The world is gradually embracing remote working as an alternative way of work – hosting virtual meetings, supporting customers through online communications, and accessing data remotely from outside the office. In the past, working from home (WFH) had not been popular in Hong Kong even though evolving technologies and improved Internet speed made it possible for digital migration ...
To create the most favorable environment for the intensive development of the IT industry and pooling resources for the new projects, the Russian Government has adopted a Law introducing a number of changes and tax incentives for the IT and Technology Companies. It will be effective starting from January 1st, 2021. Below, we provide our consolidated analysis of the new rules and recommendations on steps to be taken to prepare for the forthcoming changes ...
COVID-19 has sent many employers into a workforce management tailspin. Laws, regulations, and recommendations change daily, and as the pandemic continues to affect the workplace, the risk of legal complacency increases. The list below identifies the top 10 mistakes for employers to avoid during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mistake 1: Failing To Prepare and Update a COVID-19 Response Plan ...
One of the most common questions we receive as intellectual property lawyers is “How can I prevent others from using technology that I have developed and that has significant value to my business?” That question can often be answered by advising clients to file a patent application. However, there exists another type of intellectual property protection, known as a “trade secret,” that may be more suitable for certain situations and technologies ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 Department of Justice is stepping up its scrutiny of health-care fraud, especially in testing laboratories, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Former federal prosecutor Jason Mehta, a partner with Bradley, says now is not the time to tout profits over patient care and offers insights on compliance. In the midst of a global pandemic, much attention and praise is rightfully being showered on health-care providers ...
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 ...
While many of us are working from home due to the current pandemic, criminals and scammers are also hard at work from home and have been increasingly more brazen since the stay-at-home orders have been put into effect. In popular media, we see television shows such as “90 Day Fiancé,” “Catfish: The TV Show,” and others depicting people being scammed by unscrupulous individuals online who are pretending to be someone they are not ...
Article previously published in insider.co.uk Why are we not treating climate change like the pandemic? The COVID-19 pandemic has received 24/7 media coverage across the globe, and with good reason. Coronavirus has had a catastrophic impact, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, devastating our economies and materially changing the lives of millions as we try to adapt to the profound societal changes it has inflicted ...
The Algarve has been seriously affected by the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this context, on 29 July 2020, the Portuguese Parliament published Resolution no. 51/2020 in which it recommend the adoption of a social and economic emergency plan for the Algarve (“Plano de emergência social e económico para o Algarve”) by the Portuguese Government. The recommended measures set out in Resolution no ...
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recently published a report on its 12-month review of the Revised FATF Standards on Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers, and a report on so-called stablecoins which highlighted associated risks of money laundering/terrorism financing (“ML/TF”) ...
The GFMA recently provided its response to the Financial Stability Board’s (“FSB”) consultation paper (“the Paper”) titled Addressing The Regulatory, Supervisory And Oversight Challenges Raised By “Global Stablecoin” Arrangements. The GFMA put forward certain recommendations to support the implementation of global stablecoin (“GSC”) arrangements provided for in the Paper ...
The Hong Kong Money Authority (HKMA) published a White Paper on 30 June 2020 to set out its recommendations and supervisory expectations on green and sustainable banking around four areas: governance, strategy, risk management and disclosure. The HKMA advised AIs which are subsidiaries of international banks to assess relevance of any parent bank’s climate policy in the context of its Hong Kong operations and ensure that local specialties are addressed ...
