Bern – Switzerland plans to further develop bilateral ties with the EU. At the same time, links with other important trade partners are to be strengthened, including with the USA and China. This is stipulated in the federal government’s revised foreign economic policy strategy. The Federal Council published its revised foreign economic policy strategy on Wednesday. According to a press release, this serves to “set the course for the federal government's foreign economic policy in the medium to long term”. It aims...

Given the exposure to industries such as hospitality, fashion, information technology, and science, among others, at Cea Legal, we are often hired to draft non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), which are contracts establishing a confidential relationship, when the parties acknowledge that sensitive information they may obtain in the course of the business relationship should not be disclosed to any other party. Simply, NDAs enable the parties to share information while mitigating the risk that it will be misused as a result of...

The Commission’s Communication “A competition policy fit for new challenges” (link) (the “Communication”) identifies key areas in which competition law and policy can support European efforts in dealing with the challenges of the green and digital transitions. The document covers all areas of competition law (antitrust, merger control, and State aid) and identifies various ways in which new and existing tools can contribute to addressing these challenges. While the document does not break new ground, it provides a comprehensive overview...

In this News Update, we discuss new European regulations on crowdfunding and regulatory publications on climate risks. We further highlight some other financial regulatory publications issued last month. EUROPEAN REGULATIONS ON CROWDFUNDING SERVICE PROVIDERS FOR BUSINESS On 10 November 2021, Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 on European Crowdfunding Service Providers ("ECSP") for business started applying across the EU. The ECSP lays down uniform rules for the provision of investment-based and lending-based crowdfunding services related to business financing. Compared to the existing regulations in the Financial...

World leaders representing governments and industry came together in Glasgow, Scotland for COP26 to address how to achieve targets set as part of the Paris Climate Agreement 20151.  The Paris targets—using pre-industrial temperature levels as a baseline—aim to limit the rise in global temperature this century below 2deg Celsius, and to pursue efforts to limit the rise even further to 1.5deg Celsius. Three years after the Paris Agreement, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on 1.5C...

Patent infringement litigation is expensive. It is typical to see legal fees in the seven-figure range to defend a patent litigation all the way to a jury trial. Facing the prospect of an injunction and damages can cripple a company’s cash flow or market power.  It also can take you away from focusing on running your business resulting in collateral damage to your business. The best and most inexpensive way to defend against a complaint for patent infringement is to...

In this fifth alert in our series regarding the European Parliament’s formal endorsement of a new collective actions legislation titled the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers, we analyze what laws, and their alleged infringement, may give rise to collective redress suits in the EU once enforcement of the Directive begins in 2023. We also consider what companies may do between now and then to prepare. What Laws...