. 

_This is the first episode of our COVID-19 webcast series. Partner Mark Shaw wants to start with a summary of the legal and regulatory developments affecting the Luxembourg market coming from the CSSF.

Transcription of the video:

_This is the fourth episode of our COVID-19 webcast series. In this episode Partner Mark Shaw wants look at Luxembourg company and tax law relief measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Transcription of the video:

_On 30 March 2020 the Luxembourg Minister of Finance filed before the Luxembourg Parliament the bill n°7547 (“Bill”) aiming at amending Article 168 of the Luxembourg income tax law dated 4 December 1967 as amended from time to time (“LITL”).

The purpose of the Bill is to propose the introduction of a specific rule – by adding a paragraph 5 to Article 168 LITL – which would derogate to the general principle foreseen in article 45 LIR which provides for the tax deductibility of operating expenses caused exclusively by a company.