Are there countries that prohibit charging interest? Is it true that Saudi Arabia prohibits charging interest? What about UAE? Are there any states actually prohibit interest rates?
In Saudi Arabia, it is legal to charge (and pay) interest. However, according to this source, a contract clause requiring interest is not enforceable. An interest clause is severable, so the contract is not at risk if interest is charged. This source indicates an exception, that the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority Banking Disputes Settlement Committee may enforce interest clauses in banking transactions. In UAE, Article 204 of the UAE Civil Code says If the subject matter of the disposition or the consideration therefor is money, its amount and type must be specified without any increase or decrease in the value of that money at the time of payment having any effect. and Art. 714 says If the contract of loan provides for a benefit in excess of the essence of the contract otherwise than a guarantee of the rights of the lender, such provision shall be void but the contract shall be valid. Art. 76 of the Commercial Code explicitly allows charging interest for commercial transactions A creditor shall have the right to demand interest on a commercial loan in accordance with the rate stipulated in the contract. If the rate of interest is not stipulated in the contract it shall be calculated in accordance with the rate prevailing in the market at the time of the transaction on condition that in this case it should not exceed (12%) per cent, until full settlement is made. This article from 2002 (behind the paywall, sorry) provides further analysis for Abu Dhabi. This page discusses similar rules for Kuwait, where again commercial transactions are exempt from the civil prohibition against interest. It is not clear where the line is drawn, but I think "commercial" refers to borrowing money for a business purpose, as opposed to buying your house.
I see that this would put me under heavy US regulation, and I'd like to avoid that, since it would require huge funding to hire lawyers to do something like that. There are many reasons for financial and banking industry regulations; namely, fraud protection, corruption and money laundering preventions, use of crypto to avoid taxes and records, etc. If you're serious about a startup that involves financial transaction, one of the first things you do is find a law firm to advise you on the legal plausibility of an idea. And be prepared to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for regulatory approval. Would doing something like this solve my problem? You're really going to trust randos on the web for legal advice?
Financial institutions in the US are subject to regulations that restrict what sorts of things non-licensed employees can talk about with clients and advice they can give about structuring accounts and payments in ways that might avoid triggering money laundering alarms. I think this employee was being cautious about getting into a gray area and phrased the reason they couldn't talk about it poorly. The reason they were restricted from giving you an answer could be a legality, but not necessarily because they are giving you legal advice.
According to this site in the UK apparently there are laws against calling something free if it was part of the entire package before or if was added later and the price went up Example of the latter: LG sold a TV. They then added a sound bar, increased the price and listed the TV as TV for $XXX + free sound bar. They ran afoul of the regulations Also adding something and calling the addition free is okay if the price didn't go up but you can only advertize it as free for 6 months. After 6 months the law considers it included by default and therefore no longer free.
You have misread the DMLP page. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to record a conversation if you are a party and if the other party does not consent. The fact that federal law doesn't ban something doesn't mean that states can't ban it. There is generally a presumption that when both the feds and the states can legitimately regulate something, the feds weren't trying to preempt all state laws on the topic. While people often say "federal law takes precedence over state law," the normal rule is that both laws apply; the federal law only blocks the state law if the feds wanted to block said state laws. So far as I can tell, the federal law has never been held to preempt two-party consent laws; the point of the federal law was to restrict recording, not extend it. It's like how federal law doesn't prohibit taking hostages inside the US to coerce a private company into doing what you want (anti-terrorism laws might, I guess, but the federal hostage-taking law doesn't); while the federal law excludes most hostage-taking in the US, that doesn't mean that it's legal to take hostages. Congress sometimes wants to establish nationwide standards for something, but the presumption is that they didn't.
There is no possibility of legally holding a country &quot;to account&quot; for an action. An individual could be legally tried for a crime (murder), and a country could via a political process be made to suffer the consequences if a leader performs some act (it need not be illegal). Germany, Iran and Russia have historically suffered certain consequences of actions held to be &quot;officially sanctioned&quot;, and individuals such as Adolf Eichmann have been specifically punished; Fahad Shabib Albalawi and 4 others were sentanced to death for involvement in Khashoggi's murder. Punitive recourse against a country is always via political / military action. Khashoggi, specifically, was apparently a lawful permanent resident of the US, which is probably sufficient connection to the US for a suit based in the Alien Tort Statute. There have been various suits filed against individuals under this act, some of which succeeded, for example Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, 630 F.2d 876. An individual could be sued under the Alien Tort Statute, but a foreign government enjoys sovereign immunity (the US government has limited its liability on that grounds, but Saudi Arabia has not). His fiance might then sue some individual, but Saudi Arabia itself could not be &quot;held to account&quot;.
You are mistaken: The U.S. governments (both federal, and states that impose income tax) assert a right to tax both: Income earned within their jurisdiction (e.g., "on their soil"), and Income earned by citizens (or residents, in the case of states). So it is perfectly legal for a resident U.S. citizen to operate a foreign business entity, earn profit, pay himself, and even bank the money overseas. However, a resident in such a situation would be in violation of tax law if he failed to report his interest in the foreign entity and his earnings, as prescribed by the IRS, on his tax filings.
Until it was found to be unconstitutional, Florida had a law against surcharges for using a credit card (the statute is still on the books, however). That was the only law against &quot;convenience fees&quot; related to making payments. Whether or not a business will accept a particular form of payment (check, credit card, money order, traveler's check, cash) is up to business. Apart from credit cards, there has been no law against charging for accepting a particular form of payment, but that charge would have to be part of the contract – the lease would have to specify in advance what the processing fee is for money orders vs. cash vs. credit card. The residential tenancies law of Florida does not prohibit incorporating fees into the terms of a lease (as some states do), so the lease can specify &quot;$1500 for rent plus $10 for payment-processing, every month&quot;.