In a press release dated 3 April 2023, Confindustria Dispositivi Medici (the Italian Association of Medical Device Companies) announced the submission to the European Commission of a complaint to initiate infringement proceedings against Italy for the breach of the EU legislation on the matter of competition, market access and public procurement resulting from the Italian law governing the payback for medical devices.
On 26 April 2023, the European Commission presented its long-awaited proposal for the review of the pharmaceutical legislation. The main objectives of the proposal include the creation of a Single Market for medicines aimed at ensuring that all patients across the EU have timely and equitable access to safe, effective, and affordable medicines; the offering of an attractive and innovation-friendly framework for research, development, and production of medicines in Europe; the drastic reduction of the administrative burden by speeding up procedures significantly, reducing authorization times for medicines, so they reach patients faster; and the enhancement of the availability of medicines.
Restructuring is commonly used by employers to weather the economic storm. For a dismissal to be fair, it needs to be for a fair reason (which includes redundancy) and follow a fair process. However, there are additional considerations that an employer should take into account where disabled employees are affected, which, if breached, could result in financial and reputational high value claims against the employer.
Ethnicity pay gap reporting in the UK remains voluntary. For organizations that choose to report this data, the government has now published guidance on how to do so, recommending that they mirror the rules on gender pay gap reporting where possible. The big difference is that ethnicity pay gap reporting involves multiple categories.
On 18 April 2023, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs published the much anticipated draft bill on the exact requirements of how to meet the duty to record working time. The Draft Bill was published against the backdrop of a ruling by the Federal Labor Court in September 2022. Germany’s highest labor court ruled that employers — regardless of the size of the company and the existence of a works council — must record the working hours of their employees (Ref.: 1 ABR 22/21).
The UK Government published on 25 April 2023 its long-awaited Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. The Bill introduces radical new digital sector regulation – akin to the EU’s Digital Markets Act – in addition to expanding the UK Competition & Markets Authority’s consumer protection powers and introducing significant reforms for the UK competition regime.
by Dimitris Mourkas, Rini Rashid, and Jennifer Revis The UK will introduce a new criminal offence of failure to prevent fraud. The new offence (which is still being shaped as it goes through Parliament), will be included in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill and will come into force…
The UK Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has updated its guidance on enforcement and monetary penalties for breaches of financial sanctions to include a number of paragraphs setting out OFSI’s expectations around the nature and type of due diligence that companies should undertake when assessing whether an entity is owned or controlled by one or more designated persons, for sanctions purposes.
On 19 April 2023, the European Parliament adopted the final text of a new EU Regulation aimed at tackling deforestation…
On 17 March 2023, the government published an update on its progress in delivering its Inclusive Britain action plan that it published in March 2022. As part of that update, the government has published guidance for employers on how to take positive action to help people with protected characteristics overcome certain barriers and improve representation in their workforce without falling foul of the unlawful discrimination rules.