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 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.
The EU’s Court of Justice has ruled that a clause in a property lease, between a mall owner and a supermarket “anchor tenant”, which gives that tenant the ‘right to approve’ the granting of leases to competing stores is not anti-competitive ‘by object’.
Due to the large number of registrations for our Breakfast Briefings in Munich on December 14, 2015 and in Düsseldorf on December 15, 2015, we have decided to hold a third breakfast briefing on December 16, 2015 in Frankfurt am Main. The seminar will focus on the new law against bribery and its practical implications.
The Weltimmo judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union on 1 October 2015 has potentially far-reaching implications in practice as it addresses a question frequently faced by multinationals operating across multiple EU jurisdictions, namely which one of the various national data protection laws they must comply with.
On November 26, 2015, Germany’s new law combatting commercial corruption came into force. The law amends the provision on commercial bribery in the German Criminal Code.