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- After long, drawn-out negotiations, an agreement was finally signed, on June 28, 2010, granting the US access to the SWIFT database. This agreement between Brussels and Washington is meant to help combat terrorism by making it easier to follow the financial trail left by suspected terrorists.
This deal was so hard to reach because of concerns by EU lawmakers that sharing data on bank transfers could violate the privacy of EU citizens. The long and intense negotiations were finally brought t [...]
- Long road to SWIFT agreement
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- What is the naked truth about security scanners? Full-body scanners, also known as naked scanners, "perv scanners", or arches have been criticized by civil liberties groups, religious organizations, Interpol and the European Court of Human Rights. These devices are controversial because they see through passengers’ clothes and can produce accurate naked images of the body. Governments say that they are extremely effective in detecting bomb parts and weapons. The critics challenge the effective [...]
- Attack on the Body Scanners
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- As football fever sweeps the globe, the EU is hoping to achieve some of its own goals. When the European Commission ("the Commission) met the Commission of the African Union last week , just before the start of the World Cup, President Barroso shared his hopes for an entertaining tournament with “free flowing football and fair play”. He also expressed his belief that “football is more than a sport: it is a universal language that helps people from different cultures and backgrounds to unit [...]
- The EU’s World Cup Goals
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- We know that it’s possible to be too friendly, but can a Member State be too consumer-friendly? That was the question posed to the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-484/08: Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Madrid v Asociación de Usuarios de Servicios Bancarios (Ausbanc). The specific issue before the Court was whether Spain could provide more generous protection to consumers than the Directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts (Council Directive 93/13/EEC).
The Dire [...]
- Consumer-friendly Justice
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- Two gambling companies lost their claims alleging that they didn’t get a sporting chance to do business in The Netherlands. Ladbrokes and Betfair both challenged the Dutch monopoly on gambling. They lost in the Court of Justice of the European Union, which held that Member States can prohibit the operation of games of chance on the Internet in joined Cases C-203/08 and C-258/08, Sporting Exchange v Minister van Justitie, and Ladbrokes Betting & Gaming, Ladbrokes International v Stichting de Na [...]
- Don’t Bet on Net Betting
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- State aid is more than just statements. Public statements made by French authorities may have helped France Télécom’s (FT) financial standing, but mere words cannot constitute illegal State aid. This was the conclusion of the General Court of the EU in France and Others v Commission, 21 May 2010, and a victory for France and FT.
FT is a public limited company quoted on the stock exchange. In 2002, the time relevant to the present case, FT was a group providing telecommunications networks [...]
- Don’t Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
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- If your luggage is worth more to you than 1,134.71 euros, you might want to think twice or make special arrangements before checking it in on an European airline. The EU Court of Justice recently confirmed that the liability of European Union air carriers for loss of baggage is limited to EUR 1,134.71, for both material and non-material damage, in Case C-63/09, Axel Walz v Clickair SA.
This case arose from an action filed by Axel Walz against the airline Clickair, in Commercial Court No 4 of [...]
- Don’t Check in until You Check this Out
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- Spanish painter Salvador Dalí died in Spain and established the Spanish State as sole legatee over his intellectual property (IP) rights which are administered by a Spanish foundation and managed by a Spanish society. It seems surreal, then, that French law prevailed over Spanish law in the European Court of Justice’s decision in a dispute about which law governs the resale rights to his works.
When surrealist painter Salvador Dalí died, in 1989, he left five heirs at law, who were member [...]
- Decision Distorts Dalí's Will
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- Does the fundamental right to protection of communications between lawyers and their clients extend to in-house counsel? Not under EU law, says Advocate General Kokott in the case of Akzo Nobel Chemicals Ltd and Akcros Chemical Ltd v European Commission (Case C-550/07 P, delivered on 29 April 2010).
This question about the scope of legal professional privilege in competition investigations by the European Commission arose in an investigation into a cartel and a related raid at the UK offices [...]
- Is Privilege in the House?
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- When Islandic volcano Eyjafjalla erupted, it caused passengers’ tempers to erupt from the almost total lock-down of European airspace. Some stranded travelers were worried about getting their money back for tickets, food, hotels and phone calls, while others were worried about visa issues. The EU Commission has taken extraordinary measures to deal with this unprecedented situation.
Airspace closure has resulted in the disruption of travel of many third country nationals who are subject to a v [...]
