On April 20, 2009, the Court of Appeal issued its judgment in three related cases(1) concerning a defect in a fireplace that caused a fire resulting in the partial loss of the building owned by Alpha’s insureds. Alpha sued the immediate seller to its insureds, Basque, as well as the prior owners, Caron and Pellerin, under the rules governing the warranty against latent defects ...
On March 28, 2020, the Act on Measures in Corporate, Cooperative, Association, Foundation, and Home Ownership Law to Combat the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic (COVID-19 Act) entered into effect. Among other things, the COVID-19 Act provides for substantial facilitations for stock corporations to hold general meetings. The most important innovation for use in practice is the possibility of holding general meetings entirely virtually, i.e ...
The COVID-19 Public Inquiry presents a key growth area for litigation in the medium to long term. Here, Matthew MacLachlan considers key litigation risks, potential parties and emerging themes ...
The USPTO has provided twoavenuesfor relief to trademark owners impacted by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: Applicants and registrants can claim the benefit of a30-day grace periodon many types of filings with deadlines between March 27, 2020 and April 30, 2020.1The requesting party must make the case that COVID-19 hasmaterially interferedwith meeting the deadline or paying the requisite fee. This alert mostly will elaborate on this grace period measure ...
Many companies have a keen interest in recycling and upcycling old products for resale, both for environmental and promotional purposes. But when those products contain third-party intellectual property, there can be trademark and copyright concerns. Dinsmore intellectual property partner Karen Gaunt wrote about this topic for Best Lawyers' Women in Law issue, out this month. Gaunt herself has been named a Best Lawyer multiple times since 2013. An excerpt of the article is below ...
Over a period of less than 24 hours on the 16thof April, the United Arab Emirates experienced its heaviest rainfall since records began 75 years ago, with sources recording a years’ worth of rain falling in one day. The record-breaking rains created destructive flooding and chaos. Properties in the UAE were under attack by natural elements – rain, wind and flood. Many suffered from severe flooding, rising groundwater, and water through the walls and windows as well as through roofs ...
The United Kingdom (UK) Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act (the Act”) came into force on 15th March, 2022. A new Register of Overseas Entities will be created and held by Companies House. This new Act forms part of the UK government’s strategy to combat economic crime, while making sure that legitimate businesses continue to see the UK as a great place to invest ...
The announcement on 30 June that the Subsidy Control Bill has been introduced into the UK Parliament is a very welcome development for those who have been waiting for the legal 'gap' in this area to be plugged. This short article outlines the key elements of the proposed new regime ...
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 ...
Earlier this year, the government announced its support for the passing of the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill. Should it become law, the Bill is set to bring huge change for tens of millions of employees in the UK who do not currently have a statutory right to request a predictable working pattern ...
From Dominic Cummings to Nicola Sturgeon, 2023 was a noisy, headline-grabbing year for the UK’s public inquiry into the Covid-19 pandemic. What’s coming in 2024? And what does it mean for businesses? In terms of media exposure, the first full year in the life of the UK’s official Covid-19 Inquiry was a resounding success ...
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry (“the Inquiry”) opened its third Module on 8 November 2022, along with the application process for Core Participant (“CP”) status. Module 3 will consider the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the healthcare sector in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland ...
The UAE recently amended its legal framework on abortion to expand the circumstances under which abortions are permitted and ease the rules regarding the circumstances under which abortions are permissible. Cabinet Decision No. 44/2024 (the Decision) came into effect on 21 June 2024 and progressively changed UAE’s law on abortion ...
On referral from Justice Alito to the full court, the Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday denied an application to halt the enforcement of Pennsylvania Governor Wolf’s shutdown order ...
April 18, 2024 By: Leah Lively and Alexandra Shulman The Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, that will make it easier for employees to pursue discrimination claims against their employers based on job transfers or other non-pecuniary personnel decisions. In Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, Muldrow, a female police officer, alleged that she was transferred to a less desirable unit because a new supervisor preferred a male officer for the role ...
The United States Senate passed S. 945, the “Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act” (the HFCAA), by unanimous consent on May 20, 2020. The HFCAA was first introduced in the Senate on March 28, 2019 by Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) and co-sponsored by Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) ...
Since March 2020, the United States and Canada have agreed upon mutually reciprocal COVID-19 related travel restrictions. U.S. and Canadian officials mutually determined that “non-essential” travel between the U.S. and Canada “poses additional risk of transmission and spread of the virus associated with COVID-19 and places the populace of both nations at increased risk of contracting the virus associated with COVID-19 ...
What It Means: After 339 days of hearings over five years, and at a cost of almost $30 million, a court in British Columbia has expressed its opinion that the Tsilhqot'in Nation has aboriginal title to approximately 2,000 square kilometres of land, but stopped short of making that opinion legally binding by granting a declaration of aboriginal title ...
Insurance contracts, like any other type of contract, require informed consent by all signatories. This concept is especially relevant considering that an insurance contract is an example of uberrimae fidei, i.e. an agreement requiring the utmost and the most absolute good faith when one party is disclosing facts that could influence the other party?s decision. In other words, policyholders are held to a high degree of honesty when providing their insurers with information ...
An American organization that finds itself involved in litigation in Canada, or an American attorney advising such an organization, will find most aspects of the Canadian civil justice system to be familiar. The legal systems of the two countries are comparable in many respects, they share common historical antecedents, and their core values are the same ...
In an opinion that will certainly cause Texas hospitals, physicians, nursing home operators and other healthcare providers to consider whether they should insert standard arbitration clauses into their pre-treatment agreements, the Texas Supreme Court held last week that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) preempts the more stringent arbitration requirements set forth in the Texas Medical Liability Act (“TMLA”).The Fredericksburg Care Co., L.P. v. Juanita Perez et al, No. 13-0573, 2015 Tex ...
For more than twenty years, the federal government has attempted to limit the number of unsolicited phone calls consumers receive through the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. § 227 (“TCPA”), which is perhaps best known for governing the famous “Do Not Call” list. Businesses, including banks and financial institutions, must understand the statute and stay abreast of its changes because the penalties for violating the TCPA are steep ...
Canadian newspapers' loss of advertising revenues to the hands of internet giants over the past several years has jeopardized the very existence of many such newspapers. In 2018, our governments announced several advantageous tax measures in order to ensure the survival of independent print media ...
On Monday, September 13, 2021, the House Ways and Means Committee released several markups of proposed legislation (the “House Tax Proposals”) intended to pay for various proposed spending initiatives. Importantly, the House Tax Proposals are not entirely consistent with the “General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2022 Revenue Proposals” (the “Green Book”) released by the U.S ...
