Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions Blog published the alert titled Czech Republic introduces unilateral sanctions against Russia on 3 May 2023. Read the article via the link here. Please also visit our Sanctions Blog for the most recent updates.
On 25 November 2021, the European Commission published its long-awaited proposals to amend the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), along with changes proposed to the UCITS Directive and ELTIF Regulation (AIFMD II). The Commission’s proposals follow ESMA’s August 2020 letter of recommendations for changes that could be made to the AIFMD framework. Tripartite negotiations on AIFMD II are ongoing, following agreement by the Council of the EU on its general approach in June 2022, and adoption by the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of its negotiating position in January 2023.
On 18 March 2023, two decrees of the Ministry of Health, dated 26 January 2023, were published in the Official Gazette to implement the advertising provisions laid down in Legislative Decrees No. 137/2022 on medical devices and No. 138/2022 on in vitro diagnostic medical devices.
With decree dated 7 April 2023, the Administrative Court of the Lazio Region rejected the request of a medical device company to shorten the statutory time limit for discussing its petition to suspend the enforcement of payment orders issued by Regions and Autonomous Provinces pursuant to the Italian payback legislation.
In a press release dated 3 April 2023, Confindustria Dispositivi Medici (the Italian Association of Medical Device Companies) announced the submission to the European Commission of a complaint to initiate infringement proceedings against Italy for the breach of the EU legislation on the matter of competition, market access and public procurement resulting from the Italian law governing the payback for medical devices.
On 26 April 2023, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for the review of the pharmaceutical legislation. The main objectives of the proposal include the creation of a Single Market for medicines aimed at ensuring that all patients across the EU have timely and equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable medicines; the offering of an attractive and innovation-friendly framework for research, development, and production of medicines in Europe; the drastic reduction of the administrative burden by speeding up procedures significantly, reducing authorization times for medicines, so they reach patients faster; and the enhancement of the availability of medicines.
Restructuring is commonly used by employers to weather the economic storm. For a dismissal to be fair, it needs to be for a fair reason (which includes redundancy) and follow a fair process. However, there are additional considerations that an employer should take into account where disabled employees are affected, which, if breached, could result in financial and reputational high value claims against the employer.
Ethnicity pay gap reporting in the UK remains voluntary. For organizations that choose to report this data, the government has now published guidance on how to do so, recommending that they mirror the rules on gender pay gap reporting where possible. The big difference is that ethnicity pay gap reporting involves multiple categories.
On 18 April 2023, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs published the much anticipated draft bill on the exact requirements of how to meet the duty to record working time. The Draft Bill was published against the backdrop of a ruling by the Federal Labor Court in September 2022. Germany’s highest labor court ruled that employers — regardless of the size of the company and the existence of a works council — must record the working hours of their employees (Ref.: 1 ABR 22/21).
The UK Government published on 25 April 2023 its long-awaited Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. The Bill introduces radical new digital sector regulation – akin to the EU’s Digital Markets Act – in addition to expanding the UK Competition & Markets Authority’s consumer protection powers and introducing significant reforms for the UK competition regime.