Yuppies – do they confuse you? Late last year, the South African Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) handed down an important trade mark judgment in Yuppiechef Holdings (Pty) Ltd v Yuppie Gadgets Holdings (Pty) Ltd. The case dealt with that thorny issue that bedevils so many trade mark cases – confusing similarity. The facts were fairly straightforward. Yuppiechef is an online retail business that specialises in kitchen and household goods ...
In our previous articles (part one, part two and part three), we discussed ways in which trademarks are maintained and protected through filings that are mandatory and which filings would result in abandonment or cancellation if not timely submitted. There are also optional filings a trademark owner can take advantage of to optimize and secure its rights under a U.S. trademark registration. An Affidavit of Incontestability Under Section 15 is one such method ...
By: Matthew Ginder, Esq. As the general election approaches in November, Florida voters will have the opportunity to decide on the state’s adult-use marijuana initiative identified on the ballot as Amendment 3. In the most expensive state marijuana legalization effort to date, there have been various narratives about Amendment 3. This blog is intended to clarify important aspects of Amendment 3 ...
As seen in Bank Director Banks should not wait on lawmakers taking action on the myriad of proposed cannabis banking bills to make important strategic decisions about servicing marijuana-related business. It is unclear if any of the proposed cannabis banking bills will gain enough traction and support in Washington to pass through Congress. Despite the inaction, a growing number of financial institutions are choosing to provide banking services to the cannabis industry ...
On January 20, 2017, in a case of first impression among the appellate courts, a panel of the Ninth Circuit concluded in Syed v. M-I, LLC (Case No. 14-17186) that an employer violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) when its background check disclosure/authorization document includes a sentence that releases the employer, the consumer reporting agency (the vendor), and their agents from liability for any violations of the FCRA ...
The U.S. General Services Administration recently added Green Globes as an additional third-party green building certification system for federal government construction projects. With this addition, many are now asking about the difference between Green Globes and LEED. Green Globes has emerged, in some parts of the U.S., as a rival building option to the more well-known Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (“LEED”) system ...
Parties in the process of arbitrating disputes, thinking of commencing arbitration, or even thinking of including arbitration provisions in a contract have been given a lot to think about, thanks to the changes introduced by Decree 34 of 2021. It is early days yet, and we need to see how matters develop. With that caveat out of the way, here is a rough guide of what Decree 34 could mean for parties in arbitration in the UAE ...
Trends IT contracts An increasing number of clients have requested aid in purchasing either cloud service technology or offering cloud services to the market. We have seen a significant shift from on-premise solutions (i.e. local servers on customer premises) to public cloud and multi-tenant cloud solutions. Initially, customers pushed suppliers to offer cloud solutions. Now we see the opposite: suppliers pushing customers (who are not always ready for this) into the cloud ...
The transaction pace and volume of 2021 was the silver lining of the Covid-19 overcast, keeping our clients and us busy and productive. Particularly the container ship market has been steaming hot, with rapidly increasing prices and high transaction volume. The bulker market has also seen the highest prices for the last decade, with correspondingly high transaction volume ...
The first half of 2021 was marked by the highest level of commercial real estate transactions ever. The latest reports and statistics show that this trend has continued in the last six months, and the total transaction volume is likely to exceed NOK 130-150 billion. This surpasses the record year of 2015, when the total transaction volume for commercial real estate was NOK 129 billion. The pandemic caused increased use of home office ...
First of all, we are proud of Jan Magne Langseth and Christian Reusch who assisted Bank Norwegian in a principle matter before the Supreme Court of Norway between Ikano Bank et al versus Bank Norwegian. The case concerned the use of competitor’s brands in key word advertising on Google ...
Media DNS-blocking of gaming sites proposal The Ministry of Culture submitted a proposal on 21 September 2021, which seeks to give the Norwegian Gambling Authority cause to force ISPs to enforce DNS blocking of unlicensed gaming sites that market their services to Norwegian players ...
Record number of fines in 2021 At European level, a record number of fines have been issued during 2021 for violating the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Since the GDPR entered into force in the EU on 25 May 2018, the supervisory authorities have imposed or notified fines in approx. 900 cases with an accumulated amount of approx. EUR 1.3 billion. As many as 500 of these cases are from 2021 with accumulated fines of as much as EUR 1 ...
Gap between buyers’ and sellers’ valuation In the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transactions market slowed down, and many drew similarities to the M&A and IPO markets in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. In March 2020, many deals were aborted or shelved as buyers’ and sellers’ price expectations did not meet. The uncertainty of the pandemic led to the traditional tools for bridging valuation gaps between parties being rendered useless ...
We have in 2021 seen a remarkable (continued) recovery in the Norwegian financial market. This is also evident from the perspective of our banking and financing team. We have assisted our clients with a considerable number of new financings and refinancings, across most sectors. It has especially been hectic within the shipping, aviation and renewable energy sectors and we have seen a steep increase within acquisition financing ...
Until recently there was a significant amount of confusion and uncertainty on whether or not it is trade mark infringement for a search engine to allow certain 'keywords' to be sponsored by a third party who is not the trademark owner. The above scenario was encountered in the recent case of Wilson v Yahoo UK Limited where Mr Wilson was the owner of several Community trade marks under the name 'Mr Spicy' ...
Physicians, physician assistants, and advance practice nurses who have sought to treat opioid-addicted patients with Schedule III-V Controlled Substances that have been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for that indication have had to apply for a waiver under the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000. Eligible medications are presently limited to buprenorphine-containing products such as Suboxone and Subutex ...
[!<CDATA[ In May of this year, the Supreme Court of Wyoming held that a subsidiary of Sinclair Oil could invoke statutory bad faith damages after prevailing in a coverage dispute with its insurer, Infrassure. The court rejected the district court’s analysis that accepted the insurer’s narrow interpretation of Wyoming’s insurance code ...
In the latest development relating to West Virginia’s new aboveground storage tank (“AST”) legislation, on December 22, 2014, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State its proposed legislative rule implementing the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), 47 C.S.R. 63 ...
In the latest development relating to West Virginia’s new aboveground storage tank (“AST”) legislation, yesterday afternoon the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State its finalized Interpretive Rule outlining mechanisms for compliance with the imminent deadlines under the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), W. Va. Code §§ 22-30-1 et seq ...
