With investors such as the Scottish Investment Bank, the soon-to-be-launched Scottish National Investment Bank and the Epidarex Life Sciences Fund all increasingly paying attention to the life sciences sector against the backdrop of an increasingly competitive life sciences market in Scotland, now is a great time to consider whether your business is ready for investment, and how it could be standing out in order to attract investors ...
The Abu Dhabi Global Market (the ADGM) recently announced the launch of a commercial license specifically catered towards tech start-ups that allows entrepreneurs to obtain an operational license in the ADGM and access to a Professional Services Support Program aimed at allowing entrepreneurs entry to a community of businesses, financial services and professional advisors ...
Brick and mortar retailers are rapidly diversifying checkout and payment methods to combat the erosion of sales to online channels and provide an improved shopping experience for consumers. From self-checkout kiosks, to store-specific mobile applications for payment, scan-as-you-go devices, and even ‘just walk out’ models, retailers are reinventing consumer’s notions of the traditional checkout line by going cashierless ...
It is now more than four months since the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became law in all member states of the European Union. Time for an initial and brief interim assessment, and to outline the data protection challenges currently facing companies. Feared spamigation has not materialized To date, the widely feared mass sending of cease-and-desist letters (spamigation) has largely failed to materialize ...
At the beginning of September, the Israeli Innovation Authority, a division of the Israeli Ministry of Economy and Industry and the successor to the Office of Chief Scientist “IIA”, issued new rules “New Rules”. The “New Rules” regarded the licensing of know-how developed and obtained by Israeli companies that received grants from the IIA “Funded Companies”, to multinational corporations ...
Following a short period of public consultation, the Telecommunications and Other Amendments (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 (Cth) (Bill) has been introduced into Parliament. Despite the extensive public concerns raised with the Exposure Draft version, only a small number of amendments have been made to the Bill. Following extensive submissions and much debate, the 'decryption Bill' has now been introduced into Parliament ...
Under newly enacted Section 1400Z of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the “Code”), beginning on December 22, 2017, taxpayers may defer, and in some cases partially eliminate, capital gains by making certain investments in “qualified opportunity zones.” A qualified opportunity zone is a “population census tract” in a state designated low-income community ...
Many companies are currently facing challenges in relation to the GDPR compliance of their video surveillance. Main issues in this respect are questions related to transparency requirements and information notices, the need for a data protection impact assessment as well as questions concerning retention requirements and retention periods. The German Federal Labor Court (BAG) has recently commented on the admissible storage duration of lawful video recordings ...
Many South Africans, I suspect, find Brexit both boring and incomprehensible. All that endless talk of customs unions, free trade agreements, hard borders, borders in the Irish Sea..!But one really interesting thing that has emerged from the endless news stories is just how important intellectual property (“IP”) is in all of this ...
Patent landscaping: the road to success Patent landscaping analysis, or patent mapping, involves the electronic search and analysis of the vast amount of available online published patent data in order to extract meaningful and valuable technical, business and legal information ...
Who’s interested in Primark? Is it simply those South Africans who can afford to travel to the UK, only to find that, thanks to the weakness of the rand, the only shop they can afford is ... Primark? The recent Supreme Court of Appeal (“SCA”) decision in the matterTruworths Ltd v Primark Holdingspertaining to well-known trade marks is of significance ...
Punitive proposed amendment to South Africa’s transfer pricing provisions Transfer pricing is a self-assessment mechanism that aims to ensure that taxpayers identify all potential cross-border transactions, operations, schemes, agreements or understandings that have been entered into between connected persons (referred to as “potentially affected transactions”), to ensure that all such potentially affected transactions have been concluded and implemented on an arm&rsqu
The Companies Amendment Bill, 2018 (the "Bill") was released for public comment by the Minister of Trade and Industry on 21 September 2018. The Bill, if introduced in its current form, proposes a number of changes to the Companies Act, 2008. This snapshot review deals with only our “big five” amendments. 1 ...
WTF®: a trade mark perspective on millennial gibberish bySamera Naidoo ICYMI, Proctor & Gamble ("P&G") recently applied to register a whole lot of text/SMS talk abbreviations as trade marks. It caused a real storm and the mainstream press absolutely loved it! FOMOalert! DWAI, I’ll bring you up to speed...what happened here was that P&G applied to register some really unlikely trade marks including WTF, LOL, FML, NBD ...
France has taken steps to set up a dedicated frame for cryptocurrency transactions aiming at conciliating legal certainty, market integrity and innovation. Capitalizing on best market practices, a recent bill defines an optional visa regime for ICOs, while a report commissioned by the French government sets forth principles of minimum regulations. Taxwise, the French Administrative Supreme Court has just ruled in favour of investors in Bitcoins ...
In the framework of a globalized world and social networks that are established as a measure of possible interest of economic, social and political groups, data protection regulations become more relevant ...
A key quality for a successful attorney, leader of an organization, claims professional or human resource professional requires effective negotiation skills to resolve conflict and disputes. Negotiating over 1,000 such disputes as an attorney and mediator has been a tremendous education on how to successfully resolve disputes and conflict ...
Not all matters will be appropriate for mediation. There are situations in which mediation is likely to fail: When parties let their egos control. When there is a misunderstanding of the facts. When there is a misunderstanding of the law. There is no incentive for settlement. When parties do not respect the process ...
Help your Mediator to help you and your client The relationship between the mediator and the parties must be clearly defined and be based in trust. Before a mediator is selected to host mediation, the parties should agree on what type of mediation they would like to engage in and who is the best mediator for that goal ...
Define the terms of fair Approaching mediation or negotiations requires that the parties agree on what criteria to use to determine what is a fair agreement. Determining these criteria before engaging in negotiations will help parties to articulate the basis for their positions. It can also help to ease tensions and rationalize the process. The criteria must be objective, legitimate and practical. Complicated formulas or unreasonable positions will complicate the discussion ...
Work with the People to Solve the Problem When approaching mediation, parties need to work together to tackle the problem, not each other. The goal is to be soft on the people and hard on the problem. Failing to interact with the other party sensitively, can be catastrophic to building or maintaining a working relationship. Knowing the other side personally helps to build cordiality. Find ways to meet them informally before the negotiation, arrive early to chat or linger afterwards ...
Stay focused on the interest, not on your position. Define the problem; you decide on your position. For every interest there usually exist several possible satisfying solutions to adequately address those interests. Remember that behind opposed positions lie shared and often compatible interests ...
In order to accomplish this important task, the following are steps to follow: A. Make a list of other sides’ interest. It will help your remember them and stimulate ideas for how to meet such needs B. Communicate your interests when they are in conflict. Help the other side to see just how important and legitimate your interests are. Be specific and objective. Convince them they would feel the same in your shoes and recognize how you might feel in their shoes ...
To achieve this step in the process, set aside time to create a wide range of solutions that advance shared interest. This can be done before and during your negotiation or mediation. There are 4 major obstacles which inhibit consideration of options: Premature judgment Hinders imagination and possibilities ...
