On March 28 2014 Law 642/2013 - a milestone of the government's anti-corporate raider policy - entered into force. Revival of the bill, which had previously gathered dust in parliamentary committees for several years, was a response to numerous calls from the international community to take measures to counter illegal takeovers and acquisitions of businesses ...
The New Year brought good news for Romanian intellectual property counselors. The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (SOIT) introduced the trademark E-filing system ...
On April 9 last, the Superior Court of Québec issued its judgement1 on a motion for a declaratory judgment pertaining to trademarks in the English language on public signs and posters. The applicants, Magasin Best Buy Ltée, Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd, Gap (Canada) Inc., Old Navy (Canada) Inc., Corporation Guess? Canada, la Compagnie Wal Mart du Canada, Toys “R” Us Canada Ltée and Curves International Inc ...
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Bridge Trustees in 2011 (see further here), the Government announced that it would legislate to directly counteract the effect of the judgement and make it clear that benefits under a pension scheme cannot be regarded as money purchase benefits if it is possible for a funding deficit to arise in respect of any of those benefits ...
CCTV surveillance is becoming increasingly prevalent in every aspect of our lives. Recognizable images of people captured by CCTV cameras constitute "personal data" as defined in the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 ("the DPAs"). Accordingly, all use of CCTV by employers must be undertaken in compliance with the DPAs ...
Foreign manpower recruitment procedures as set out under Minister of Manpower and Transmigration Regulation No. PER.02/MEN/III/2008 were considered no longer applicable given the development of manpower nowadays, and therefore the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration promulgated Regulation No. 12 of 2013 on Procedures for Recruiting Foreign Manpower which came into effect as of 30 December 2013 ...
The latest tribunal statistics published by the Ministry of Justice this month indicate a significant fall in the number of employment tribunal claims following the introduction of tribunal fees in July of last year.The number of claims brought in October to December 2013 was down to only 9,801, a whopping 79% fewer than the same period in 2012, and 75% fewer than the previous quarter ...
On Sunday 6 April 2014 a number of changes will be made to employment law. We have put together this list of 5 changes we think you need to know about: Discrimination questionnaires abolished. Section 138 of the Equality Act 2010 allowed employees to serve a formal questionnaire on employers about discrimination matters. If an employer failed to answer fully, the tribunal could draw an adverse inference from such failure. From 6 April 2014 this formal process will be abolished ...
“Desperate times call for desperate measures”. We are all aware that the global crisis is impacting employers worldwide. Companies have been forced to close production lines, non-core activities have been transferred to outsourced service providers and numerous workplaces have been forced to close all together. It has become a struggle to merely hold onto one’s job. Such circumstances have facilitated the increase of workplace harassment (i.e. mobbing) ...
From Sunday 6 April 2014 anyone wanting to raise an employment tribunal claim will be directed to Acas first to try early conciliation. ere are the key things to be aware of:While early conciliation will be launched on 6 April, it will only be from 6 May that the scheme becomes mandatory for most claims and the tribunals will reject an ET1 if the Claimant hasn’t contacted Acas first.Parties do not need to actively engage in conciliation ...
A New Collective Bargaining Agreement (“GCBA”) was signed last week in Montenegro. The new GCBA introduces a broader scope of existing labour rights and has also included several additional rights. Subsequently, many questions have come up and are expected to be answered through their application in the upcoming period. The GCBA comes into force on 30 March 2014 and Montenegrin employers must take care of the entire set of new employment rights and employers obligations ...
The Executive Branch announced days ago the 3 main investment projects which will be promoted under the Public-Private Partnership regime in Paraguay. With the enactment in the month of March of the Regulatory Decree of the Public-Private Partnership Law (Law 5102/2013), the projects are expected to be advanced immediately ...
