As anyone who’s interested in trade mark law knows, it is possible to protect product shapes through trade mark registrations, but it isn’t easy. In some countries, it’s particularly difficult, as two recent cases show. Vespa Let's start with the positive news. Piaggio recently secured an important victory in its home country, with an Italian court ruling that a three-dimensional trade mark registration for the shape of the famous Vespa scooter is valid ...
On 22 May 2017, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (“JSE”) announced that it has made amendments to the JSE Listings Requirements in relation to the adoption of the King IV Report on Corporate Governance and other governance arrangements, including a race diversity policy and the publication of a compliance report pursuant to the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (“B-BBEE”) Amendment Act, 2013 ...
In this article we outline 12 key elements that are critical components of a rock-solid compliance program for participants in commodity markets. We start with creating a “culture of regulatory compliance,” which pervades a company from top to bottom, and then work our way through day-to-day policies and steps you can take to minimize your company’s risk of non-compliance ...
An overview of mergers and acquisitions in Poland. The process, structure and parties to M&A deals, legal restrictions and tax aspects, discussed clearly and accessibly. What to bear in mind, and what details require special focus. The M&A practice at Wardynski & Partners has prepared a guide to mergers and acquisitions in Poland. In less than 60 pages, we highlight the issues vital to the success of the deal ...
The Battleground: On one side of the battlefield, positioned on the lofty heights of moral superiority, the asset managers (and academics) lob propaganda leaflets pointing out their greater firepower in the form of smug principle and the dollar value of their total assets under management. Their opponents are a motley crew. There are the Startup Upstarts, whose uniform is expensive sneakers and untidy man-buns ...
The recent storm in the UK about Scottish craft brewing company BrewDog’s decision to invoke its trade mark rights against much smaller rivals highlights the difficulties and negative repercussions that can arise when it comes to enforcing trade mark rights. BrewDog has been extraordinarily successful ...
Recent developments in the UK regarding plain-packaging requirements for cigarettes have again shone the spotlight on this contentious issue. A while back, we reported on developments in Australia, where the country’s Tobacco Plain Packaging Act, 2011 requires tobacco companies to sell their products in identical olive green packs, with graphic images reflecting the possible health consequences of smoking, and the brand name (sans logo) in very small script ...
The Chilean Economic Development Agency, Corfo, and the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency, InvestChile, have announced the opening of the first call for national and foreign companies, to express their interest in manufacturing lithium products, such as battery cathodes and electrolytes. Companies that are selected will be guaranteed 25 per cent of US producer Albemarle’s lithium production at the lowest cost available in the market ...
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, We would like to inform you that the Federal Antimonopoly Service (hereinafter - "FAS Russia") proposes to exempt from inspections such companies that have effective antimonopoly compliance systems. FAS Russia also intends to implement a risk-oriented approach and develops criteria for the companies to be included in the list of scheduled inspections. According to the Deputy Head of FAS Russia Mr ...
Competition authority imposes fines on ViktoriaOil and Vital, the leading producers of cooking oil in Serbia. The authority stated in its decision that the two companies entered into a joint production agreement that featured restrictive provisions. In particular, the authority claims that the provisions effected the exchange of information and joint production and sales in a way that led to increased prices to end consumers ...
In February, in an article on the 2017 South African budget review, we wrote that the government had proposed that companies and individuals no longer required approval from the South African Reserve Bank (“SARB”) for “standard intellectual property transactions” and that the “loop structure restriction for all intellectual property transactions” be lifted, provided that such transactions are arm's length and at a fair market price ...
The recent South African Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) decision of Herbal Zone v Infitech Technologies doesn’t contain ground-breaking law. However, the SCA’s passing-off judgments are rare, so it is a case worth discussing. The lessons to be learnt from this decision are that it’s important to get the basics right – make sure that a trade mark is registered and ensure that there is a clear agreement between the trade mark owner and the distributor ...
There have been some encouraging developments following Mauritius’ announcement that it planned to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights (“IPR”), amid global concerns. For example, much-awaited amendments to industrial property law, including incorporating international treaties, have been effected. As a result, the government’s vision of an efficient and equitable IP system may come to fruition this year ...
Post-arbitral award procedures in Tanzania are governed by a number of pieces of legislation, including the Arbitration Act, the Arbitration Rules, 1957 and the Civil Procedure Code (the “CPC”). The High Court of Tanzania is the only forum for the enforcement of arbitral awards. Below, we summarise the process for the filing, registration, enforcement and possible challenge to post-arbitral awards ...
The South African Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (“B-BBEE”) Commission recently issued a non-binding practice guide regarding the enhanced recognition status for exempted micro-enterprises (“EMEs”) and qualifying small enterprises (“QSEs”) through the application of the modified flow-through principle ...
On 31 March 2017, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (“ICASA”) published Government Gazette no. 40759 for comment, a discussion document in relation to equity ownership by historically disadvantaged groups and application of the ICT Sector Code in terms of section 4(b) of the ICASA Act, 2000 ...
On April 17, 2017 the President of the Russian Federation signed a draft law setting a differentiation of penalties for conclusion of anticompetitive agreements. The draft law will come into force on April 28, 2017. The draft law provides different administrative fines for conclusion of different types of anticompetitive agreements depending on degree of social danger: as the social danger of the anticompetitive agreement decreases, the administrative penalty will be reduced ...
The Oberlandesgericht Celle has recently adopted a decision that is likely to be of particular interest to hospitals which are not, in principle, public contracting authorities within the meaning of the law, but which are used by public authorities to pay more than 50 percent for the construction of hospitals pursuant to Section 99, 4 of the GWB (decision ref. 13 G 8/16). In the decided case, the client planned to modernize a hospital in three construction phases ...
For several years now, a leniency model exists in Macedonia and it is shaped in line with the EU leniency model. Nevertheless, theMacedonian Competition Commission("Commission") decided to refine the existing rules (contained in the Law on Protection of Competition and the accompanying Leniency Regulation) by recently adopting the Leniency Guidelines ("Guidelines") ...
A team led by Dr. Guido Hoffmann, LL.M., has been involved in structuring the transaction, corporate, labor and commercial law in a takeover offer for the German wheel manufacturer Uniwheheels Questions and due diligence. The takeover offer is valid for 100 percent of the outstanding Uniwheheels shares and takes place with the consent of the owner of 61 percent of the shares. The takeover is conditional on Superior acquiring at least 75 percent of the shares in Uniwheels AG ...
The European Commission has made a proposal for a directive that is intended to update copyright law to cope with the modern age in which online services are becoming increasingly important. The proposal is part of the 'Digital Single Market Strategy' of the EU: a set of initiatives to create a free trans-border market for online trade and content. The proposed directive (“DSM directive”) supplements the current Copyright Directive with a number of regulations ...
