On 6 December, the Council of the EU and European Parliament came to a provisional agreement on a proposal to minimise the risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with goods that are either imported or exported to the EU. As such a large consumer and trader of commodities that play a very substantial role in global deforestation, this move by the EU has been warmly welcomed by many. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), an area...

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Getting an advanced handle on cybersecurity and the attendant fallout from breaches is important, and failure to do so can be very costly on many levels. Not only do breaches regularly result in an onslaught of litigation, bad press and loss of customers and revenue, but companies often are exposed to fines and penalties by state, federal, and international regulators. Even though cybersecurity is frequently cited as one of the top-of-mind issues in C-suites, it’s easy enough to push...

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There were numerous and wide ranging developments in intellectual property law in 2022, This includes the evolution and commercialisation of the Metaverse and NFT’s attracting significant media attention as a breakthrough development. In this article, we focus on three key case law developments: The decision by the EUIPO Fifth Board of Appeal to permit the well-known vodka brand, Absolut, to successfully register its 3D vodka bottle shape as a trade mark The decision by the EUIPO to refuse to...

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On December 2, 2022, the Department of Commerce (“DOC”) issued affirmative preliminary determinations in antidumping duty (“ADD”) and countervailing duty (“CVD”) circumvention inquiries on solar cells and modules imported from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam (“C/M/T/V”). These decisions cover cells and modules made in C/M/T/V incorporating Chinese-made wafers and other Chinese-made “major components” (“Circumventing Products”).  In the past several years, well over 50% of solar cell/module imports into the United States have consisted of Circumventing Products. This decision, however, does...

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The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently published a discussion paper (here) summarizing its preliminary findings on the potential competition impact of Big Tech entry into retail financial services. The FCA is now inviting stakeholder comments on a range of questions focusing on the areas of payments, deposit taking, consumer credit, and insurance. The discussion paper is open to feedback—particularly from industry players such as banks, payments firms, and fintechs—until January 15, 2023. This development signals the increasing regulatory scrutiny that...

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The UK Government is supporting the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Bill to significantly expand employers’ liability for harassment in the workplace. If it becomes law, the bill would mean employers could be liable for harassment of employees by third parties, such as customers and clients. Secondly, it would place a positive duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment of employees. Liability for harassment of employee by third parties If enacted as it is currently drafted, an employee who is...

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Key takeaways APAC countries continue to rank highly as locations of production, particularly due to the abundant supply of low cost of labour: of the top 12 locations, half are in APAC. Many of the countries that have slipped in the rankings compared with 2021 have done so due to increased costs (particularly for labour and electricity) and increased risk (economic, political and natural disaster); a number of these countries are in Europe where the war in Ukraine has...

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