A recent Australian decision on keyword usage of a registered trade mark is in line with decisions in many other countries, including South Africa. The facts in the case of Veda Advantage Limited v Malouf Group Enterprises (Pty) Ltd (2016) FCA 255 were straightforward. Veda is a company that compiles credit reports and has trade mark registrations for the trade mark Veda in class 36 for financial services. Malouf is a company that helps people remove their negative credit ratings ...
AELEX POWER SECTOR GUIDE - % ǼLEX Legal .avada-select-parent .select-arrow{background-color:#ffffff}.select-arrow{background-color:#ffffff} With the country proceeding to fundamentally restructure the industry to secure the supply of reliable, affordable and, ultimately, sustainable energy, the Nigerian government has introduced some new policies to curb some of these fundamental limitations ...
[!<CDATA[ With the United States’ recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is only a matter of time before the government begins terminating certain federal contracts for the convenience of the government. Accordingly, government contractors need to know their rights and obligations so that they can be best positioned if one or more of their contracts are terminated. This article provides a user-friendly guide for government contractors on these important rights and obligations ...
Africa Importance of gas for African energy transformation highlighted at IP Week Government cooperation is important but the private sector is expected to lead the way in boosting access to energy - this was the message from an African panel session at IP Week, held in London ...
BOTSWANA: New tax management system introduced With effect from 1 April 2020, the Botswana Unified Revenue Service is introducing a new tax management system called Lekgetho Live. Under the new system, companies’ Companies and Intellectual Property Authority (“CIPA”) numbers will be used as their tax identification number (“TIN”), whereas citizens’ TINs will consist of the letter I and their Omang number ...
COMOROS: Treaty with United Arab Emirates enters into forceThe income tax treaty between the Comoros Islands and the United Arab Emirates, recently entered into force. GHANA: VAT withholding agents appointed In an attempt to improve value-added tax (“VAT”) compliance, the Ghana Revenue Authority (“GRA”) announced the appointment of identified VAT withholding agents per industry on 17 May 2018 ...
Africa tax in brief NIGERIA: 2017 Budget presented to National Assembly Highlights of the new treaty include: ANGOLA: Budget Bill, 2017 approved and adopted by National Assembly On 17 November 2016, the National Assembly approved the Budget Bill, 2017. The final version of Budget Law, 2017 was adopted by the National Assembly on 14 December 2016 ...
COVID-19, also known as the Coronavirus, is an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020. The disease has since been reported in over 190 countries. For more information on COVID-19, or for support and advice should you experience symptoms, please consult the below local resources: Angola:http://www.governo.gov.ao/ Benin:https://www.gouv ...
2016 has been a busy year for IP on the African continent, with developments in Liberia, the Cayman Islands, South Africa, Zambia and Namibia, among others. Liberia: Intellectual Property Act and Swakopmund Protocol membership Liberia’s House of Representatives has approved and published the Intellectual Property Act, 2014 (the “new Act”), which repeals the Industrial Property Act of 2003. The regulations are currently being drafted ...
On June 18, 2014, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted a petition to cancel six trademarks owned by the Washington Redskins football team. InAmanda Blackhorse, et al. v. Pro-Football, Inc., the TTAB, by a 2-1 vote, held cancellation of the trademarks was warranted “because they were disparaging to Native Americans at the respective times they were registered.” See opinion here ...
In case you have been in a coma, major tax changes to the Internal Revenue Code were passed in December 2017. See Pub. L. 115-97 (115th Cong., 1st Sess.). Those changes make it much more attractive (from a tax perspective) to arrange one’s affairs like a business owner. Broadly speaking, the new tax law changed the landscape so that many business owners will now benefit from dramatically lower tax rates (e.g., the corporate rate has not been this low since 1939) ...
Although developments in higher education on the issue of affirmative action in admissions may not seem relevant to private employers, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision should prompt employers to reexamine their own diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) and voluntary affirmative action initiatives to ensure that employment decisions are not unlawfully based on membership in protected classifications ...
On October 15, 2020, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued a final rule making changes to the SBA’s 8(a) program regulations “to more clearly articulate SBA’s intent with regard to certain aspects of the 8(a) program to eliminate confusion and decrease burdens on procuring activities and 8(a) participants ...
On October 15, 2020, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) issued a final rule making changes to the SBA’s 8(a) program regulations “to more clearly articulate SBA’s intent with regard to certain aspects of the 8(a) program to eliminate confusion and decrease burdens on procuring activities and 8(a) participants ...
A recent South African court ruling dealing with one company’s use of another’s trade mark on an aggregator website has attracted some interest. The case in question is Car Find (Pty) Ltd v Car Trader (Pty) Ltd and Others (South Gauteng High Court, Judge van Oosten, 12 February 2016) ...
The recent CIS v IBM decision touches on two topical issues in IT disputes: maintenance and replacement of legacy systems, and use of agile implementation methodologies. It is also a useful reminder of some important basics regarding the management of troubled IT projects. The case and the issues The claimant (Co-op) was the insurance business of the Co-op group ...
I. Introduction According to a Bitkom study from September 2018, German industry has incurred a total loss of 43 billion euros as a result of cyberattacks over the past two years. Seven out of ten industrial companies have been victims of such attacks during this period. At EU level, there has recently been a growing discussion on how to face this mounting danger ...
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is a UK independent agency established by legislation that ‘must seek to promote competition…for the benefit of consumers’. To do so the CMA may carry out research. The CMA announced on 4 May 2023 it is opening an initial review of competition and consumer protection considerations in the development and use of AI foundation models ...
The impact that Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is making on investment services has been the subject of a recent publication, dated 1st February 2023, which was issued by the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) ...
When one instructs a painter to draw a portrait (no matter how detailed the instructions may be) the painter will always have discretion in executing the final product. Likewise, in investment funds, the investment manager is instructed to invest according to various rules and timeframes which are detailed in the investment strategy as approved by the competent financial regulator, but there will still remain investment discretion on how the investment strategy is executed ...
In addition to the draft EU regulation on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) titled ‘Proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence’ (the “draft EU AI Act”), the EU Commission is also proposing a separate draft directive on non-contractual liability relating to AI titled ‘Proposal for a Directive on adapting non-contractual civil liability rules to artificial intelligence’ (the “draft AI Li
If the draft EU regulation on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) titled ‘Proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence’ (the “draft EU AI Act”) becomes law, investment funds could have an additional risk which would need consideration, namely, the AI risk ...
In the ‘Proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence’ (the “draft EU AI Act”), transparency is regulated by Article 13 and Article 52 thereof. The former applies to systems of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) which are classified as high-risk and the latter applies to limited-risk AI systems ...
In an underground burial temple located within the EU’s southernmost State, one can find a primitive drawing of a spiralling never-ending red tree. Archaeologists opine that the millennia-old Saflieni Hypogeum’s ‘Tree of Life’ was painted to give meaning to death. There is no evidence that the Maltese prehistoric biosphere sustained red spiralling trees ...
