In a judgment of 22 April 2021, the European Court of Justice found that a lease contract entered into between an Austrian authority and a real estate company before the construction of the building did not constitute a contractual building contract, as the authority had not had a decisive influence on the design. The authority's requirements thus did not exceed the requirements that a tenant usually places on a building of a similar nature ...
On 3 May 2021, the EU Member states approved “dried yellow mealworms” as a novel food under EU Regulation 2015/2283. According to the applicant, mealworms can be used in a broad range of food products, such as bread, cookies, or pasta. A Commission implementing regulation will follow soon, which marks the final step and formally authorises the novel food. Mealworms are the first insect species to secure clearance as a novel food but more are likely to follow ...
As cryptocurrency and digital assets enter mainstream markets, the business world will have to come to grips with the nature of this new asset class. Silk Road was an Internet black market (known as the Dark Web) notorious for trading contraband, including illicit drugs. These transactions are anonymous, being settled in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that bypasses traditional payment modes that allow authorities to identify parties ...
In Markit Systems (Pty) Limited v Fulcrum Group (Pty) Limited, the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court held that the customer was within its rights to cancel an agreement it had with a service provider because the parties had not been able to agree on the scope and details to be included in the schedule to the agreement ...
Ownership of mines and minerals separately to surface land poses a risk for developers that must be assessed and mitigated as appropriate. It is not uncommon for mines and minerals to be owned separately to the land at the surface and in certain areas of the country, particularly the north, it is frequently encountered ...
Secretary of Commerce Resolution No. 485/2021, published in the Official Gazette on May 12th, 2021, regulates subsection C) of Article 7 of Law of Supermarket Shelves No. 27,545 [1], which establishes that the cheapest products per unit of measure must be situated at an equidistant height between the first and last shelf. The Resolution establishes that the value to be considered is the lowest in the price list offered to the consumer on a “non-transitory basis”, i.e ...
The Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on markets in cryptoassets, which amends Directive (EU) 2019/1937, ("Regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets", or the "MiCA Regulation" for short) was published on 24 September 20201. The Proposal is part of the Digital Finance Package adopted on the same date by the European Commission as part of the Digital Finance Strategy for the EU financial sector2 ...
Robo-Advisors (sometimes spelt as Robo-Advisers) are digital investment advisory platforms that provide automated, algorithm-driven financial planning services with little to no human supervision. In this article our Oluwapelumi Omoniyi takes a cursory look at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new rules on Robo-Advisors and highlights the rationale behind the move to regulate Robo-Advisors ...
This blog post highlights certain amendments to British Columbia’s Real Estate Development Marketing Act (“REDMA”) Policy Statements 5 and 6 which came into effect May 1, 2021. Policy Statement 5 sets out circumstances under which a developer is deemed to have permission to begin early marketing of a real estate development before a building permit is issued for the development ...
The Oregon Senate will soon be deciding on a bill that would allow an owner of a lot or parcel at least two acres in size in an area zoned rural residential to build an accessory dwelling unit, or “ADU,” on that lot or parcel, provided there is already a single-family dwelling on the lot or parcel ...
It is a truism to say that infill development in Oregon is fraught and expensive. This is apparently not lost on the Legislature, which over the past four years has enacted a number of laws to reduce local permitting barriers on infill projects in an attempt to provide for more affordable and middle-income housing ...
The internet may be global, but enforcement is always local—and there are plenty of (expensive) ways to find out the wrong way that you should have been doing something where you might not expect it. A typical example is the legal requirement to appoint an EU data protection representative if you’re not based in the EU, or a UK representative if you’re not based in the UK ...
The government has published its much-heralded Bill to outlaw the payment of ground rents under long residential leases. Background The payment of ground rents by residential tenants of long leases has become something of a cause celebre, particularly where leases include ground rents that double every five, ten or twenty years making those leases less valuable and potentially unsaleable ...
The Court of Appeal has unanimously held that a tenant’s statutory declarations given to landlords were valid even though they did not specify the precise term commencement date of the leases to be contracted out. Landlords will be relieved that the Court of Appeal did not adopt an overly legalistic and commercially impractical interpretation of the contracting-out requirements ...
Recently, several African startups have been making positive impact in their communities leading to a number ofcountriesenactingor planning to establish a Startup Act. In this article, our Oluwapelumi Omoniyi examines the benefits of a Startup legislation and considers if Nigeria’s nascent startup ecosystem needs a startup Act ...
We’re excited to announce that Shoosmiths is one of the partners behind Platform – a six-month campaign that aims to make town centre property more accessible to communities and businesses. Being based in thirteen locations across the UK and with many clients whose businesses rely on a successful town centre, Shoosmiths is heavily invested in the issue of urban revival ...
On April 20, 2021, Law No. 21,320 (the “ Law ”), which amends Law No. 19,496 on Chilean Consumer Protection Act (“ CPA ”) regarding extrajudicial collection proceedings and other consumers' rights was published in the official gazette. The Law, which shall be effective immediately, introduced several amendments to the CPA, regarding new principles that will inform the extrajudicial collection proceedings, new duties and legal limitations to suppliers ...
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The European Council has just adopted a new dual-use regulation. The new dual-use regulation is a recast of the current dual-use regulation and aims, among other things, to modernize European export controls in a number of areas. The regulation is directly applicable in all EU Member States and is expected to enter into force in 2021. In this Insight, Plesner's export control specialists outline the main changes resulting from the new dual-use regulation ...
Those of us who grew up in the 70’s or 80’s may recall the excitement of Marty McFly wandering around in the then distant future of October 2015. Yes, 2015. Just over 5 years ago. ‘Where are the flying cars?!?’, you might be forgiven for asking. ‘And why don’t our Hover Boards, you know, hover?’ It's a common theme. George Orwell’s 1984 never happened as predicted and there’s no Big Brother watching us from a screen on the wall ...
For some years, contractors and subcontractors have been using an effective tactic in adjudication. That is to pick off discrete elements of a large time or money claim and to obtain a series of favourable declarations in adjudications on those elements. The declarations can then be used as a bargaining tool to leverage a settlement of the full claim. Or they can be converted into payment orders by way of a further adjudication ...
The government is consulting on a proposal to introduce a new UK-wide tax for residential property developers from 2022, with a view to generating revenue to cover the costs associated with the removal of unsafe cladding. The measure is intended to generate at least £2 billion over the course of a decade, which the government says is a “fair contribution” to the overall cost of the remediation programme ...
