Most foreign investors doing business in Thailand are aware of the 49% limit on foreign ownership in reserved businesses under the Foreign Business Act (FBA). A wide range of common businesses, including trading and services, are reserved under the lists annexed to the FBA. Lacking proper legal advice on legitimate solutions, investors commonly take the easy path by engaging Thai nominees to hold a 51% stake in the business on their behalf.

This article provides a thorough overview of Thailand’s bankruptcy system, liquidation, and business reorganization processes. Relevant laws and procedures are cited throughout the document for the reader’s attention.

In September 2008, China once again found itself at the center of international media attention for all the wrong reasons. Reports circulated that four infants had died and more than 50,000 others had fallen ill after consuming dairy products that had been contaminated by melamine. Although initial reports focused only on one milk producer, it soon became clear that more than twenty companies were implicated in the scandal. As thousands of anxious parents queued for hours in hospitals waiting for their children to be checked for kidney ailments, Chinese officials were spurred into action.

The markings ® (for “Registered”) and ™ (for “Trademark”) are useful tools that can be employed to protect and strengthen trademark rights, but their usage must be tailored to the requirements of individual jurisdictions. This article provides advice on the use of each symbol under Thai law.

Having officially become the 173rd member of the Paris Convention, Thailand can expect two primary advantages: (1) Thai applicants will be able to enjoy the priority date of an application originated from Thailand in filing for patents overseas; (2) accession to the Paris Convention moves Thailand one step closer to adhering to the Patent Cooperation Treaty.

Last year, around the same time as Thailand’s “Red Shirt” crisis, another crisis was under way. Of course, we are referring to Map Ta Phut, a thoroughly industrialized municipality which became the geographic focus of litigation over various government entities’ compliance with environmental provisions in the constitution. Though the lawsuit was against government agencies and people, the resulting gridlock halted the progression of some 76 industrial projects that had already been approved pursuant to then-current procedures.

Recent headlines of a company offering surrogacy services in exchange for money have brought the issue of assisted reproductive technologies back into the public eye, shedding light on the fact that Thai law has not kept up with advancements in infertility treatment. Currently, couples in Thailand who wish to have a child, yet for whatever reason are unable to do so via natural methods, have limited options, adoption being the most common. But what about those couples who wish to have a child that is genetically theirs?

In Plasco, Inc. v. Thantri Meethikulchanun, the Dika Court considered the IP&IT Court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s complaint, which had been based on the reasoning that the complaint was filed after the expiration of the five-year period for filing a cancellation action based on “better right” grounds under Section 67 of the Thai Trademark Act. The Dika Court reversed the IP&IT Court’s decision on how the period was to be calculated.