Recent Articles

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  15/04/2024

  APAC region

  Top IP developments and predictions across Asia-Pacific

  We look back at the top developments over the last 12 months in Intellectual Property (IP) and we look to the future by offering our top predictions for the coming year for businesses operating across Asia Pacific (APAC) with an emphasis on mainland China, Hong Kong and Singapore.Over the last year, we have seen the continuous and rapid development of IP systems in APAC jurisdictions, including the reciprocal enforcement of IP judgments between Hong Kong and mainland China and innovative Chinese court decisions on FRAND rates and the copyright of AI-generated images.  Over the coming year,...

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  15/04/2024

  Germany

  EU Commission enforces obligation to provide correct and complete information in merger control proceedings

  EU merger control law provides for an obligation of the parties to provide correct and complete information in merger control proceedings. This obligation has a very high relevance for the European Commission, as latest enforcement activities demonstrate.On 19 March 2024, the European Commission sent a Statement of Objections to an insulation panels maker alleging that the company provided incorrect, incomplete and misleading information during merger control proceedings for the company's planned acquisition of a mineral fibre sandwich panel producer.These investigations of the European Commission...

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  15/04/2024

  United Kingdom

  Fundamentally dishonest claimant’s claim dismissed: s.57 of the Criminal Justice & Courts Act 2015 in action

  In Kirsty Williams- Henry v Associated British Ports Holdings Ltd [2024] EWHC 806 (KB), a claimant who had sustained serious injuries following her fall from a pier in 2018 had her claim dismissed because the judge, applying s.57 of the Criminal Justice & Courts Act 2015, concluded that she had been fundamentally dishonest and that dismissing her claim would not cause “substantial injustice”.The claimant was found to have lied, seriously and repeatedly, in relation to her ongoing condition, and to have been wholly unrepentant when giving evidence. Her dishonesty was unravelled,...

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  15/04/2024

  Poland

  Poland issues new guidelines on penalties for competition law infringements for capital groups

  PL

  The Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) passed guidelines in April, which makes important changes to how penalties are calculated for companies in Poland. The guidelines are especially important for companies that are part of capital operating internationally.Based on these guidelines, which will apply to all anti-trust cases initiated place after 1 January 2024, penalties could reach in practice the maximum level of up to 10% of worldwide turnover and could be considerably higher and more severe than in the past.BackgroundIn May 2023, an amendment to the Competition and...

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  15/04/2024

  Luxembourg

  Bill of law for the transposition of CSRD in Luxembourg

  IntroductionFollowing the adoption of the corporate sustainability reporting directive:1 (the “ CSRD ”), the Member States of the European Union (the “ EU ”) are required to implement its relevant provisions into their national laws and regulations by 6 July 2024. At the date of this publication, only France, Hungary, Romania, and Czech Republic implemented CSRD into their national law. In this context, the long-awaited Luxembourg Bill of law 8370 was introduced before the Luxembourg Chambre des députés on 29 March 2024 (the “ Proposal”).To...

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  15/04/2024

  United Kingdom

  New and improved, or is it? – The CQC’s Single Assessment Framework

  The new Care Quality Commission (CQC) single assessment framework is now in force for health and social care providers across England. As background, the new framework aims to provide a single vision of quality for the whole health and care system – you can read more about the changes in our previous article titled “Out with the old, in with the new – what do healthcare and social care service providers need to know about the CQC’s new single assessment framework?” – (here)[1]. So now that the framework has been fully rolled out to providers, how is it going...

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