- Eruption Causing Disruption
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- Consumers were delivered a victory in the decision delivered by the Court of Justice of the European Union on April 15, Case C-511/08. They were granted deliverance from paying delivery charges upon withdrawal from distance contracts.
This case arose when a German consumer organization, Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen objected to the terms of sale set by Heinrich Heine, a mail-order company. The specific condition complained of was that the consumer must always pay a flat-rate charge of [...]
- Distancing Yourself from Delivery Charges
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- The EU Commission has suggested a tax on banks in response to requests to come up with novel ways of raising revenue. Novel it’s not, but who cares, as long as it generates 50 billion euros annually, as calculated.
On April 1, 2010, the Commission issued a 60-page staff working document called “Innovative financing at a global level”. This was prepared in response to the European Council’s invitation to examine global innovative financing, as well as the European Parliament’s request [...]
- Banking on Taxes
- Last week we wrote about Eurotrash; this week’s post features the “Euro-leaf”-- the EU’s new organic farming logo. The star-studded green leaf logo pictured at left will soon adorn packages of organic food produced within the European Union.
The new organic farming logo, introduced together with Commission Regulation (EU) No 271/2010 of 24 March 2010, as well as Commission Regulation (EC) No 889/2008, is intended to give consumers confidence about the provenance and purity of [...]
- How Logo Can You Go?
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- A new meaning for the term ”Eurotrash” was announced by the Court of Justice of the EU in the case of Commission v Italy, case C-298/08. Italy’s inability to clean up a 2007 garbage crisis around Naples was found to be a violation of the European Waste Directive, in the Court’s opinion.
Garbage disposal, or lack thereof, has been a longstanding problem in the region of Campania. Residents have suffered periodic trash emergencies during the past 14 years, which sometimes included rotting [...]
- EU Court Trashes Italy
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- A translatlantic dispute has erupted about proposed new rules for hedge funds. US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has sharply criticized the European Commission’s draft legislation aimed at regulating hedge funds, private equity and other alternative investment vehicles.
In a letter to Michel Barnier, the EU Commissioner for the internal market, Geithner objected to the proposed Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), saying that it could lead to discrimination against U [...]
- Fighting over the Hedge
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- The European Court of Justice got into women’s underwear in a recent case from the French Cour de Cassation.
In Case C-59/08, Copad SA v Christian Dior couture SA, Société industrielle lingerie (SIL), the fashion house Dior argued that when one of its licensees sold its luxury lingerie to a discount store in breach of the licence, the sale constituted not only a breach of contract, but also an infringement of its trade mark.
The background to this was a licence agreement concluded in 2000 [...]
- Attention Copad Shoppers
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- An online reporting system is the latest weapon in OLAF’s (the European Anti-Fraud Office) arsenal for fighting financial crime against the EU. OLAF, the EU’s financial watchdog agency, has a mandate to protect the economic interests of the Union by combating fraud, corruption and official misconduct within the EU's institutions.
Because this sort of crime is difficult to detect, OLAF has always depended on tips from citizens, businesses and EU employees. During the last few years, this inf [...]
- EU watchdog makes it easier to blow the whistle
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- Extending maternity leave throughout the EU was the gist of draft legislation passed by a committee of the European Parliament this week.
The MEPs (members of the European Parliament) on the Women’s Rights Committee backed the committee’s report which suggested updating the Pregnant Workers Directive. They voted to increase the minimum compulsory maternity leave from 14 to 20 weeks, at full pay. Six of these weeks would have to be taken immediately after childbirth.
They also proposed a [...]
- Micromanaging Maternity Leave
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- As part of the EU’s efforts to achieve a death penalty free world, the EU presidency is trying to stop an execution in the United States. The Ambassador of Spain to the US, on behalf of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, has written a letter to the Governor of the state of Arkansas, making a humanitarian appeal to grant Jack Harold Jones relief from the death penalty.
Jones was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to the death penalty for raping and killing a woman and assaulting her daug [...]
- Zero Tolerance for Death Penalty
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- After months of delays, the European Parliament finally approved the new European Commission on March 9, 2010. This cleared the way for the 27-member team (one from each member state), led by President Jose Manuel Barroso, to take office for a 5-year term. The vote resulted in a generous majority in favor, 488, with 137 votes against and 72 abstentions. EU rules require a “take it or leave it” vote meaning that the MEPs (Members of the European Parliament) could only vote on the Commission [...]
