By SAM NATAPOFF | President | Empire Global Ventures LLC (EGV) To Big Tech, you are a digital commodity. It doesn’t have to sell you anything. Instead, it can sell information about you and what you do online to anyone willing to buy it. Do data on your online activities belong to you, or to the tech companies tracking you? Where does privacy end and commerce begin? It all depends on where you log in. The EU just issued an Online Bill of...

By Catherine Liu With the rapid pace of technological advancement driving unprecedented changes in the commercial real estate landscape, no segment has seen its effects play out to the same degree as retail. Although recent media attention has focused heavily on negative retail narratives concerning big-box downsizing and the exit of long-established chains from the industry, opportunities exist for the rise of new players with unique product offerings to fill their space. Up-and-coming retail brands, coupled with the trend toward more diverse...

By Greetje van Heezik | Fleur Tuinzing-Westerhuis | Lorenzo Fiorilli In its landmark judgment of 25 July 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") confirmed that crops obtained by new mutagenesis plant-breeding techniques are subject to the strict conditions of the Directive on genetically modified organisms ("GMO Directive").  The new mutagenesis techniques make it possible to alter the genome of organisms without the insertion of foreign DNA in a directed way. These techniques can be used to develop seed varieties that are resistant...

VULCAN VIEW - KEY EVENTS THIS WEEK: BREXIT May to seize control of Brexit negotiations as clock ticks downBritish Prime Minister Theresa May has announced that she will personally take charge of the UK’s Brexit negotiations, in a move that has been described as a “sidelining” of the new Brexit secretary Dominic Raab. The department for Exiting the EU will now be primarily focused on domestic preparations for the impending exit. Approximately 50 Brexit staff will be moved into the Cabinet Office,...

In partnership with AltaClaro, RPJ Partner Mark H. Moore led a professional webcast discussing how to protect your company's computer software from intellectual property infringement under the U.S. Copyright Act. This free presentation is designed for lawyers and non-lawyers. You can watch the presentation HERE. Proprietary computer software developed by a company is often its most valuable asset. Protecting this key intellectual property from competitors requires planning prior to the existence of a dispute and effective advocacy once a dispute...

The EACC, in partnership with the International Property Tax Institute (IPTI), wants to keep its members up to date with the latest developments in property taxes both in the USA and Europe. IPTI has put together a selection of brief reports from articles contained in IPTI Xtracts which can be found on its website (www.ipti.org). As far as Europe is concerned, this month’s report includes articles on France, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. There is a separate IPTI report on the...

By Ignacio E. Sanchez | Christine Daya Congress has released the final version of the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA) – a bill to modernize and strengthen the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to more effectively guard against the risk to US national security posed by certain types of foreign investments. FIRRMA is incorporated into the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act for FY19, which Congress expects to pass this week. The House and Senate passed...