Battered women who fear for their safety, mothers unable to support their children, dysfunctional families in need. A reality for many women is the presence of domestic violence in their lives. This situation, although occurring in all social and economic levels, is much more obvious and has more serious consequences in low-income communities ...
The Office of the Civil Registrar General of the National Statistics Office promulgated Administrative Order No. 1 series of 2012 (AO 1) on October 24, 2012. The AO implements the provisions of Republic Act 10172, the amendatory law to Republic Act 9048, and supplements Administrative Order 1 series of 2001, which, in turn, implements RA 9048. Both statutes provide a means of correcting erroneous entries in the civil registry without need of judicial action ...
Traditional knowledge (TK), for example folklore, is a controversial issue and we’ve written about it before. The government feels that TK should be legally protected, and that this should be achieved through amendments to the intellectual property (IP) statutes. The IP community has no issue with TK being protected, but it’s not very comfortable with this being done through IP legislation ...
The production and circulation of counterfeit products have been an economic and social problem for some time. Not only can such products pose a safety risk to consumers who use them, counterfeit products also lead to considerable lost income for legitimate businesses, decrease consumer confidence in the marketplace and are often used to finance organized crime. The retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012 ...
The New Amparo Law-On April 2, 2013, the Amparo Law, Regulatory of Articles 103 and 107 of the Constitution of the United Mexican Estates, was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation. This new law broadens the constitutional defense of rights, since more individuals can have access to the amparo actions ...
On March 22, 2013, the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") announced that it will submit to the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") a new Information Collection Request ("ICR") related to the implementation of the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards ("CFATS") Personnel Surety Program ("PSP"). DHS is soliciting comments during a 60-day public comment period (which ends May 21, 2013) prior to the submission of the ICR to OMB ...
In 2008 the government introduced important intellectual property (IP) legislation. The Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act 51 of 2008 - which only came into force on 2 August 2010 – governs the ownership and exploitation of IP which flows from publicly financed research and development (R&D) ...
A March 7, 2013 piece on Morning Edition, the morning news program from National Public Radio, raised a lot of questions. “In A Grain Of Golden Rice, A World Of Controversy Over GMO Foods” told the story of golden rice, a beautiful yellow rice enhanced with beta-carotene, or Vitamin A. This rice was ostensibly developed to be grown in developing countries, where foods high in Vitamin A either are uncommon or are expensive ...
In 2008 the government introduced important intellectual property (IP) legislation. The Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and DevelopmentAct 51 of 2008 - which only came into force on 2 August 2010– governs the ownership and exploitation of IP which flows from publicly financed research and development (R&D) ...
The Comelec promulgated Resolution No. 9615 on 15 January 2013. This Resolution implements the provisions of Republic Act No. 9006, more popularly known as the Fair Election Act, for purposes of the 2013 national and local mid-term elections ...
On February 12, 2013, in conjunction with the release of the Executive Order on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (the Executive Order), President Obama signed a Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-21 on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience. The PPD revokes the 2003 Homeland Security Presidential Directive-7 (issued by President George W ...
On February 12, 2013, the Obama Administration released an executive order, Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity (the "Executive Order"), which is focused primarily on government actions to support critical infrastructure owners and operators in protecting their systems and networks from cyber threats ...
A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision addressed a number of thorny issues relevant to commercial real estate disputes including whether a Plaintiff must mitigate its damages where it has made a claim for specific performance of a real estate contract. The decision has wide-ranging implications for commercial real estate developers ...
Some favourable news on the global economic front has been trickling in. Markets around the world rallied as the US avoided the fiscal cliff-dive by a nanosecond; China's economy is showing signs of renewed strength, with the powerful manufacturing sector now performing at its best levels in almost two years; and share prices in most of Europe, Britain and even Japan have been trading solidly higher over the past few months ...
In September, the National Customs and Tax Authority - DIAN - presented the third draft of the new Customs Statute, which will regulate most of Colombia’s customs law. Although scholars and business associations have presented their comments to the project, the draft seems to be definitive for the most part ...
The Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012 (IFCPA), enacted this week by Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, further ratchets up U.S. economic sanctions against Iran. U.S. persons or entities (hereafter "persons"), including their foreign subsidiaries, or persons in the U.S., are already prohibited from virtually all transactions involving Iran. Under IFCPA, U.S ...
In a Federal Register notice dated December 26, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Dept. of the Treasury updated its regulations to include prohibitions on foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations from doing business with Iran. 77 F.R. 75848. The amended regulations also make clear that penalties for trading with Iran by a foreign subsidiary can be imposed on its U.S. parent. Such penalties will not be applied if the U.S ...
On 17 December 2012 Treasury released a Consultation Paper on minimum governance standards for entities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC), as well as draft Regulations and an Explanatory Memorandum on financial reporting obligations and annual information statements for such entities ...
On November 22nd a law referred as Law against Corruption was published on the official Gazette (Decree number 31-2012 of Guatemalan Congress), which entered into force on November 30th, 2012. This law mainly incorporates amendments to the Criminal Codes, Law Against Organized Crime and Property Forfeiture Law ...
On October 31, 2012, the California Court of Appeal affirmed a finding that two chemicals classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as possibly carcinogenic pursuant to the Labor Code do not meet the standard for inclusion on the Proposition 65 list ...
The America Invents Act of 2011 (AIA) authorizes the U.S. Patent Office to create a new third tier of fees for patent prosecution and maintenance — "Micro Entity Status" — where fees may be reduced by up to 75 percent. Micro entities are eligible to pay fees 50 percent lower than those paid by small entities and 75 percent lower than those paid by large entities ...
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) recently published a questionnaire to gather feedback on how privacy seals might be used to improve data protection compliance and customer privacy awareness. The questionnaire is available online until November 30, 2012 ...
On November 22, 2012, the UK Ministry of Justice released a written ministerial statement (“Statement”) announcing the publication of its Government Impact Assessment on the European Commission’s legislative reform package on the EU data protection framework. The European Commission has claimed that a regulation implementing a single set of data protection rules across the European Union would save businesses around €2.3 billion a year ...
