This legal update follows our September 2008 issue which gave a general overview of the major changes to the High Court and District Court Rules to come into effect on 2 April 2009. This and subsequent issues deal with those changes in more detail. This issue deals with the new "underlying objectives" and active case management by the court ...
As national governments have taken increasingly drastic steps to shore up their banking systems so the Commission has been working overtime dealing with the State aid fallout. Many of the measures taken by Member States could distort competition - a serious worry in the current volatile climate. Against this backdrop, the Commission has been keen to stress that it wants to work with Member States to ensure financial stability ...
On 16 September 2008, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gave a preliminary ruling in joined cases C-468/06 - C-478/06 specifying that a refusal by a pharmaceutical undertaking that holds a dominant position on a relevant pharmaceutical market to supply wholesalers with a view to impeding parallel export of such wholesalers from one Member State to other Member States constitutes an abuse of a dominant market position under Article 82 of the EC Treaty ...
The Minister of Law and Human Rights issued Regulation No. 03.HT.03.10 of 2007 on 8 November 2007. Under Law No ...
As the economic outlook continues to look gloomy we are noticing a considerable increase in employment litigation work - this doesn't just point towards more people being dismissed (although this is certainly a factor) but also that as money gets tighter individuals feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by bringing claims. For employers this is obviously a headache ...
Commercial disputes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are generally resolved through litigation in the courts or arbitration. Arbitration is becoming an increasingly popular way to resolve disputes. The UAE recently signed the UN Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards 1958 (New York Convention). General overview and court structure The UAE is a federation of seven Emirates established in 1971 ...
Following consultation with national competition authorities and the public, the European Commission has published enforcement priorities guidelines, which it will follow when applying Article 82 to exclusionary conduct by dominant companies. Throughout the guidelines, the Commission reiterates that Article 82 should protect competition and consumers – rather than individual competitors (an approach previously advocated by Commissioner Kroes) ...
Today when financial experts are busy in measuring the depth of present financial turmoil, layman is cursing Governments and experts are blaming sub-prime mortgage payment defaulters but no-body in the economic fraternity could appreciate that it was a policy failure. Moreover, no one in the financial world could imagine the enormous size of the trouble that lending on sub-prime would bring the world’s biggest financial catastrophe of the century ...
Family Intervention Tenancies (FITs) are a new type of tenancy to be introduced by Sections 297-298 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008. They will be another tool for registered providers (the new term for both Registered Social Landlords and local authorities to tackle anti-social behaviour ...
The Supreme Court of Canada ended a lengthy legal saga on November 20th, 2008 when it ordered St.Lawrence Cement Inc. to compensate residents of Beauport living near its cement plant. Comments on prescription, the assessment of damages and the granting of future damages. The Supreme Court's decision was expected and will have a major impact. Indeed, this decision imposes a burden that will be almost impossible for businesses to meet ...
Mind Your Belgian Distributor! FAQ on the Belgian Law of 27 July 1961 on the Unilateral Termination of Exclusive Distribution Agreements of Indefinite Duration. Belgium is one of the very few countries in the world with a specific legal regime for the termination of certain distribution agreements, in addition to a law on agency contracts ...
Commission adopts temporary State aid 'credit crunch' framework The European Commission has adopted a temporary state aid framework, designed to help tackle the spiralling negative effects of the 'credit crunch' on the real economy. Under the framework, Member States can - after notifying the Commission - put into effect a range of aid schemes aimed at helping otherwise sound companies that are finding it difficult to access funding ...
Indonesia has been described as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. In 2008, the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index stated that Indonesia ranked 130th least transparent out of 180 countries. However, the continued existence of the Corruption Court in Indonesia which has tried many corruption cases and is trying to improve Indonesia’s anti corruption activities, is now under threat ...
1. The court system What is the structure of the civil court system? In Italy there are three levels of courts: first-instance courts (justices of the peace and tribunals); second-instance courts (courts of appeal for judgments rendered by tribunals, and tribunals for judgments rendered by justices of the peace); and the Court of Cassation (Supreme Court) ...
1- What is the structure of the civil court system? The Portuguese judicial system is complex and the competence of each type of court is defined considering the nature of the dispute to be settled. The main division established is between judicial jurisdiction and administrative and tax jurisdiction. The territory is divided for judicial purposes and normally each municipality has its own judicial court with generic competence ...
The establishment and operation of many Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) involves cooperation amongst industry participants, including those who may be competitors in other aspects of their businesses. It is very important that participants in CRCs remember that the prohibitions against anti-competitive conduct in the Trade Practices Act 1974 (Cth) (TPA) will apply to the CRC collaboration ...
The long-awaited and controversial Equality Bill (the Bill) has been published and laid before Parliament. Public consultations are scheduled on several of the measures outlined in this very significant piece of legislation, though it is not expected to come into force until the end of next year. With a General Election likely in June 2010, it remains to be seen how quickly the Bill will progress and how much of it will survive ...
As of June 13, 2009, Facebook Inc. allows Facebook users to create personalized usernames for their Facebook pages on a first-come, first-served basis. This new username availability now enables users to have their Facebook page and profile at an Internet address in the following format: “facebook.com/user”. Prior to the implementation of this new policy, each user was randomly assigned a unique identification number (for example: id = 123456789) ...
The intention of this brief note is to present an analysis of internal crises within law firms and the way of avoiding them. We define a crisis as an unexpected and grave difficulty or danger (“a time of intense difficulty or danger”). As a matter of fact the greek origin of crisis (“krisis”) meant “decision” (from “krinein” – decide) ...
In two recent cases (Coditel and Stadtreinigung Hamburg), the ECJ dealt with the so-called “in-house exemption” in procurement matters ...
What are the limits on national public procurement law to prevent collusion between tenderers in award procedures? This was the question the ECJ dealt with in its recent Assitur judgment (C-538/07).The facts of the Assitur case were as follows. Three tenderers passed the qualitative selection phase and were admitted to the final procedure ...
Mobile phone companies Vodafone and Telefónica O2 have agreed to pool their UK network infrastructure They are following the lead of H3G and T-Mobile, who are already one year into their joint consolidation project. The operators aim to share existing sites with the intention of reducing the total rent roll each company pays to landlords ...
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has recently issued proceedings against a franchisor and its director for allegedly engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct, in breach of section 52 of the Trade Practices Act (TPA). Various breaches of the Franchising Code of Conduct (Code) have also been alleged ...
A recent Court of Appeal case has cast doubt on the value of such 'non-waiver' clauses. When a party to a contract waives a breach of that contract by the other party, it voluntarily abandons its legal rights to enforce the contract, or to claim any remedy, in relation to that breach. A waiver must be clear, but may be oral or written. Importantly, a waiver need not be express, but can be inferred from a course of conduct ...
