Recent Articles

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  24.03.2023

  Belgium

  Mar­ket Court partly an­nuls Bel­gian Com­pet­i­tion Au­thor­ity de­cision on a hub and spoke in ci­gar­ettes case

  Following an enquiry initiated in 2017 and dawn raids carried out the same year, the Competition College of the Belgian Competition Authority concluded on 13 April 2022 its investigation into illegal exchanges of confidential commercially sensitive information via wholesalers and imposed a total of 36 million EUR of fines on four cigarette manufacturers :British American Tobacco Belgium : fine of 5.7 million EUR, Etablissements L. Lacroix Fils : fine of 7 million EUR, JT International Company Netherlands : fine of 7.2 million EUR and Philip Morris Benelux : fine of 16 million EUR.The BCA had investigated...

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  24.03.2023

  International

  CMS European M&A Study 2023: Re­cord num­ber of deals last year des­pite chal­len­ging eco­nom­ic back­drop

  The CMS Corporate/M&A Group is pleased to launch the 15th edition of the European M&A StudyIt has been a challenging year for M&A in view of rising inflation and interest rates, slowing growth and increased geopolitical tension, which have added up to a difficult macroeconomic environment. However, there have been plenty of deal opportunities, as demonstrated by the fact that our study covers a record 509 M&A transactions on which CMS advised in 2022. In a difficult M&A market, we are pleased with this result, which reflects the strength of our corporate offering throughout...

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  24.03.2023

  United Kingdom

  Build­ing Safety Act Re­gister opens next month: a step-by-step guide to re­gis­tra­tion

  A new National Register of higher risk buildings in England is due to open in April 2023 (the “Register”).  The Register, set up by the new Building Safety Regulator as a consequence of the Building Safety Act 2022 (the “2022 Act”), is due to open for first registrations in April 2023.  All existing occupied higher risk buildings in England are to be added to the Register. This is expected to apply to around 13,000 existing buildings. The deadline for all of those buildings to be registered is 1 October 2023.The 2022 Act is coming in force in a staggered process....

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  24.03.2023

  England and Wales

  CMS UK Tax Dis­putes Di­gest (March 2023)

  Welcome to the March 2023 edition of our UK Tax Disputes Digest: a high-level summary of key developments in contentious tax over the last few months for heads of tax, finance directors, general counsel and other in-house professionals.In our last edition (November 2022), we noted that pressure on the Government to recover money through closing the tax gap and related announcements would inevitably see HMRC ramping up activity.  Since then, we have noticed a marked increase in HMRC investigations across various areas.  Both individual and corporate taxpayers would be well-advised to check...

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  23.03.2023

  Europe

  European Pat­ent Of­fice (EPO) dig­ging its heals in over the need for de­scrip­tion amend­ments, but how to do this re­mains a chal­lenge

  As a complement to the 10th edition of the EPO "Case Law of the Boards of Appeal" (CLB), the EPO has published an Annual Review containing summaries of decisions from 2022. The review provides a thematic overview of selected decisions of the boards of appeal published in 2022. There are a number of notable decisions in the summary including those concerning the controversial topic of bringing the description into line with amended claims.BackgroundIn October 2020, CMS published an article ‘New EPO Guidelines expected regarding amending a description: what’s all the fuss about?’,...

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  22.03.2023

  Croatia

  Work­ing for a UK em­ploy­er: Croa­tian work­ers fa­cing a dif­fi­cult de­cision: a high­er salary now or a pen­sion to­mor­row?

  Brexit has resulted in significant changes to contribution requirements, registration, and payment obligations for Croatian citizens employed by UK-based employers. The regulation on the coordination of social security systems applies to employment with EU member countries, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland. Croatian legislation applies to workers living in Croatia and employed by UK-based employers, and such individuals are required to make contributions to pension and health insurance in Croatia while being entitled to receive benefits from the Croatian pension and health systems. The...

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