The new EU Procurement directive was published in the Official Journal of the EU today (28 March 2014) and will come into force on 17 April 2014. This article summarises some of the key changes from the new Directive which are likely to be of interest to both the public and private sector. The UK will have 2 years to implement the Directive but the government has suggested that it will be implemented in a shorter timescale ...
In Dollo v. Premier Tech Ltée,1 the Superior Court of Québec declared a clause contained in the Stock Option Plan (the “Plan”) offered by Premier Tech Ltée (“Premier Tech”) to some of its employees to be abusive and also declared Premier Tech’s conduct towards a dismissed senior executive to be oppressive within the meaning of the Canada Business Corporations Act (“CBCA”). THE FACTS In May 1999, Premier Tech hired Christian Dollo (“Dollo”) as vice‑president, finance ...
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has issued its response to the consultation on the exemption of certain categories of worker from the scope of automatic enrolment. While the DWP considered a range of potential exemptions, it has decided that exemptions are only appropriate in a limited number of situations ...
NEW CVM DECISION SIMPLIFIES TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING PRIVATE INVESTMENT IN PUBLIC EQUITY (PIPEs) At a meeting held on January 7, 2014, the majority of the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (“CVM”) Board (Colegiado) accepted the appeal lodged by João Fortes Engenharia S.A., within the context of CVM Proceeding No ...
On 3 March 2014, the Government presented the bill ”Enhanced competition supervision” (Sw: “Förbättrad konkurrenstillsyn”) (Governmental Bill, prop. 2013/14:135) which contains several suggested changes to the Swedish Competition Act which relate, inter alia, to leniency and the possibility to suspend time limits during merger control assessments ...
For many HR professionals the responsibility for ensuring that their organisation can continue to employ migrant workers falls squarely at their door. This can prove daunting, especially for those with little or no business-immigration experience ...
As we indicated a few months ago, the partial reform of the intellectual property law continues its journey towards the Lower House of the Spanish Parliament. On Friday, February 14, the Cabinet approved the text of the preliminary bill, which must now get the green light from the consultative bodies and be debated in Parliament as a bill before its definitive approval. The main lines of the approved text are those we advanced in our previous post: 1 ...
Same sex couples will have the right to marry in England and Wales from 29 March 2014. Generally, same sex marriages will be treated in the same way as opposite sex marriages. However, in occupational pension schemes, surviving same sex spouses need only be treated in the same way as surviving civil partners and not as opposite sex spouses ...
THE FACTS On January 22, 2014, the Court of Appeal of Québec confirmed the 2012 decision of the Superior Court of Québec in Gilman v. Fieldturf Tarkett inc.2 At issue in this case was whether the payment of so-called “phantom share” bonuses were to be paid to employees whose employment was terminated by the company. The incentive program at issue was established for certain non- shareholder key employees of the company ...
In a landmark case in Australia that is a first of its kind (but undoubtedly will not be the last), damages have been awarded to New South Wales school teacher, Mrs Christine Mickle, for offensive and defamatory tweets and Facebook posts made by an ex-student of the school where she taught. The student, Andrew Farley, apparently held a grudge against Mrs Mickle for playing what he perceived as a role in the removal of his father from the position of head music teacher at the school ...
Every year, several judgments are rendered in penal law cases involving occupational health and safety issues. However, judgments in an occupational health and safety context resulting from the laying of criminal negligence charges are more rare. While the sections of the Criminal Code1 which facilitate the filing of criminal negligence charges are now ten years old2, criminal negligence convictions in Quebec based on breaches of section 217 ...
Reform Scotland, the Edinburgh-based think tank, has proposed a wholesale reform of the UK public and private sector pension system. In its paper The Pension Guarantee, published on 27 February and available in full here, it identifies a number of issues with the current system and sets out recommendations for a possible solution ...
Last year, we reported on the Employment Tribunal’s decision in Walker v Innospec Limited (ET 2411316/2011) that a pension scheme’s failure to provide survivor’s benefits for civil partners equal to those provided for spouses was unlawful discrimination ...
