On March 5, 2014, the US Supreme Court rendered a 7-2 decision reinstating a $185 million arbitration award in favor of the BG Group against Argentina under the UK-Argentina bilateral investment treaty (BIT). The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit erred in deciding de novo, and without deference to the tribunal’s award, the issue of the arbitrators’ jurisdiction ...
There are many famous cases where trademarks and passing off come into contact with unofficial merchandising and the right holder has been unsuccessful. They range from the fictional character Tarzan, to the rock band Linkin Park, to Diana Princess of Wales. There is no such thing as a matter of UK law as a free standing general right by a famous person (or anyone else) to control the reproduction of their image ...
Misrepresentations and unfounded assertions of fact made to a party during pre-contractual negotiations can come back to bite you if they induce that party to enter into the contract. The Supreme Court case has emphasised that misrepresentations made to a non-contracting party can also result in liability for the party that made the misrepresentation ...
Unlike in federal court, it is unclear in Florida state courts when the duty to preserve evidence arises. Ostensibly, under Florida law, there is no legal duty to preserve evidence until a discovery request is made. While there is no doubt that a party can be sanctioned for failing to preserve evidence after it has a duty to do so, several Florida courts have sanctioned parties for failing to preserve evidence even when there was no such duty under Florida law ...
On January 31, 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in A.I. Enterprises Ltd. v. Bram Enterprises Ltd., 2014 SCC 12. This is an important commercial decision as it clarifies and narrows the scope of the tort of unlawful interference in economic relations. Canadian businesses will also welcome the Court's reference to commercial certainty as one of the principal reasons to clarify and limit the scope of this tort ...
When Shakespeare said we should kill all lawyers he was not referring to Magic Circle corporate or TMT partners, they had not been invented yet; and conveyancing and private client work were in their infancy. No, what he had in his sights were litigators and two hundred and fifty years later Dickens aimed his withering fire at the chancery lawyers in Bleak House ...
Reprinted with permission from the February 7, 2014 issue of Corporate Counsel. © 2014 ALM Media Properties, LLC. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved. On Nov. 12, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to grant a writ of certiorari in Cariou v. Prince, leaving intact the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on copyright fair use in the context of appropriation art ...
Administrative fines and increased fees for exploitation of the environment are increasingly included in environmental regulations as sanctions. Lawmakers in Poland more and more often provide for administrative financial sanctions for environmental violations because they are more convenient to enforce than criminal sanctions, which require proof of fault on the part of a specific perpetrator. Moreover, criminal liability may be imposed solely on individuals ...
Many companies provide annual earnings guidance and quarterly updates to the analyst and investor communities. Guidance is also frequently updated during industry conferences and in nondeal roadshows. A failure to meet the market’s earnings expectations can negatively impact management’s credibility and, in turn, the price of the company’s common stock. The importance of earnings guidance is heightened during an equity offering when a company is actively soliciting investors ...
False labeling of products, fake or inferior materials and components used to make products, and the misappropriated use of another’s trademark are examples of how counterfeit goods and the theft of intellectual property are hurting consumers and companies. The world markets and global supply distribution chains provide opportunities for companies to grow and prosper. Sales through the Internet allow for products to be sold and sent to almost anywhere in the world ...
The Serbian Government has taken first steps of implementing a new court system with the passing of a new Law on Seats, Jurisdictions of Courts and Public Prosecution Offices (Official Gazette RS no. 101/2013), and amendments to the Law on Organisation of Courts (Official Gazette RS no. 116/2008, 104/2009, 101/2010, 31/2011, 78/2011 101/2011, 101/2013), which came into force on 1 January 2014 ...
The dispute resolution terms of engineering contracts can cause problems. An example is the recent case of Tubular Holdings (Pty) Ltd v DBT Technologies (Pty) Ltd, an unreported decision of South Gautend High Court. DBT Technologies - a subcontractor to Eskom in the Kusile Project 0 further contracted to Tubular Holdings in a deal worth some R 1.3 billion. Contract FIDIC's clause 20 governs the dispute resolution procedure. Clause 20 ...
