While we’ve all seen how quickly life has changed during the pandemic, from a business and HR angle the possibility of intellectual property misappropriation and theft occasioned by work-from-home policies may not yet be clear to many. With many employees working outside their company’s normal IT security fence, their increased use of their own computers and devices, instead of those in their offices with standard or enhanced security mechanisms, has made it more challenging for employers to control access to key business information.

The Thai government’s various COVID-19-related tax relief measures—most of which were approved by the cabinet in March of this year—have been formally promulgated and clarified in a series of royal decrees and notifications.   

A leading apparel company based in Spain, Original Buff, S.A., designs and produces apparel for outdoor, active, urban, and everyday wear. Their flagship product is a multifunctional, seamless, tubular headgear item, first created in 1992, with the mark BUFF, which was registered in Spain in 1994, followed by registrations in over 110 countries worldwide in class 25 (clothing).

The cannabis industry in Thailand took its first concrete step in February of 2019, when medical cannabis was unexpectedly legalized. In August 2019, a Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) notification delisted some components and derivatives of cannabis plants from the category of narcotics and reclassified them as products within the purview of individual laws (e.g., on medicine, herbal products, cosmetics, food, etc.).

As the Thai government became increasingly aware of the exponential rise of online IP infringement, in 2017 the government amended the Computer Crime Act (CCA) to give IP owners the option of blocking websites containing IP-infringing content. In the years following this, however, no trademark owner relied on the website-blocking measures under the amended CCA, which are set out in section 20(3) of the law. This changed recently, when Tilleke & Gibbins assisted our clients in filing complaints under section 20(3) of the CCA against websites infringing trademarks online.

As Vietnam continues to integrate into the world economy via bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, tariff barriers in the country have gradually been removed. This has made Vietnam an even more attractive target for foreign manufacturers and exporters, but it has also indirectly introduced a new challenge: local authorities are increasingly applying non-tariff barriers, such as anti-dumping duties, in an attempt to protect domestic industry.

On June 17, 2020, the National Assembly of Vietnam passed the Law on Investment 2020 (LOI) and Law on Enterprises 2020 (LOE). The new laws will take effect on January 1, 2021, replacing their predecessors from 2014. These are two of the main sources of corporate law in Vietnam, applicable to both domestic and foreign companies. Some key changes for foreign investors are listed below.Law on Investment 2020