On March 2, 2021, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed the Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA or law) into law. This makes Virginia the second state, behind California, to adopt a comprehensive consumer data privacy law. Like the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA) and EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the CDPA creates a number of privacy obligations for businesses and gives Virginia consumers more control over their personal data. The CDPA takes effect on Jan ...
The Vietnamese Government issued the first-ever comprehensive legal framework on personal data for the country in the form of Decree No. 13/2023/ND-CP dated 17 April 2023, on personal data protection (“DPD”). The DPD, which will take effect from 1 July 2023, applies to agencies, organizations and individuals that are involved in the collection and processing of personal data ...
The Vietnam Competition and Consumer Authority has released several documents related to the merger notification regime that was effectively implemented on 15 May 2020, the effective date of Decree 35. As the National Competition Committee has not yet been appointed, the documents clarify that, in accordance with its responsibility under Article 7 ...
Many companies are currently facing challenges in relation to the GDPR compliance of their video surveillance. Main issues in this respect are questions related to transparency requirements and information notices, the need for a data protection impact assessment as well as questions concerning retention requirements and retention periods. The German Federal Labor Court (BAG) has recently commented on the admissible storage duration of lawful video recordings ...
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority has notified Stortinget of an infringement fine of two million kroner and imposed an infringement fine of four million kroner on Østre Toten municipality. In both cases, the Authority emphasizes that it is a clear management responsibility to secure the business against such attacks, and that two-factor authentication, awareness-raising and an appropriate risk and vulnerability analysis are key measures ...
With the well-known challenges of the last ten months or so, market conditions deteriorated substantially over 2022 and the venture capital (VC) market became a far more challenging one in which to agree a valuation and raise money. While those challenges are not over, from speaking to VC clients and others, there's a cautious optimism that as 2023 progresses the market will slowly improve ...
The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) is a regulatory body established by the government of Dubai to oversee and regulate the virtual assets industry. In line with its mandate, VARA has issued a number of rule books, in particular the Compliance and Risk Management Rulebook (CRM), which sets out the regulatory framework for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) operating in Dubai ...
The issue of the Dubai Law No. 4 of 2022 regulating Virtual Assets in Dubai (VA Law) issued in March 2022 created a lot of buzz and further strengthened Dubai’s position as a global hub for digital assets. The VA Law also established the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) which was tasked with creating a legal framework for virtual assets sector ...
Although the start of 2020 also shook up the M&A world, the market recovered especially in the second half of the year. At Van Doorne, the M&A specialists experienced this in the number of transactions: 32 of them. This puts the firm in 8th place in the Mergermarket Benelux League Table, based on the number of deals. In 2020, in Europe almost $850 billion was spent on a total of 6,658 transactions. This is an increase of 5.6% compared to 2019 ...
From television commercials to naming rights for arenas, the topic of cryptocurrency has been hard to avoid. While cryptocurrency may be virtual, its creation or ’mining’ occurs in the real world. This mining poses a credit risk for utility companies, given the incredible amount of electricity required to operate a “mining” facility. For example, crypto mining company Core Scientific, Inc ...
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has published in the Federal Register a Notice of a “Request for Comments on Negotiating Objectives Regarding Modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement With Canada and Mexico.” In the Notice, USTR advises that it will accept written comments by June 12, 2017 and will hold a public hearing at the U.S ...
The U.S.-China trade dispute continues to simmer with multiple significant developments in the past several weeks: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced the exclusion process for Chinese imports subject to List 4A Section 301 tariffs will open on Oct. 31, 2019 and conclude on Jan. 31, 2020. List 4A and 4B tariffs on an estimated $300 billion of goods imported from China, effective Sept. 1, 2019 and Dec ...
The U.S.-China trade dispute escalated yet again as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a fourth round of tariffs of 10 percent on an estimated $300 billion of goods imported from China not already subject to Section 301 tariffs. At the same time, the USTR continues to accept List 3 exclusion requests and is working to complete review of List 1 and List 2 exclusion requests. 1. USTR Announces Section 301 Tariffs on $300B of U.S ...
There have been several significant U.S.-China trade developments in June. Notably, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued procedures for seeking an exclusion for parties adversely affected by the increased 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion of goods imported from China that came into effect on May 10, 2019 (List 3). The USTR also extended by two weeks the entry deadline to avoid this increased List 3 25 percent tariff ...
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is modifying the computer program it uses to calculate Patent Term Adjustment (PTA) in light of the recent decision in Wyeth v. Kappos, No. 2009-1120 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 7, 2010). In Wyeth, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that the USPTO has been improperly calculating patent term adjustment under 35 U.S.C. § 154(b). The Federal Circuit’s decision will result in additional patent term for many U.S ...
Last year, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu noted that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to “fundamentally chang[e]” “the legal concepts of inventor or author.”[i] The USPTO recently had cause to consider this issue. On petition, the USPTO considered whether an applicant can name an AI program as an inventor on a patent application ...
On July 2, 2019, the PTO announced it will implement a rule requiring U.S. counsel for foreign-domiciled trademark applicants and registrants. The new rule is effective August 3, 2019, and applies to all trademark owners with a foreign address. We discussed the rule in ourFebruary Alert. For any new filings after the effective date, licensed U.S. counsel must be designated ...
Under Dutch corporate law it is possible for the Enterprise Section of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to order an inquiry into the policies and affairs of a company and to interfere with the internal organization of such legal entity in order to settle corporate disputes between shareholders, the management and supervisory boards and the works council. The present article creates an overview of these legal proceedings. 1 ...
Some experts have described the rise of AI as the next industrial revolution. Generative AI is a powerful tool that can transform how your business operates. However, businesses intending to make use of AI solutions need to understand the benefits and risks of implementing generative AI.1 What is Generative AI? Artificial Intelligence – Generative AI is a branch of AI that uses pre-trained AI models to generate new data including text, images, videos, music, and even computer code ...
The Bavarian data protection supervisory authority has prepared a series of template documents and overviews, intended to help small companies with GDPR compliance. At first glance, these documents do indeed provide important support for small companies. These have to fulfil almost all obligations under the GDPR in a similar manner to medium-sized businesses and large corporations ...
The Internet is a growing medium in the marketing of funds in Hong Kong. However, its use as a distribution channel for funds in Hong Kong is still relatively low. This chapter describes the rules applicable to the use of the Internet in marketing and distributing hedge funds in Hong Kong.There are different considerations for funds authorized by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and for unauthorized funds ...
In this age of social networks, the dividing line between private life and public life seems more and more blurred. The same is true of the boundary between individuals' personal and professional lives. Indeed, headlines in the past few weeks remind us that the personal and professional aspects of an individual's life can sometimes become confused, at great cost to the individual ...
Artificial intelligence is one of the areas of technology where there is currently the most research and development in Canada. To preserve Canada's advantageous position in this area, it is important to consider all forms of intellectual property protection that may apply. Although copyright has historically been the preferred form of intellectual property in computer science, patents are nevertheless very useful in the field of artificial intelligence ...