Presidential Decree no. 229/20 of 8 September 2020 has been published and its aim is to reassess the measures imposed by Presidential Decree no. 142/20, considering the evolution of the epidemiological situation. The new decree renews most of the measures already in force, although it also eases some restrictions ...
Sadly, bullying and harassment in the workplace is nothing new. Indeed, a 2020 study found that 15% of people surveyed had been a victim of workplace bullying. Conversely, cyberbullying in the workplace is a relatively new phenomenon but it’s on the rise. What exactly is cyberbullying? Simply put, cyberbullying is any bullying, harassment or victimisation that involves a computer, phone or tablet ...
The International Trade Commission (ITC) sits in a nondescript office building about a block farther south of the National Mall than tourists usually care to venture. Patent owners come from around the country to this tree-lined street in Washington, D.C., to seek a powerful remedy to protect their patented products: an exclusion order. An exclusion order directs U.S. Customs and Border Protection to block infringing imports at the United States border ...
Coronavirus Digest no. 4 Patents and other intellectual property rights 1. Patents Moderna reveals that it may not hold the patent rights for the vaccine against Covid-19, because it was not the first to file the patents. This came after the US National Institute of Health claimed co-ownership of the rights to this vaccine. Read more here ...
On September 1, the California legislature sent to the Governor amendments to California’s Hazardous Waste Control Law. Once signed by the Governor, AB 2920 will allow retail hazardous waste to be shipped on a “consolidated manifest.” This simplified procedure has been available for specific types of hazardous waste such as used oil, but this is the first time it has applied a broad, general category such as “retail hazardous waste ...
Should employees be at liberty to remove trade secrets they created when they leave their employers? Think carefully, physical liberty might just be at stake. In his junior year at UC Berkeley, he built a prize-winning robot out of Legos to sort Monopoly money. Later, he entered the first ever two-wheeler in the DARPA Grand Challenge, an American autonomous vehicle competition funded by the US Department of Defense ...
On 12 August 2020, the Ministry of Commerce released via Circular the State Council approved Master Plan for the Comprehensive Deepening of the Pilot Programme for the Innovative Development of the Trade in Services together with a schedule of specific measures (2020 Plan). The 2020 Plan includes 8 pilot tasks and 122 specific measures to open, facilitate and support the innovative development of the Trade in Services ...
Law is an ever-evolving social construct and remains effective only insofar as it can be updated in a timely manner to keep up with real-life developments. The relevance of laws and their subject matter is always dictated by present-day realities and circumstances ...
It is no secret that the world has rapidly changed over the last several months. Many companies are reevaluating their business models to adjust to the challenges caused by the world-wide pandemic and to hopefully identify new business opportunities that may arise as a result of a new business environment ...
Key Points On Aug. 31, 2020, the California Assembly passed Assembly Bill 1281 (AB 1281). AB 1281, if signed, will guarantee that certain California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) exemptions will be extended beyond their initial deadline, December 2020. Importantly, AB 1281 will give covered businesses at least another year before they need to comply with CCPA’s provisions when collecting and using employee data or business-to-business related personal information ...
Key Points A permitting agency's blanket designation of an entire category of permit decisions as ministerial for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) may be held to be improper if the agency has the ability to modify or deny the permit based on any concern that may be examined under CEQA review. Courts will afford a larger degree of deference to an agency’s designation of a single permit decision as ministerial on a case-by-case basis ...
A wastewater facility on the island of Maui, Hawaii, collects sewage, treats it, and pumps the treated water through underground wells. The water then travels half a mile, through groundwater, into the Pacific Ocean. Must the facility possess an EPA permit to do this? In April, the Supreme Court of the United States answered this question with a rather drawn-out "maybe ...
At the beginning of astartup’slife,the use of financial resources in the most efficient way is of vital importance.It is for this reasonthatthe incentives that a country can provide to an entrepreneurand hisnewlyformed company can potentially determine how and how much that company willgrow ...
For the past decade or so, the regulated community and federal courts alike grappled with the outer reaches of the Clean Water Act (CWA) point source permitting program. The core of the program—the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)—is clear enough. Under the NPDES program, discharges from point sources to navigable waters (what qualifies as “navigable waters,” i.e ...
As many will know, Federal Law 18 of 1981 (the Commercial Agency Law; or CAL) regulates agency, distributorship and franchise relationships in the UAE, regardless of the nomenclature used to describe them ...
Following the announcement of the Abraham Accord with Israel, President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued Federal Decree Law 4 of 2020, repealing Federal Law 15 of 1972 (the Boycott Law). Brief overview of the Boycott Law Pursuant to the Boycott Law, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined the Arab League boycott of Israel (the Boycott) ...
BAG dated February 13, 2020 - 6 AZR 146/19 ("Air Berlin") In the context of collective redundancies, the term "company" is a legal term under European Union (EU) law and, with regard to the responsible employment agency, it focus particularly on the local effects of the intended dismissals. In the EU legal system, the term "company" is to be interpreted autonomously, uniformly and detached from the national understanding of the term ...
Regional Court of Nuremberg, decision of June 18, 2020 - 1 TaBV 33/19 The Regional Labor Court (Landesarbeitsgericht - LAG) of Nuremberg had to rule on a motion by a works council, in which the latter demanded that the discussions held with it be conducted only in German. At the same time, it demanded that all communication between the branch management and the employees be conducted in German. The Regional Court rejected both motions of the works council ...
Note on Circular Letter No. 002/DCC/2020 With the approval of Notice No. 2/2020, of January 2020 (“Notice 2/2020”), the National Bank of Angola (“BNA”) introduced greater flexibility in the foreign exchange sector, as it eliminated prior licensing and delegated the validation of the operations to the commercial banks. With the publication of the Circular Letter No ...
As reported in our inBrief of 15 April 2020, Federal Decree-Law 19 of 2018 on Foreign Direct Investment (the FDI Law) permits majority foreign investment in certain business sectors and activities. Although majority ownership is attractive, it is not the only factor that a potential foreign direct investor should consider. One additional factor is whether the proposed business would qualify for the 5% GCC customs duty exemption that is discussed below ...
The installation of CCTV cameras is a highly emotive and controversial issue in many countries. Hong Kong’s data privacy law does not contain any specific provisions regarding the use of CCTV, although the Privacy Commissioner (PC) has issued guidance on CCTV surveillance and the use of drones ...
The Limited Partnership Fund Ordinance (LPFO), which provides for registration of eligible funds as limited partnership funds (LPFs) in Hong Kong, will come into operation on 31 August 2020. The enactment of the LPFO is a very welcome development, and is part the Hong Kong government’s stated aim to enhance the competitiveness of Hong Kong in becoming a preferred centre for international asset and wealth managers in Asia ...
This Article was originally published in Issue 7.5 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. Companies around the globe are having to make urgent decisions to keep their employees safe and ensure business continuity in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to fulfil these goals, companies need to find the right balance between providing a safe working environment and respecting their employees’ privacy, which can prove to be quite difficult in practice ...
The summer holidays have already begun in most of the federal states or are about to begin. Due to the Corona pandemic, most holiday plans could not be realized during the Easter holidays. Although the travel warnings for most countries in the EU were lifted in time for the summer holidays, it is still not possible to enjoy "normal" holidays this year ...
Due to the Corona pandemic and the associated economic effects, numerous companies were forced to announce short-time work over the past few months. This raises the question for employers to what extent it is still possible to hire during short-time work and what effects this has on short-time working compensation. NEW HIRES DURING SHORT-TIME WORK First of all, a distinction must be made between new hires before and after the introduction of short-time work ...
