The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”) provided a safe harbor to shield website owners, ISP’s, and other online service providers from certain claims for copyright infringement based on user generated content. This safe harbor has been very successful ...
Afridi & Angell has recently successfully assisted two individuals in becoming forgotten. Put another way, we were able to convince the Dubai Financial Services Authority (the DFSA) that the names of the individuals should be removed from public documents available on the DFSA website. These included published regulatory actions (in the form of enforceable undertakings) and DFSA media releases ...
A new item has been added to the extensive catalogue of the firm’s publications. In our Outlook on law and business in Poland we discuss trends in changes in the law, such as increased regulatory pressure and increased penalisation of commerce. These are illuminated by concrete examples from practice and conclusions concerning the consequences of these phenomena that can be expected to occur or are already happening ...
Earlier this year, right in a last minute attempt to win undecided voters for one of the political parties, the leaving members of parliament enacted a new tax law. While fundamental changes to the Austrian Tenancy Law had been vividly discussed between the socialist and the conservative parties in recent years, the new law on the abolition of stamp duty falls completely short of what could have been achieved ...
It has been almost two years since Republic Act No. 10667, otherwise known as the Philippine Competition Act (the PCA), took effect on August 8, 2015 ...
Central America is at an inflection point regarding acceptable compliance and conformity. Among all the anxiety and instability that change will bring, it is welcoming to see that separate disciplines are pushing towards similar objectives in Corporate Governance. A quick discussion on Director´s Responsibility provides a glimpse on how new Governance issues will reshape slanted interpretations of the law ...
The issue of the jurisdiction of the South African Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) to determine matters involving individuals and companies that don’t belong to the body has now been resolved by an agreement that has been made an order of the Supreme Court of Appeal in the case of Advertising Standards Authority v Herbex (Pty) Ltd ...
The recent spat between Yoko Ono and a Polish drinks company highlights the importance of registering trade marks.What happened in this matter was that John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, threatened a small Polish lemonade manufacturer with legal action. The issue? The product that the Polish company sells in a number of European countries is called John Lemon ...
South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) has handed down an important trade mark judgment. The case of PepsiCo Inc v Atlantic Industries deals with the issues of distinctiveness and likelihood of confusion, with a special emphasis on sub-brands. There are a lot of important points in this short judgment, so I am going to quote liberally.The facts: PepsiCo applied to register the trade mark Pepsi Twist (with and without a device) for soft drinks ...
There was a time when companies were sceptical about IP protection in China, with the general impression being that the law was heavily weighted in favour of local companies, some of whom seemed to make a habit of hijacking foreign brands. But things have changed considerably over the past few years, and a recent trade mark development should further persuade African businesses that their IP rights, and particularly their trade marks, will be properly protected in China ...
Dubai is the fastest growing healthcare market within the GCC and is becoming an increasingly attractive sector for investors. In this inBrief article we explain the key drivers behind this growth and set out the options available to investors wishing to enter the Dubai healthcare market ...
Are bidders required to partner with a Taiwan company to participate in the bidding process? Foreign companies may participate in the bidding process on their own, so long as they meet the bidding qualifications. Most public engineering projects permit either bidding by a single company or by a joint bid. So long as a company is able to meet the qualifications for the procurement project, it may submit a bid on its own ...
On September 21, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued new guidance on compliance with pay ratio disclosure requirements, including an SEC release (“Interpretative Release”), commentary from the SEC staff in question and answer format (“Q&A”) and updated Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations (“C&DIs”) ...
The UAE has issued substantive law on Value Added Tax (VAT) and Excise Tax. Federal decree law No.8 of 2017 deals with VAT. The imposition of VAT will commence in the UAE from 1 January 2018 at a rate of 5%. The VAT law provides a framework for implementation of VAT in the UAE ...
Under RERA, the promoter of a real estate project is obliged to obtain the requisite insurance policies required to secure the development of project and insurances as may be notified by the government. The lack of transparency and uniformity in the Indian real estate market has done little to entice insurance companies from tapping into lucrative land deals and developing insurance products for the real estate sector ...
As seen in IP Watchdog We’ve all seen a seemingly happy technology marriage end in acrimonious divorce. Often those things can be avoided by careful advance planning, and proper cultivation of the nascent and the resulting product, and a carefully articulated plan for alliance management ...
As seen in IPWatchdog If we are to encourage invention and promote investment in innovation and the formation of new enterprises, we must provide a system of laws that recognize intellectual property as having all the attributes of other forms of personal private property. On Licensing In his seminal work “On War”, Karl Von Clausewitz described war as merely the continuation of politics by other means ...
September 22, 2017 Dear Madam or Sir, We hereby inform you that recently Federal Law dated 01.07.2017 No. 155-FZ (“155-FZ”) and Federal Law dated 18.07.2017 No. 165-FZ (“165-FZ”) have been adopted and became effective, introducing significant amendments to Federal Law dated 29.04.2008 No ...
In line with the state policy set out in the Philippines Constitution to recognise the indispensable role of the private sector in national growth, encourage private enterprise and provide incentives to attract needed investment, the Philippine government has long resorted to public-private partnerships (PPPs) to address problems of national interest ...
The Form ADV amendments adopted August 25, 2016 become effective October 1, 2017. Therefore, advisers filing an initial Form ADV or an amendment to an existing Form ADV will be required to provide responses to the Form ADV revisions beginning October 1, 2017. Advisers that may be required to make an other-than-annual amendment filing beginning October 1, 2017 have noted that in certain cases the information may not be available to respond to the revised Form ADV ...
On 15 September 2017, the South African Minister of Economic Development, Ebrahim Patel, published Government Notices no. 1003 and 1005, which announced increases to the intermediate merger thresholds and merger filing fees. These increases will be effective from 1 October 2017 ...
If you have a credit report, there is a good chance that you are one of the 143 million American consumers whose sensitive personal information was exposed in a data breach at Equifax, one of the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies ...
We have seen emerging markets in Central and Eastern Europe opening up and developing quite quickly. Some of them have done so through their ascension to the European Union and others by organising their legislation in accordance with European standards, opening up borders, having foreign investors come in, as well as putting in place free trade agreements and investment incentives. Of course, transitional economies traditionally have a lot to offer to foreign investors ...
The private joint stock company is one of the forms of company contemplated by UAE Federal Law No. 2 of 2015 concerning commercial companies (the Companies Law). The UAE Federal Ministry of Economy has now promulgated Ministerial Decision No. 539 of 2017 (the Ministerial Decision) which was issued on 29 May 2017 and is now in force, and expressly abrogates Ministerial Decision No ...
On August 29, 2017, the Mexican Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público) grantedCentral de Corretajes(“CENCOR”) a new concession to operate a new stock exchange in Mexico. This new stock exchange will be calledBolsa Institucional de Valores(“BIVA”). It is anticipated that BIVA will initiate operations in early 2018 ...
