Submenue Archives

In Trade and Foreign Investment

Switzerland: The WTO delivers at its 12th Ministerial Conference in Geneva

July 9, 2022 by Pablo Bentes and Claude Chase 6 Mins Read

In the early hours of 17 June 2022, the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization adopted a package of decisions after five days and nights of intense negotiations that appeared to be teetering on the brink of collapse. With the WTO’s credibility on the line, trade ministers were able to compromise and reach consensus at the last minute, reaffirming the WTO’s capacity to deliver multilateral trade rules and provide trade-related responses to some of the most pressing global issues. The “Geneva Package” includes decisions on: (i) fisheries subsidies; (ii) a partial waiver of patent protections under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights in relation to COVID-19 vaccines; (iii) a moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions; and (iv) WTO reform.

Turkey: The Guideline on Use of Cookies Has Been Published

July 8, 2022 by Can Sozer and Ecem Elver 9 Mins Read

On 11 January 2022, the Personal Data Protection Authority (“Authority”) published the Draft Guideline on Use of Cookies and on 20 June 2022, it published the Guideline on Use of Cookies (“Guideline”). With the Guideline, the Authority aims to bring forward recommendations to ensure compliance of cookie usage procedures followed by data controllers with the Personal Data Protection Law.

In Internal Investigations

Netherlands: Supreme Court judgment on legal professional privilege for in-house lawyers in the Netherlands

July 8, 2022 by Chr. Frank (Frank) Kroes, Sjef Janssen and Michiel Mulder 7 Mins Read

On 24 May 2022, the Dutch Supreme Court passed judgment between, on one hand, the Royal Dutch Shell PLC and 15 of Shell’s in-house lawyers (“Shell”), and on the other hand, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service.1 The Supreme Court held that both Shell’s and the Public Prosecution Service’s complaints were inadmissible because the decision of the court of first instance should be considered as an ‘interim decision’ (in Dutch: ‘tussenbeschikking’), and interim decisions are not open to cassation. The Supreme Court took the opportunity to provide some insights in relation to the scope and application of legal professional privilege of in-house lawyers by way of obiter dictum.

In ESG

Australia: Changes to healthcare and aged care policies

July 8, 2022 by Ben McLaughlin, Jamie Sung, Elisabeth White and Kate Jefferson 7 Mins Read

The new Australian Government promises nearly AUD 1 billion in investments to Medicare and general practices as part of a number of policy commitments to healthcare and aged care initiatives.
On 21 May 2022, Australia elected a new federal government, the Australian Labor Party. As part of its campaign, the newly elected Federal Government committed to a number of healthcare and aged care policy initiatives with a strong focus on improving quality and access to primary care.

In Corporate Compliance

United Kingdom: Treasury confirms direct regulation of critical third-party service providers

July 8, 2022 by Mark Simpson, Sue McLean, Kimberly Everitt and Lorraine Dindi 6 Mins Read

Mirroring earlier proposals by the European Commission, in a move anticipated by the industry, HM Treasury has confirmed that it will implement a regime whereby third-party firms designated as “critical” will be subject to direct regulatory oversight by the financial regulators. The Treasury published a policy statement on 8 June 2022, setting out its framework for mitigating the risks caused by financial services firms outsourcing important functions to third-party service providers.

UK Supreme Court rules no entitlement for consumers to an “absolute level of safety” in product liability case

July 8, 2022 by Kate Corby, Joanne Redmond and Lauren Gest 4 Mins Read

The appellant in the case of Hastings (Appellant) v Finsbury Orthopaedics Ltd and another (Respondents) (Scotland) [2022] UKSC 19, has failed to demonstrate to the UK Supreme Court (UKSC) that a prosthetic hip (manufactured by the respondents, each making separate parts) used in a metal-on-metal hip replacement was defective. Rather, the UKSC unanimously upheld the finding of the lower courts and concluded that the nature of the product meant that there could be no entitlement to an absolute level of safety.
The judgment is likely to be welcomed by those involved in the manufacture and distribution of medical devices and other health care products, as it continues the pragmatic approach of the UK courts in seeking to balance the need to achieve a high level of consumer protection against a robust assessment of the standards which the public can realistically expect manufacturers to achieve.

In Antitrust / Competition

Switzerland: Price disclosures in consumer transactions

July 7, 2022 by Baker McKenzie 4 Mins Read

On 25 May 2022, the Federal Council passed an amendment to the Price Disclosure Ordinance. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure clarity and comparability of prices and to prevent the use of misleading prices. This latest amendment was precipitated by federal court ruling 4A_235/2020, which caused uncertainty on the question of the timing of price disclosure in online trade.

Global: Trade Secrets Shorts

July 7, 2022 by Michael E. Brewer, Aaron Goodman, Celeste Ang, Juan Pablo Concha Delgado, Shih Yann Loo, Stephen C.M. Ratcliffe, William Dugan, Bradford Newman, Jason Raeburn, Mark D. Taylor, Christine M. Streatfeild, Cristina Duch, Binxin Li and Leticia Ribeiro C Figueiredo 3 Mins Read

With increased regulatory scrutiny and the emergence of employee activism, companies have experienced an elevated risk of trade secret disclosure from current or former employees acting as putative whistleblowers. In this episode, Aaron Goodman (Partner, Los Angeles) discussed key factors companies should consider in balancing their trade secret interests against the protections afforded to whistleblowers, with a focus on recent whistleblower laws across the globe.

In ESG

Japan: Business Models for Smart Cities

July 6, 2022 by Yaeko Hodaka and Keisuke Misuda 1 Min Read

In recent years, a considerable number of examples of successfully monetized smart city businesses have emerged, particularly in Europe and the US. In Japan, however, very few examples of monetized, sustainable smart city businesses exist. The failure to find a business model that can be monetized would be a major problem for both companies and local governments.
In order to help tackle this issue, Baker McKenzie (Gaikokuho Joint Enterprise) lawyers Yaeko Hodaka and Keisuke Misuda, together with the World Economic Forum (WEF), prepared a video titled “Smart City Business Models: Factors Hindering Sustainable Commercialization and How They Can Be Overcome.”

In Internal Investigations

Future of Disputes UK

July 6, 2022 by Steve Abraham, Yindi Gesinde, Edward Poulton, Ash Chandhok Tiwari, Dr. Markus Altenkirch LL.M., Mark Banks, Katia Finkel, Carinne Kamdar, Ben Ko, Ben Levitt, Richard Molesworth and Jack Secunda 4 Mins Read

Our Future of Disputes UK Virtual Programme brought speakers from leading in-house institutions – including AON, Gilead, GPW Group, HSBC, JP Morgan, Rio Tinto, Salesforce and Siemens – together with Baker McKenzie dispute resolution specialists to discuss key challenges in litigation, arbitration and investigations likely to arise over the next year.
We tackled the practicalities around contract disputes and termination, engaging with government and regulators, strategies to manage litigation risk arising from internal investigations, and provided an overview of how case lifecycles are likely to unfold following recent reforms of litigation and arbitration mechanisms. Our speakers share insights garnered from managing complex, multijurisdictional disputes and offer strategies to help you shape your organisation’s business resilience and readiness for litigation in the medium and long term.