Earlier this year, the European Court of Justice ("CJEU") has thrown out an appeal by Nestlé, which argued that it owns the shape of its famous treat KitKat. Nestlé, the world's largest food and beverage company, has spent more than a decade fighting to trademark the four-fingered wafer shape. However, EJC's most recent ruling could bring an end to the snack's protected European status ...
Earlier this year, the government released a proposal paper: Extending Unfair Contract Terms Protections to Insurance Contracts outlining a model to extend unfair contract term (UCT) provisions to insurance contracts regulated under the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) (IC Act) for consultation. The consultation period closes on 27 July. A high level summary of the proposed model is below ...
After 16 public hearings over a five year period lasting through the tenure of three mayors, the largest San Francisco rezoning plan in ten years received a unanimous Planning Commission approval on May 10, 2018. On Monday of this week, the Land Use Committee of the Board of Supervisors had a first hearing to listen to testimony about plan ...
The Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) recently approved (on July 18, 2018), an amendment to the Israeli Restrictive Trade Practices Law, 5748-1988 (the “Law“) regarding parallel importing (the Restrictive Trade Practices Law (Amendment 20 – Temporary Order), 5778-2018) (the “Amendment“) ...
It has been announced that a new flagship court designed to tackle the legal issues of the future will open on Fleet Street, a short walk to our London offices. The new 18 court room legal centre providing world-class legal services focussing on cybercrime, fraud, economic crime, business and property crime and civil cases is expected to be completed in 2025 ...
In a significant decision for all public agencies, yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the First Amendment prohibits public employees from being compelled to pay what are known as “agency fees” when they choose not to join their union. Janus v. AFSCME, No. 16-1466 (June 27, 2018). In so holding, the Court overruled its 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209 (1977) ...
Employers may continue to rely on rounding systems that are neutral in policy and in practice. On June 25, 2018, the California Court of Appeal issued its decision in AHMC Healthcare, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (Letona), finding legal an employer's use of a payroll system that automatically rounds employee time up or down to the nearest quarter hour ...
Ferdose al-Taie, Dallas-based senior counsel in Dykema’s Commercial Litigation group, authored the article “Anonymous Whistleblowers Make Millions for Reporting Their Own Companies to Federal Regulators,” forFOCUS, the quarterly newsletter of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) South Central Texas Chapter. In the article, al-Taie shines a light on the ins and outs of Dodd-Frank Whistleblower awards and who is eligible for consideration ...
InLagos v. United States, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that limits the ability of corporate victims of fraud to seek reimbursement of legal fees for internal investigations. The case began when GE Capital discovered that Sergio Lagos falsified numerous invoices for his company, which he used as collateral to obtain tens of millions of dollars in loans from GE Capital ...
On June 21, in its much-anticipated decision inLucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the SEC’s Administrative Law Judges (“ALJs”) are officers under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The decision requires that, moving forward, SEC ALJs be constitutionally appointed rather than hired like other employees ...
The rule in the case of Royal British Bank v Turquand 1 is commonly known as Turquand’s Rule or the indoor management rule. It stipulates that an “outsider” dealing with a company in good faith is entitled to assume that there has been compliance with the Articles of Association. You can also assume compliance with the by laws of the company and that the “outsider” need not question the formalities of the internal proceedings of a company ...
After a sustained legislative marketing activity that started earlier this year, Government Emergency Ordinance 45/2018 amending and supplementing certain regulatory acts with impact on public procurement was published in the Official Gazette no. 459 ...
Earlier this year, Marcelin Fortier (hereinafter the “applicant”) sued his insurer in a case. The Superior Court rendered a decision1 whereby it reiterates the principles applicable to the notion of increased risk in insurance. The case also insisted on the importance of the questions asked by insurers at the time an insurance contract is purchased. On 8 January 2015, the applicant’s home was seriously damaged by fire ...
For years, corporate policyholders lacked a clear path to recovery against their insurance companies under the Texas bad faith statute. The reason for this uncertainty was that some courts required a showing of an injury independent from the loss of policy benefits as a means of recovery under the bad faith statute ...
In the Loop: With the Hanson Bridgett Government Group Many of us have had to request reimbursement from our company for an expense, which can be a pretty complicated process. For members of a legislative body, these rules can be even more specific. We'll think about Buddy, who sits on city council. Not long ago, the City gave Buddy a city-owned tablet to allow him to do his job remotely ...
On June 1, 2018, the Los Angeles County Superior Court granted a Defendant’s Motion to Compel Individual Arbitrations of the two Plaintiffs’ wage claims, dismissed the class claims and stayed the action with regard to the remaining Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) claim. The Court, in Navarrete v. Louis Vuitton, Case No ...
On June 1, 2018, the Los Angeles County Superior Court granted a Defendant’s Motion to Compel Individual Arbitrations of the two Plaintiffs’ wage claims, dismissed the class claims and stayed the action with regard to the remaining Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) claim. The Court, in Navarrete v. Louis Vuitton, Case No ...
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court recently addressed the standard to determine whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee in wage and hour disputes under California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage orders. In Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v ...
Last week I attended a student expulsion hearing and it reminded me that now might be a good time to provide some tips to county boards of education on these hearings. As we all know,W. Va. Code 18A-5-1a andState Policy 4373 require that a student be afforded a hearing before the county board of education prior to being expelled. Specifically,W. Va ...
This article will focus on the experience in practice and the evolution of privatizations of state and socially owned companies in Serbia in the period of transition and will assess the boundaries of arbitrability of disputes that arise out of the termination of privatization agreements. The term arbitrability will be analysed from a broader perspective, as opposed to the traditional and commonly used meaning of this term - whether a certain dispute is suitable for arbitration ...
The California Legislature is considering legislation that would, if enacted, prohibit public agencies that form a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) from contracting out of liability for the JPA's pension obligations. Backed by CalPERS, AB 1912 was introduced early this year partly in response to drastic CalPERS pension cuts for former employees of LA Works, a dissolved job-training JPA ...
In the decision in Rustenburg Platinum Mine and SAEWA obo Meyer Bester and Others, the Constitutional Court dealt with the question of whether an employee referring to a colleague as a “swart man” (“black man”), within the facts set out below, constituted misconduct justifying dismissal.The adjacent large 4x4 vehiclesThe employee in this matter, Mr Bester, was employed by the Rustenburg Platinum Mine (the “employer”) ...
“The framework agreement is an agreement whereby the contracting parties define and establish the main rules and conditions that will govern future agreements that will be concluded between them and that are called agreements “for the application” or “for the enforcement” of the framework agreement.” (High Court of Cassation and Justice Decision n0 ...
The political dispute between Qatar and its neighbors escalated with the announcement by Qatar that it would impose a ban on goods from the four boycotting countries, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt. As we reported earlier, these four countries imposed a trade embargo on Qatar. The measures that were introduced prohibited the direct shipment of goods and the direct transport of passengers to or from Qatar and closed the land border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia ...