- New European Commission Finally Good to Go
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- The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) was given the task of getting inside the phrase “use of inside information”, by the Court of Appeals of Brussels in the case of Spector Photo Group NV, Chris Van Raemdonck v Commissie voor het Bank, Financie- en Assurantiewezen (CBFA), Case C-45/08.
This case arose from a series of dealings by the Belgian company Spector, which bought a number of its own shares on the Brussels stock exchange (Euronext Brussels) in order to implement a stock [...]
- Inside the head of the insider
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- The Stockholm Programme ("Programme") was the jewel in the crown of the Swedish Presidency of the EU. The Stockholm Programme sets out the EU’s legislative agenda in the area of justice and home affairs (JHA) for the years 2010-20014. It builds on the Hague Programme which was the plan for JHA cooperation for the last five years, which, in its turn, had followed the Tampere Programme. On November 25, 2009, the European Parliament supported the proposals by a wide majority, and the Presid [...]
- The Stockholm Programme
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- After lengthy negotiations and several referendums, the Treaty of Lisbon was finally ratified by all 27 Member States of the European Union in November 2009, and entered into force on 1 December 2009. The Treaty modifies the organisation of the court and adds to its jurisdictional scope.
The European Community has been replaced by the European Union, which now has legal personality, and the three-pillar structure of the Maastricht Treaty has been abolished. The court is now known as the Court o [...]
- Lisbon Treaty Changes EU's Court of Justice
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- A secret regulation cannot be enforced against individuals, ruled the European Court of Justice in a judgment announced on March 10, 2009. In Case C-345/06, proceedings brought by Gottfried Heinrich, the court established that a list of articles that are prohibited on board aeroplanes had no binding force on individuals because it had not been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
In 2002 , during the post- 9/11 wave of anti-terrorist legislation, the European Parliament a [...]
- The Commission can’t keep a secret
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- Certain things just cannot be litigated. This is what one individual in England has found out after trying to have a decision to ban him from a number of pubs in Buckinghamshire reviewed by a court. After an incident outside a pub in March 2008, the Buckingham Pubwatch Scheme (a group of publicans in the Buckinghamshire area) decided to ban the individual from their pubs for three years. As there was no remedy under private law which the individual could seek, he applied for a judicial rev [...]
- Non-justiciable decisions
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- An overwhelming majority of the European Parliament voted to support the EU’s “Blue Card” scheme to attract highly-skilled immigrants. Modeled on the the US “Green Card” system, the Blue Card gets its name from the EU flag, which is blue with twelve yellow stars.
This proposed Blue Card is designed to attract highly qualified workers from third countries by providing access to all of the Member States. The card will not replace national systems, but is an additional channel of [...]
- Blue Card
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- The Office of Fair Trading in the United Kingdom has published a report in which it criticizes BAA, the owner of several airports in the United Kingdom, for poor service and complacency due to lack of competition in the market. The Office of Fair Trading has the power under the Enterprise Act 2002 to refer the report to the Competition Commission, an independent authority that carries out investigations into mergers, markets and regulated industries in the United Kingdom where it feels that comp [...]
- Airport shake-up in UK
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- Courts outside the US find punitive damages alarming.
Punitive damages (called exemplary damages in the UK) are damages not awarded in order to compensate the claimant, but in order to reform or deter the defendant and similar persons from pursuing a course of action such as that which caused the injury to the claimant. Punitive damages are a settled principle of common law in the US. They are a matter of state law, and thus differ in application from state to state. They are often reported in [...]
- Punitive Damages Not Popular in Europe
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- When does a judge go too far?
Can a judge say anything he wants about the claimant and defendant in a case before him? According to the Court of Appeal in the case of El Farargy v El Farargy there must be a limit to the colourful and jocular comments of a judge.
In this case, a rich Egyptian and Muslim husband, had, on several occasions, defied the court’s orders to the potential detriment of his former wife. The judge in question, Singer J., expressed a number of comments which demonstrated [...]
- Judicial Bias
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- Class actions as a tool for consumer protection.
The class action in the United States is well known for their media presence and high awards of penalty damages. The European Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Meglena Kuneva and the Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kos, have both proposed that the US class action be introduced in the European Union to help enforce consumer and competition law. The problem in Europe is that the regulatory authorities which enforce consumer and competition [...]
- Is the US Class Action Coming to Europe?
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- “If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.” – Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist. Playing on this famous Dickens quote, Kelly Banham contemplates whether parents should be prosecuted for allowing their children to become obese.
In an unusual UK case, brothers David and Derek Benton were recently convicted of ani [...]
- The Law and Obesity