Search for:
Category

Asia-Pacific

Category

Personal Information Controllers and Personal Information Processors that are covered by the registration requirement under NPC Circular No. 2022-04 have until 10 July 2023 to register their respective Data Protection Officers (DPOs) and Data Processing Systems (DPS) with the National Privacy Commission through its online registration portal.

The recent high-profile sexual harassment cases in Taiwan have raised concerns and triggered discussions about the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. In fact, among the various types of employee misconduct, sexual harassment has been mostly addressed in Taiwanese law. Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Act of Gender Equality in Employment both require employers to provide a friendly and safe working environment, and provide detailed regulations for the process of investigations of sexual harassment complaints.

On 20 June 2023, the National Assembly passed the Law on Protection of Consumers’ Rights (amended), with an effective date of 1 July 2024, replacing the current Law on the Protection of Consumers’ Rights No. 59/2010/QH12. The new law includes 80 articles addressing various issues that will have direct impacts on both onshore and offshore businesses that transact with consumers in Vietnam.

With a population of just over 100,000, Labuan is a small Malaysian island located off the coast of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Little known to most is that Labuan, a federal territory of Malaysia, has a special status as an International Business and Financial Centre (IBFC). Prior to its rebranding as an IBFC in 2008, in the 1990s, Labuan was initially declared as an international offshore financial center.

Currently, Vietnam is in the process of reviewing the implementation of Decree No. 152/2020/ND-CP on foreign employees working in Vietnam, and the recruitment and management of Vietnamese employees working for foreign individuals and organizations in Vietnam. Against this context, the authorities have made various attempts to visit, inspect and audit companies on the use of foreign employees, work permit documentation and relevant compliance matters.

The Secretariat of Foreign Trade, by means of Circular No. 22, of 13 June 2023, published on 14 June 2023, opened an antidumping sunset review concerning Brazilian imports of welded steel pipes of austenitic stainless steel originated from Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The duties remain in force throughout the investigation, and they may be renewed for another five years at the end of the proceeding.

In an effort to address Vietnam’s historical perception as a high-risk compliance jurisdiction, the Vietnamese government has recently implemented a series of regulatory and practical measures to significantly reduce corrupt practices in the country.
These recent efforts to combat corruption have resulted in a number of measures, including legal reforms, public awareness campaigns, international cooperation efforts, as well as increased enforcement of corruption and bribery laws (including a number of high profile arrests and prosecutions for bribery offences). These trends in Vietnam show no sign of slowing down, and heightened enforcement of corruption-related crimes in Vietnam can be expected to continue and even increase in the months and years to come.

In announcing its Strategic Plan for Australia’s Payments System, Treasury has provided the clearest direction to date on how it plans to modernize and revamp the regulatory framework for payments in Australia. It outlines the Australian Government’s key priorities and initiatives for modernizing and regulating payments systems in coming years. This announcement follows a very broad consultation on its strategic plan and a number of reviews undertaken in this space.

Aiming to prevent anti-competitive policies being issued by various governmental institutions, on 31 March 2023 KPPU – the Indonesian Competition Commission, issued KPPU Regulation No. 4 of 2023 on the Provision of Inputs and Suggestions for Government Policies in relation to Monopolistic and/or Unfair Business Practices. In the past, various governmental policies, particularly on imports, quotas and commodities, have caused market distortion and resulted in KPPU issuing orders against other governmental institutions. Members of the public, including business entities, are welcome to provide input to KPPU if they become aware of a potentially anti-competitive governmental policy.