The Colombian government, aware of the need to improveinfrastructure in order to reduce logistical costs and thereby promote the country’s growth and development, is currently in the process of selecting contractors for the fourth generation road concessionprogram, which envisages the award of approximately 25 concession contracts, with total investment of close to €18,300 million ...
In a highly-anticipated and extremely significant pair of decisions for businesses and consumers alike, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) ruled on Thursday (October 31, 2013) that the ultimate consumers at the end of a supply chain can effectively leap-frog the supply chain by having direct legal recourse in a class action against a manufacturer who illegally overcharged for the product supplied ...
On October 25, 2013, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China passed an amendment to the P.R.C. Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests (the “Amendment”) ...
When does title in the ship pass from the shipbuilder to the shipowner? Can the parties agree to change when title will pass? Usually shipbuilding contracts are negotiated on standard forms such as the SAJ form produced by the Shipbuilders’ Association of Japan and the AWES form produced by the Association of European Shipbuilders and Shiprepairers. South African law generally recognises freedom of contract and accordingly parties to a contract are entitled to vary the terms by agreement ...
The Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) has just enacted a revamped investor residency programme, entitling successful applicants to a permanent residence certificate (PRC). The Qualifying criteria are: Villas a. Investment of not less than $300,000 in actual construction of a new home, or in renovation of a distressed property as a home for the applicant and his or her dependants, on the islands of Grand Turk, Salt Cay, South Caicos, Middle Caicos or North Caicos; or b ...
Introduction:The Consumer Protection Act, Cap. 326D (‘the Act’) aims at protecting consumer rights by, among other things, prohibiting and penalizing the use of unfair contract terms by suppliers of services. The Act is administered and enforced by the Fair Trading Commission (‘the FTC’). This article summarises the effect of the Act on how service providers can legally contract with their customers. This article does not focus on suppliers of goods ...
After a slight pause, the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - are continuing on their path to entering the euro zone, which was first entered by Estonia in 2011 ...
South Africa has a rapidly evolving climate change policy environment, which is in-keeping with the country¡¦s view of itself as a developing country leader in the climate change arena. Part of the policy environment includes attention to financial mechanisms that can be marshaled in support of the response to climate change ...
The Minister of Finance has issued Regulation No. 37/PMK.04/2013 on Duty-Free Shops on 27 February 2013, which implements Article 48 of Government Regulation No. 32 of 2009 on Bonded Storehouses (Tempat Penimbunan Berikat). The Regulation will effectively be applied 90 days since the issuance date ...
A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) could mean trouble for many Community trade marks. There is now a heightened risk that national courts will invalidate these trade marks if they have not been used extensively enough in the European Union. Is broader protection better? A Community trade mark (CTM) confers protection in all 27 EU member states ...
As Panama became part of a number of industrial property related treaties, our internal laws have become more territorial; the use of a trademark is territorial again and registration becomes imperative for protection. In Panama, as happens in most of the countries around the world, the right to register a trademark is acquired by its first use in commerce ...
Counterfeiting continues to make the news. Locally, we’ve just had a report of a R10 million bust in the Vereeniging area, during which fake soaps, shampoos, clothing and bags were seized, and seven suspects from Malawi, Mozambique and China (no surprises there), were taken into custody.But we are increasingly getting reports of counterfeiting in product areas that go way beyond the traditional stomping ground of FMCG and luxury goods ...
We recently had a Namibian court decision in a passing off matter, in the case of Mega Power Centre CC t/a Talisman Plant and Tool Hire v Talisman Franchise Operations (Pty) Ltd. The decision is interesting for a number of reasons. First, passing off cases are fairly rare, so any new decision is welcome ...
There were two recent decisions – one in the USA and one in the UK – which dealt with the important but seldom-discussed concept of patent exhaustion. Patent exhaustion in essence means this: the initial authorised sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item, for the reason that the owner of the patent (the patentee) has been rewarded for its ingenuity by that sale ...
PrefaceThis guide is written as an introduction to Ukrainian legal system from the viewpoint of foreign investors, in particular Chinese ones, and will help you in deciding whether to do a deal in Ukraine and what strategy should be chosen when investing in this country. The digest of key legal issues may be found helpful both at the stage of initial investment research and in the course of a particular investment project ...
The Major Transport Projects Facilitation Amendment (East West Link and Other Projects) Bill 2013 ('the Bill') was commended to Victoria's Legislative Assembly on 13 June 2013. The Bill principally amends the existing Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act (Vic), which governs the assessment, approval and delivery of major transport project infrastructure ...
I OVERVIEWChile continues to offer an attractive business environment. Chile was the first Latin American economy to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and is party to dozens of free trade agreements (including with the United States, the European Union, Mexico, South Korea and Brazil) ...
At the end of May, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida sentenced a Florida import company president to 22 months in federal prison for violating consumer product safety and other laws. His wife, an executive of a related company, was sentenced to a year of probation. The case is significant because it involves a criminal prosecution of importers of unsafe children’s products ...
Purchases of shares or assets of the target companyPurchases of shares are relatively free of restrictions unless the target company is a public corporation (namely, a company that has its shares registered with the Chilean securities and insurance regulator, the SVS), one of the parties to the transaction participates in a regulated industry or the entity resulting from a business combination raises competition issues ...
There was a bit of a stir in the British press recently, with certain companies complaining that the major UK supermarket chains are now using get-ups for their own-label products that are so similar to the get-ups used by the major brand owners that consumer confusion is inevitable. An industry spokesman said this: ‘Our research shows that consumers are more likely to buy own-label products if they look like brands ...
The Libyan Trade Mark Office (“LTMO”) has resumed the process of trade mark searching since April 2013 and will reportedly be accepting new applications for the registration of trade marks in May 2013. This after the LTMO had ceased its operations in January 2011 due to civil unrest in the country. There has, however, been some uncertainty with regard to the LTMO’s acceptance of new trade mark applications ...
