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 28 November 2022, the EU institutions formally adopted a Regulation on foreign subsidies distorting the internal market. The new rules will have a major impact on M&A transactions and will significantly increase the administrative burden facing many EU and non-EU companies doing business in Europe. The Regulation is part of a broader effort to protect the EU’s geopolitical “open strategic autonomy”. It aims to level the playing field by allowing the European Commission to intervene where foreign subsidies granted directly or indirectly by third countries threaten to distort the EU internal market.
On 10 November 2022, the National Coordination Centre for Ethics Committees published the updated versions of the ‘Contract for the performance of clinical trials on medicines’, the ‘Contract for the performance of independent clinical trials on medicines’ and the ‘Contract for the performance of clinical investigations on medical devices that are not CE marked or CE marked but used outside their intended use’.
On 1 December 2022, Implementing Regulation EU 2022/2347 on the reclassification of groups of certain active medical devices without an intended medical purpose, as listed in Annex XVI to Regulation EU 2017/745, was published in the Official Journal of the EU.
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 .
KPPU, the Indonesian competition authority, issued 15 decisions this year, a decline from 23 decisions in 2021. Late merger filing cases still account for the majority of decisions, followed by small and micro enterprises partnership cases. The increasing number of SME partnership cases suggests closer scrutiny by KPPU of partnerships between big and medium corporations and SMEs, which is in line with KPPU’s priorities as the pandemic subsides.
US agencies such as the SEC, the CFTC and the FTC have extensive enforcement powers to seek significant financial penalties and limit or otherwise affect conduct through court injunctions or administrative orders. Companies and executives under investigation and threatened with enforcement actions by these agencies often choose to settle rather than litigate. Historically, from as cost-benefit analysis, settlement is preferable to the cost of litigation and the long term risks of extensive fights with agencies that would continue to be their regulators.
Equal pay for men and women has been enshrined in UK law since 1970. Since then, and particularly since the turn of the century, equal pay claims have tended to take the form of mass claims in the public and retail sectors. In recent years, however, there has been renewed focus on individual equal pay claims. We expect that the Financial Conduct Authority will step up its scrutiny of equal pay and remuneration policies.
On 11 November 2022, the Ministry of Ecological Transition answered the Confindustria’s question on whether the packaging of medicines for human use, medical devices and in-vitro diagnostic medical devices must comply with the environmental labelling requirements set forth in Article 219, Section 5, of Legislative Decree 152/2006, starting from 1 January 2023.
On 9 December 2022, the Italian Government preliminary approved the draft legislative decree implementing Directive EU 2019/1937 (so called “Whistleblowing Directive”), aimed at protecting whistleblowers against retaliation and other negative consequences.