Here are select January 2013 rulings of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on legal and judicial ethics:Attorney; forum shopping as contempt of court. A disbarment complaint against Atty. Gonzales was filed for violating the Code of Professional Responsibility for the forum shopping he allegedly committed. The court held that the respondent was guilty of forum shopping. Lawyers should be reminded that their primary duty is to assist the courts in the administration of justice ...
It’s been well reported that Apple has managed to get a US trade mark registration for the layout or interior design (the look, if you like) of the Apple store. What this means is that Apple has exclusive rights to this layout - or indeed any confusingly similar layout - in the area of stores selling electronic goods ...
In December 2012 it was reported that a Brazilian company called Gradiente had secured a trade mark registration in its own country for the mark iPhone for smartphones, having first applied way back in 2000 ...
Business owners grudgingly accept lawsuits as a part of doing business. If you’re doing what it takes to advance your business, you will suffer the bumps and bruises that will result in your name on a legal pleading. You may even be the one who files the lawsuit.Almost any money you can recover in a lawsuit is eaten up by lost employee time, and, perhaps more importantly, the business owner’s loss of focus on healthy profits. If you are the one sued, you can never win ...
Much has been written about the consequences of failing to establish a reasonable plan to preserve documents once there is a duty to preserve. However, surprisingly little has been written about when a party can resume its normal document retention and destruction policy. The good news is that eventually the litigation hold can be lifted; the bad news is that you may not be able to life the hold as soon as you would hope or like ...
Here are select December 2012 rulings of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on criminal law and procedure: 1. REVISED PENAL CODE Rape; Pruna Guidelines ...
Here are select December 2012 rulings of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on commercial law:Corporations; liability of corporate officers. Settled is the rule that debts incurred by directors, officers, and employees acting as corporate agents are not their direct liability but of the corporation they represent, except if they contractually agree/stipulate or assume to be personally liable for the corporation’s debts, as in this case. Ildefonso S. Crisologo vs ...
The Scottish Courts: The largest volume of litigation takes place in the Sheriff Courts located throughout Scotland, which are similar to the County Courts in England & Wales in that they typically handle disputes which are relatively straightforward and low value ...
In a January 13, 2013 blog post, the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection’s Business Center Blog highlighted the FTC’s recent groundbreaking settlement for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) in the mobile app context ...
With a law enacted on 17 December 2012, the Finnish parliament moved forward on the longstanding plan to house intellectual property rights disputes in the Market Court. This legislative reform has a significant impact for all companies operating in Finland. The Market Court will start to hear these disputes in the autumn of 2013 ...
As we embark upon the season of goodwill, those wishing to embrace the Christmas cheer may wish to consider settlement of an ongoing commercial dispute bringing peace and goodwill to all - besides saving their business time and money in the process.Should you settle? Parties settle disputes for a variety of reasons ...
A Polish company enters into a contract with a German company. Which country’s law will govern the contract? Monika Hartung: To start with, under Art. 3 of the Rome I Regulation (Regulation 593/2008 of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations), the parties themselves may select the law governing the contract. The previous version of Poland’s Private International Law required the existence of a link, e.g ...
FAQ on the Belgian Pre-Contractual Information in the Framework of Commercial Co-operation Agreements Act of 19 December 2005.Belgium has a specific legal regime protecting the economically weaker party in certain commercial partnership agreements (i.e. the Pre-Contractual Information in the Framework of Commercial Co-operation Agreements Act of 19 December 2005 – “the Act”) ...
On Aug. 31, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its decision in In re Charter Communications Inc., (2d Cir. Aug. 31, 2012), expressly adopting an abuse of discretion standard for reviewing equitable mootness determinations ...
Over the course of 2012, on at least three occasions the Federal Circuit has found anticipation in a situation in which previously the invention would have merely been viewed as obvious:(1) where the prior art merely proposes the steps of the method, without knowledge of whether those method steps will achieve any result, much less the result claimed in the therapeutic method; (2) where the prior art discloses a broader range without providing a “pattern of preference” for a later-claimed narrow
While arbitration offers an excellent means for parties to get their disputes settled faster than in traditional courts, how you draft the arbitration clause in a document is critically important for a positive outcome – should a dispute arise. Legal agreements often have a clause indicating that parties agree to settle any disputes arising from the arrangement in arbitration ...
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story Silver Blaze, Sherlock Holmes noticed that the guard dog for a famous racehorse did not bark on the night that the horse disappeared and its trainer was found murdered on the moor. 1. Holmes correctly deduced from this that the dog must have known the killer. 2 Inspector Gregory of Scotland Yard overlooked the same clue when he earlier accused a stranger of the murder ...
On 20 June 2012, the Court of First Instance (in proceedings brought by the Securities and Futures Commission ("SFC")) ordered Hontex International Holdings Company Ltd ("Hontex") to make a repurchase offer to about 7,700 investors who had subscribed for Hontex shares in the initial public offering in December 2009 or purchased them in the secondary market during the 3 months after its shares were listed (by then the present action was taken by the SFC) ...
In a Judgment handed down on 28 March 2012, Mr. Justice Hartmann JA determined various questions relating to legal professional privilege. The case involved Citic Pacific ...
Ukraine is a civil law country with the Constitution being a principal source of law. The main sources of civil and commercial law are acts promulgated by the legislative and executive branches of the state. International treaties ratified by Parliament become part of national law and prevail in a conflict with domestic law ...
The honourable justice Louis-Paul Cullen of the Superior Court rendered a judgment on September 23, 2011 which dismissed a motion for authorization to exercise a class action instituted by Mr. Kerfalla Toure (hereinafter "Toure") against Brault & Martineau (hereinafter "B & M) . (1) In order for a class action to be authorized by the Superior Court, the Code of Civil Procedure sets out the four conditions which must be fulfilled ...
The Federal Circuit recently resolved two issues of first impression as to how patent reexamination proceedings affect related patent infringement litigation. These two cases, Marine Polymer1 and Bettcher Industries,2 are likely to have a significant impact on both litigation and reexamination-proceeding practices, as well as the strategic interplay between them ...
A recent decision in the Full Federal Court has shown that while manufacturers are generally free to make goods according to a design that is not registered, care must be taken to ensure that those products are branded in a way that distinguishes them from the market leader ...
