A recent opinion from the Court of Appeals of Georgia illustrates that contracts entered into with an unlicensed contractor, which are often unenforceable by an unlicensed contractor under many states’ laws, likely will not defeat the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) deference to arbitration as the forum for determining whether a contract is valid and enforceable. In Jhun v. Imagine Castle, LLC, the Jhuns hired defendant Imagine Castle to perform remodeling work at their home ...
A pair of recent rulings involving the economic loss doctrine from North Carolina serve as a timely reminder to carefully consider the extent of contractual remedies in negotiation of construction agreements – lest a later breach of contract remedy prove insufficient, and further recovery barred by the economic loss doctrine ...
We have been involved in several noteworthy trademark and unfair competition disputes throughout 2021. In particular, we prevailed before the Supreme Court in a highly cited unfair competition and trademark dispute between Bank Norwegian AS and the three competing banks Komplett Bank, Ikano Bank, and BRA-bank in the «Google Ads» matter ...
The case concerned the use of competitor’s brands in key word advertising on Google. Ikano Bank and two banks in the consumer loan market demanded that Bank Norwegian’s advertising on the Internet using the banks’ characteristics as paid keywords should be prohibited pursuant to the general clause of the Marketing Act. The principle character of the case was demonstrated by the support from Virke, The Federation of Norwegian Enterprise, in favor of the three claimants ...
The court of appeal’s decision has been referred to by several law firms as an important clarification that such internal notes are indeed encompassed by privilege and not disclosable. We do of course agree that maintaining trust in the attorney-client privilege is important, but in this context, it was hardly a point that needed clarification ...
With just seven days left until Christmas Day, there’s no denying we are well in the midst of the festive build up. But, for those holding out for a special ‘I Do’ surprise this year, Christmas might just come a bit earlier than expected. Predictions made previously by Bridebook [1] show that the weekend before Christmas is when most intending spouses do, in fact, pop the question ...
It may seem logical that personal injury damages awarded for someone’s on-going medical needs following a serious injury would be ring-fenced on a divorce. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. The leading authority on this point is Wagstaff v Wagstaff from 1992 in which, when referencing an attempt to ring-fence damages on divorce, it was stated that “the capital is not sacrosanct nor any part of it secured against the application of the other spouse” ...
Ahead of the 2021 holiday season, as children dream about the toys that Santa Claus will bring them, let?s take a look back at a landmark decision that reviews what is copyrightable under the Copyright Act ...
The decision in R. (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court has confirmed that an administrator can be prosecuted and potentially incur personal liability for a failure to notify the Insolvency Service of proposed collective redundancies ...
This article reports on a judgment of the High Court in relation to a dispute between a Saudi-based company, Selevision Saudi Co (SSC), and a Qatari-based company, Bein Media Group LLC (BMG), both of which operate in the broadcasting sector. This judgment clarified the effect of Civil Procedure Rule (CPR) 62.18 and the extent to which it imported the provisions of CPR 8 into an action to enforce an arbitral award made in a foreign jurisdiction ...
AstraZeneca AB v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal No. 2021-1729 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 8, 2021) Our Case of the Week again focuses on numerical values in claims. Last week we addressed a case involving whether there was written description support for a number in a claim, and we addressed a similar issue the week before. This week, our case focuses on the meaning and scope of a number in a claim ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends, Our Arbitration and Mediation partners Rabindra S. Nathan, Rodney Gomez and K. Shanti Mogan have co-authored the Malaysian chapter of The Legal 500 Country Comparative Guides: International Arbitration 2021. The Arbitration Act 2005 (“AA 2005”) applies to arbitration in Malaysia ...
The Court of Appeal has considered the question of whether it is fair and appropriate for a Court of Protection Judge to visit the person who lacks mental capacity and about whom the Judge is being asked to make a best interest’s decision. In the case of Re AH (2021) Mr Justice Hayden, who is a High Court Judge and the Vice President of the Court of Protection, visited AH in hospital after the hearing had concluded and before giving judgment ...
A tech entrepreneur recently publicly condemned men who opt to take longer periods of paternity leave. It is crucial that this outdated narrative is dispelled to ensure greater equality in relation to maternity, paternity and other types of parental leave. A prominent US entrepreneur recently branded men that take six months paternity leave “losers” and claimed that the “correct masculine response” is for men to work harder to provide for their children ...
In a statement last week, the justice secretary, Dominic Raab, warned that parents who bring vexatious claims to the family courts will face financial penalties. The policy is part of plans currently being drawn up by the government to introduce new incentives and disincentives to “spare children the trauma of seeing their parents fight it out in court” ...
On 12 May 2021, Prime Minister Boris Johnson committed to holding a Public Inquiry into COVID-19 that will place "the state's actions under the microscope". Demonstrating that it is independent, objective and fair is fundamental to an Inquiry’s purpose. We take a look at the extent to which the State can effectively examine itself in a Public Inquiry when it has ultimate responsibility for determining the remit, and therefore inevitably the scope of any conclusions ...
On Nov. 30, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments from a coalition of hospital plaintiffs who are challenging Medicare’s nearly 30% reduction in outpatient drug reimbursement rates for 340B Program-participating hospitals ...
The High Court has dismissed 28 divorce petitions after finding that the particulars of behaviour were ‘absolutely identical’ to each other. Every marriage is different, but in the recent case of Celine-Shelby v Yorston, the courts were confronted with 28 divorce applications from 28 different people, all seemingly based on the same reasons ...
On November 24th, 2021, Law No. 21,391 introducing in the Labor Code a new article 206 bis, was published in the Official Gazette. This article establishes the employer’s obligation to offer remote work or teleworking to certain employees, in the event a state of catastrophe due to public calamity or a health alert due to an epidemic or pandemic because of a contagious disease is declared ...
Biogen International GMBH v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal No. 2020-1933 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 30, 2021) For the second time in two weeks, our Case of the Week focuses on the written description requirement, in particular where the patent claims a range. In fact, all three precedential decisions issued this week concern issues relating to patents that claim numerical ranges. Below, we discuss two of those cases in our “Also This Week” section ...
Tennessee healthcare providers now have a very different certificate of need (CON) law to consider when they plan new facilities or expand services. Tennessee's legislature and governor recently enacted the Health Services and Planning Act of 2021 (Public Chapter 557 or "the Act"), which became fully effective Oct. 1, 2021. The Act changes the substantive requirements for CON approval, as well as the application process to obtain a CON ...