Effective January 1, 2014, the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) replaced its Amicable Dispute Resolution rules with new Mediation Rules. The new ICC Mediation Rules (the “Rules”) set clear parameters for mediating disputes, while also providing for additional flexible procedures that allow the parties to resolve their disputes privately and confidentially ...
A New York appellate court affirmed in Syracuse Univ. v. National Union Fire Ins. Co., CA 13-01056, (N.Y. Sup. Ct. App. Div. Dec. 27, 2013), that an insurer must pay the costs incurred by its policyholder to comply with subpoenas issued to the policyholder as part of a criminal investigation, even where formal charges are not filed ...
Sierra Club v. Bostick (W.D. Oklahoma) In June 2012, environmental groups filed suit in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma challenging the US Army Corps of Engineers’ issuance of Nationwide Permit (NWP) 12 for utility line projects, and use of NWP 12 for the Keystone Pipeline Gulf Coast Project.Sierra Club v. Bostick, 5:12-cv-00742-R (W.D. Oklahoma) ...
In the United States, new rules will soon be taking effect making consideration of vapour intrusion risk a mandatory step in the Phase I environmental site assessment (ESA) process. Companies should review their real estate portfolios and consider whether properties may be at risk. In Canada, mortgage financing and asset sales are expected to be affected by the new diligence standard (that includes checking for vapour intrusion risks) in the near future ...
In Ass’n For Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the Supreme Court held that "a naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated, but that cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring." 133 S. Ct. 1207 (2013). Further, fragments that are "indistinguishable from natural DNA" are not statutory subject matter. Id., 2119 ...
On January 2, the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its first civil enforcement action of 2014 — a consummated merger challenge and settlement resulting from Heraeus Electro-Nite’s (Heraeus’s) $42 million acquisition of Midwest Instrument Company Inc. (Minco). The enforcement action is the latest DOJ challenge to a merger not required to be reported to the US antitrust agencies under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act ...
On 22 November 2011, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered two very important rulings in the Medeva (C-322/10) and Georgetown (C-422/10) cases. Those rulings however raised new issues that national patent courts quickly referred back to the Court. Yesterday, the CJEU decided on three Medeva follow-up cases. The new rulings brought more clarity about the conditions under which an SPC may be granted ...
The federal Endangered Species Act is designed to prevent the taking of endangered species and imposes a regulatory program geared toward the protection and conservation of federally listed species and their critical habitat ...
A Pennsylvania appellate court in Indalex, Inc. v. National Union Fire Ins. Co., No. 612 WDA 2012 (Dec. 3, 2013), found that a general liability insurer must defend a window and door manufacturer against claims alleging that defects in the manufacturer’s windows and doors caused damage to property and bodily injuries ...
Institutional Shareholder Services ("ISS") recently announced its updated voting policies for the 2014 proxy season. The policies will become effective for shareholder meetings held on or after February 1, 2014. We have summarized below four policy updates relating to corporate governance matters that may be of particular interest to US corporations. Simplified Pay-for-Performance Executive Evaluation ISS revised its policy relating to executive pay-for-performance evaluations ...
THE 1979 STATUTE It is well known that, under the legal regime for the protection of agricultural lands, the acquisition of agriculturally zoned lands with a surface area of four hectares or more by a person not residing in Quebec is subject to the authorization of the Commission de protection des terres agricoles. This is the object of the Act respecting the acquisition of farm land by non-residents (CQLR chapter A-4.1) (the “Act”), which has been in force since December 21, 1979 ...
THE 1979 STATUTE It is well known that, under the legal regime for the protection of agricultural lands, the acquisition of agriculturally zoned lands with a surface area of four hectares or more by a person not residing in Quebec is subject to the authorization of the Commission de protection des terres agricoles. This is the object of the Act respecting the acquisition of farm land by non-residents (CQLR chapter A-4.1) (the “Act”), which has been in force since December 21, 1979 ...
