After months of intense negotiations, the European Commission and the US Government announced today an agreement on the EU-US Privacy Shield .
The EU’s highest Court confirms that automated messages can put recipients on the hook for a price-fixing cartel.
The ruling issued by the European Court of Human Rights (Barbulescu versus Romania) puts an end to the lawsuit brought against an employee’s dismissal because he had used (for his personal correspondence) a Yahoo Messenger account that his employer had instructed him to open to reply to customer requests.
“Implementation Day” of the nuclear agreement with Iran (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or “JCPOA”) and the re-opening of the Iranian market arrived on Saturday, 16 January. In response to this, Baker & McKenzie is organizing the Iran Trade Roadshow, a series of 2-3 hour seminars in various locations across the globe that will provide an overview of the potential changes to sanctions in relation to the JCPOA.
The Slovak Competition Office has demonstrated its willingness to challenge generally applied practises of informing an attorney in the case of a dawn raid.
As a consequence of the implementation of the JCPOA, Swiss sanctions against Iran will be lifted at the same time as those of the UN and the EU.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy presented a paper outlining the key points for the reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act, which is scheduled for 2016. The government plans to introduce competitive tender mechanisms for most renewable energy technologies starting 2017.
The economic literature explains that most markets tend towards oligopoly over the longer term. This does not necessarily imply that competition is impaired.
With the year drawing to a close, it seems an opportune time to take stock of some of the key globally relevant data protection developments in 2015 and extract a few trends which are set to continue in 2016.
After years of consulting, drafting and negotiating at various levels, on 15 December 2015 the final compromise text of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) was agreed. What a milestone! Once the European Parliament and Council both adopt the agreed text, the GDPR will officially come into force.