The EU Directives on Work-life balance and on Transparent and predictable working conditions were introduced into the Latvian national legislation in August 2022 and brought about significant changes and obligations for the employers. What do they mean for businesses?

In 2016, when local authorities had been able to levy municipal taxes for more than a year already, we summarised the lessons that had been learned up to then from this newest genre of local taxes. At the time, we were waiting with bated breath to see what the future would bring, that is; to see just how creative local governments would get in thinking up new taxes. So what did ever happen to the ‘kitsch tax’, the ‘pony tax’ and all those other local levies? Now that a few years have passed, the time has come for us to once again peer into the weird and wonderful world of municipal taxes.

On 30 June 2023, Law of Ukraine No. 3220-IX On introduction of changes to certain laws of Ukraine as to recovery of energy safety and green transformation of the energy system of Ukraine (the Law) was adopted in the second hearing in its entirety.

Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to the Bankruptcy Code of Ukraine on the Application of Bankruptcy Procedures during the Period of Martial Law” No. 3249-IX dated 13 July 2023 (“Law”) entered into force on 29 July 2023.

Amendments and supplements to the Customs Law, enacted in December 2022, amended the misdemeanour provisions for violations of this law. The amendments introduce greater certainty regarding the misdemeanour liability of importers and customs representatives for submitting customs declarations and accompanying documents with the goal of legitimate con­ducting of customs procedures. In this ar­ticle we present our interpretation of the respective amendments.

The Hungarian Code of Advertising Ethics (hereinafter referred as: the “Code”) has not been revised since 2015, but the achievements of the times and the accelerated flow of information made it necessary to include some specific elements into the Code. Following approval by the advertising industry bodies, the new Code came into force on June 30, 2023. The purpose of this article is to highlight the most important changes to the content, in order of their position in the new Code.

Two laws concerning the work and residence of foreign nationals in Serbia have been updated this July. The Serbian Parliament has adopted the amendments to the Law on Foreign Nationals (“LFN”) and to the Foreign Nationals Employment Act (“FNEA”). Among the main reasons for these amendments are harmonization with EU regulations and standards, as well as the current trend of increased presence of foreign workforce in Serbia, the need for which is expected to continue to be on the rise.

The Act No. 497/2022 Coll. on the screening of foreign investments and on amendments and supplements to certain acts, as amended, and Slovak Government Regulation No. 61/2023 Coll. establish critical foreign investments rules (the "FDI legislation"). In cooperation with the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic (the "Ministry") we have prepared an overview of some practical issues in connection with the FDI legislation.

One of the main recent buzzwords in Moldova is AML compliance at the convergence of securities and banking which strictly follows the recommendations of the report from the fifth evaluation round of the MONEYVAL Committee of the Council of Europe, in order to transpose the provisions of Directive 2018/843 of the European Parliament and of the Council of May 30, 2018, as well as updated provisions of the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations.

On 29 July 2023, Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on the Application of Sanctions” No. 3223-IX, dated 13 July 2023 (“Law”), enters into force.

On 07.07.2023, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Albania adopted the Decision "On the determination of entry, residence, and employment in the Republic of Albania of foreign nationals, employees of an IT company" (hereinafter referred to as the “Decision”).

The world’s population is on the rise, increasing the demand for food. The United Nations estimates that the world population will reach 9 billion people in approximately 15 years; by 2050, it is expected to reach 10 billion people. This means there will be an additional two billion people to feed, necessitating farming and food production to become more efficient.

May 2023 marks five years since the application of the General Data Protection Regulation, better known as "GDPR", and its requirements still pose a number of challenges for organizations. On one hand, this is because ensuring compliance with GDPR is not a "one-time exercise" but a continuous process "from within", requiring synchronization with all other activities in the organization. On the other hand, companies must also take into consideration innovations "from the outside", including new regulations and technologies, by promptly addressing data protection risks.

A brief overview of value added tax and direct tax in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including specifics for direct tax in Federation of B&H, Republic of Srpska, and Brcko District of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

On Friday 21 July 2023, the Albanian Parliament adopted a law which legalizes medical cannabis and industrial hemp (“Cannabis Law”). The Cannabis Law allows licensed companies to cultivate and process cannabis and determines the criteria which must be met to obtain such a permit, but also regulates the cultivation process of the plant and the production of its by-products for medical and industrial purposes.

At the beginning of June 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of the famous Jack Daniel’s distillery in a trademark infringement lawsuit after a squeaky toy for dogs appeared on the market, which resembles a bottle of the famous whiskey Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 Black Label Tennessee Whiskey in the context of shape of the bottle and other elements (trade dress).

The content of communications recorded by criminal law enforcement authorities (LEAs) and traffic and location data; Not only voice communications, but also electronic messages made not only from a mobile phone, but also from landlines and other devices; Records of surveillance of persons and property by the LEAs. This and other information have so far reached the Czech national competition authority (Czech NCA) without being able to use it legally as evidence in the proceedings.

With the Schrems II judgment, which invalidated the Privacy Shield, the CJEU (Court of Justice of the European Union) make it more difficult to comply with the GDPR for companies transferring personal data from the EU to the US. However, the new EU-US Data Privacy Framework (or “Framework”) adopted on 10 July aims to put an end to this situation. But how does the Framework make data transfers between the EU and US easier? In this short article, we explain the basics of the new Framework and answer the above question.