A Q&A guide to dispute resolution law in the United Arab Emirates.The country-specific Q&A gives a structured overview of the key practical issues concerning dispute resolution in this jurisdiction, including court procedures; fees and funding; interim remedies (including attachment orders); disclosure; expert evidence; appeals; class actions; enforcement; cross-border issues; the use of ADR; and any reform proposals. Main dispute resolution methods1 ...
Gareth Bale has been in the news last week for transferring to Real Madrid in a record £85m deal. Less well known is that at the beginning of August he successfully registered as a UK trade mark a logo based on his signature goal celebration. His Eleven of Hearts logo is registered against several classes of goods including precious metals, jewellery, clothing, footwear and even parasols and walking sticks ...
In commercial contracts there is often a ‘waterfall’ clause, which provides for a dispute escalation process prior to the commencement of formal legal proceedings, leaving litigation as the last resort. Such clauses were determined to be legally binding in Cable & Wireless Plc v IBM United Kingdom Ltd [2002] EWHC 2059 (Comm) ...
In recent years, NASA has spent millions, if not billions, of dollars developing what they call “US commercial crew space capabilities” – in ordinary terms they want to make it easier to access the International Space Station from Earth. In trying to achieve this aim they have entered into various commercial agreements under the National Aeronatics and Space Act, known as Space Act Agreements (SAAs), instead of using more traditional form commercial contracts ...
On 25 January 2012, the European Commission decided that a substantial overhaul of data protection regulation is required and issued its proposals for change. The proposals are currently making their way through the legislative process in Brussels but, once approved, are expected to take effect at some point in 2014 ...
Guarantees are a common feature in commercial leases. A guarantor will guarantee a tenant’s obligations under a lease, for example the payment of rent. This provides security to the landlord and can help to maintain continuity of rental income regardless of the default or insolvency of the tenant. However, problems can arise with enforcement of guarantees where the obligations being guaranteed have been changed without the guarantor’s consent ...
Use of a domain name: is it a form of advertising? Following the decision in Case C-657/11 (Belgian Electronic Sorting Technology BV v Bert Peelaers, Visys NV), the rules of fairness imposed by European Directives 84/450 and 2006/114 on misleading and comparative advertising will extend to cover not just the content of a web site, but the domain name at which it is registered as well. See our commentary here ...
Under EU Directive 2001/29 on the harmonisation of copyright law, Member States grant authors, performers, producers and broadcasting organisations exclusive rights to authorise or prohibit reproductions of their own works ...
Businesses in the UK have for some time been subject to strict rules on misleading advertising, contained in the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 (the “BPRs”) ...
Personal data regulation is a recently developed topic in the legal realm. In 1970, the first laws on the matter were issued in Europe and North America. Specifically, the first data protection law called the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz was issued in Germany on October 7, 1970, and the same year the United States Congress issued the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which controls the collection, use and redistribution of any consumer information ...
The insolvency of one or other of the parties to a dispute has become commonplace in recent times, particularly in construction related disputes. Practitioners are becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the implications of insolvency on procedure and the potential remedies available ...
Internal investigations are a central part of the crisis management response, and whilst the form and structure of the investigation will depend on the type of crisis, investigations will generally focus on identifying root causes and those with responsibility for the crisis ...
ICANN is expected to announce the first set of successful applications and list of new generic top level domains later this summer. Before the new generic top level domains can be delegated, the applications need to go through an initial evaluation phase and any objections against those applications need to be addressed. Infact, the first decisions on legal rights objections to applications for new generic top level domains were only recently published by WIPO ...
The Minister of Finance has issued Regulation No. 37/PMK.04/2013 on Duty-Free Shops on 27 February 2013, which implements Article 48 of Government Regulation No. 32 of 2009 on Bonded Storehouses (Tempat Penimbunan Berikat). The Regulation will effectively be applied 90 days since the issuance date ...
Statute of limitations for appeal of public auction contractsThe Higher Commercial Court recently clarified several issues relating to the statute of limitations for appeals of public auction contracts. (Higher Commercial Court of Ukraine Resolution 10 ("On Certain Practical Issues of Statute of Limitation Application"), May 29 2013 ...
While arbitration offers an excellent means for parties to get their disputes settled faster than in traditional courts, how you draft the arbitration clause in a document is critically important for a positive outcome – should a dispute arise. Legal agreements often have a clause indicating that parties agree to settle any disputes arising from the arrangement in arbitration. The text for this clause is frequently supplied by a local arbitration institute ...
Counterfeiting continues to make the news. Locally, we’ve just had a report of a R10 million bust in the Vereeniging area, during which fake soaps, shampoos, clothing and bags were seized, and seven suspects from Malawi, Mozambique and China (no surprises there), were taken into custody.But we are increasingly getting reports of counterfeiting in product areas that go way beyond the traditional stomping ground of FMCG and luxury goods ...
We recently had a Namibian court decision in a passing off matter, in the case of Mega Power Centre CC t/a Talisman Plant and Tool Hire v Talisman Franchise Operations (Pty) Ltd. The decision is interesting for a number of reasons. First, passing off cases are fairly rare, so any new decision is welcome ...
There were two recent decisions – one in the USA and one in the UK – which dealt with the important but seldom-discussed concept of patent exhaustion. Patent exhaustion in essence means this: the initial authorised sale of a patented item terminates all patent rights to that item, for the reason that the owner of the patent (the patentee) has been rewarded for its ingenuity by that sale ...
Legal succession of banksUkrainian legislation prescribes a special reorganisation procedure for banks that, among other things, requires banks to:• develop a reorganisation plan;• obtain approval for internal statute changes from the National Bank of Ukraine; and• conduct an audit to ensure the correctness of transfers (for mergers and acquisitions) or the demerger balance sheet (for spin-offs and transfers) ...
IntroductionIn the course of implementing the visa liberalisation regime with the European Union, Parliament recently passed several anti-corruption laws, including the Law on Criminal Liability of Legal Entities. The law introduced amendments to the Criminal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Law on Principles of Prevention and Combating Corruption and the Law on Ensuring the Safety of Those Involved in Criminal Proceedings ...
You’ve seen all the articles about the Supreme Court’s decision in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. and the end of DNA patents, but what does this mean outside the biotech world? It means more insight into patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. While Myriad does not affect business method and software patents, it is indicative of the general trend of the Supreme Court with respect to the threshold required to obtain a valid patent ...
