The newly amended Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women takes effect on 1 January 2023; Shanghai amends rules related to parental leave; the Supreme People’s Court issues a guiding case on how employers should handle sexual harassment in the workplace; an employee’s unsupported accusation of sexual harassment could constitute infringement of the right to reputation; the first equal opportunity case judgment in Guangdong Province is issued; and a Guangzhou court rules that a company’s internal disclosure of an employees’ information violates their privacy.
The soon-to-be enacted P2SK Law introduces “financing service businesses” as a new umbrella term for several categories of financing services, covering the businesses of finance companies (multifinance), venture capital companies, infrastructure financing companies, IT-based collective funding service providers (peer-to-peer lending platforms), and pawnbroker companies.
This client alert discusses the new Indonesian criminal code, which in a few years will replace the existing criminal code. This alert outlines the key features of the new criminal code, and is the first of a series of client alerts on the new Indonesian criminal code.
The Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries Code of Conduct has been amended to include key principles when interacting with patients and patient organizations. The revisions are effective from 1 January 2023.
Article 11, which previously only expressly governed interactions between SAPI-represented pharmaceutical companies (Member Companies) and patient organizations, has been revised to include Member Companies’ interactions with patients. The amended Article 11.1 sets out the key principles to be adhered to when interacting with patients and patient organizations.
The Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries has released a set of guiding principles for patient support programs (PSPs). These guiding principles provide guidance on how PSPs should be designed.
In the recent decision of Goh Ngak Eng v Public Prosecutor [2022] SGHC 254, the Singapore High Court declined to employ the existing sentencing framework for private sector corruption offences involving agents under section 6 of the PCA as set out in Takaaki Masui v. Public Prosecutor and another appeal and other matters [2021] 4 SLR 160.
Section 6 of the PCA criminalizes the actions of agents who corruptly receive or give gratification as an inducement or reward for performing or withholding performance in relation to their principal’s affairs or business.
In developing a new framework, the High Court cautioned that the sentencing exercise is not meant to be seen as a mathematical equation; sentencing frameworks are only meant to serve as guides and should not be used to produce a mathematically precise formula that identifies a precise point for the sentencing court to arrive at in each case.
On 2 November 2022, the Intellectual Property Tribunal of the Supreme People’s Court published its decision on the trade secret infringement case of Wuwei Bosheng Seed Industry Limited Company (Appellant) v. Hebei Huasui Seed Industry Limited Company. This case raised the untested question of whether parent material used in breeding can be protected as a trade secret in China.
On 16 December 2022, Japan announced its 2023 tax reform proposal, which contains a number of changes that may impact multinational companies doing business in Japan, including the introduction of Pillar Two legislation in Japanese domestic tax law.
In the spirit of Bank Indonesia’s Payment System 2025 Visions that were introduced in May 2019, and in conjunction with the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-Border Payments, Bank Indonesia has agreed on cooperating with the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to enable consumers and merchants in both countries to make and accept instant cross-border QR payments. The memorandum of understanding for this cooperation was signed on 9 December 2022 in Tokyo.
On 10 October 2022, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed into law Republic Act No. 11934, otherwise known as the “Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act”. The primary purpose of the Act is to mandate all public telecommunications entities to require the registration of SIM cards prior to their sale and activation, in an effort to promote accountability and provide law enforcement with an identification tool in resolving crimes .