Free trade agreements (FTAs) provide a range of benefits to businesses. FTAs, which are agreed upon between two or more countries, allow companies in those countries to trade in certain goods with reduced or eliminated tariff rates. They can greatly reduce costs for businesses, and in turn, this allows companies to allocate more resources to other business functions such as research and development, marketing, and so on.

The petroleum sector has seen a great deal of turbulence over the past two to three years, with the prices of Brent and West Texas Intermediate, the global oil benchmarks, falling from over USD 100 per barrel to less than USD 30, before recovering to around USD 45 in recent weeks. In Thailand, a new round of bidding for petroleum concessions was announced in 2014, only to be cancelled shortly afterward in anticipation of amendments to be made to the Petroleum Act and Petroleum Income Tax Act.

On April 5, 2016, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) issued Joint Circular 05/2016/TTLT-BKHCN-BKHDT providing details and guidance on the handling of cases where enterprise names infringe upon industrial property rights.

On July 7, 2016, Myanmar’s Ministry of Commerce issued a Notification to remove trade restrictions on local-foreign joint venture companies trading in construction materials.With the removal of these trade restrictions, local-foreign JVs can now conduct both retail and wholesale trading in construction materials, and they are subject to the same rules and regulations that govern local companies trading in construction materials.Local-foreign JV companies that want to trade in construction materials must fulfill the following requirements:

Recent amendments to Thailand’s Bankruptcy Act which came into force on May 25, 2016, will provide SMEs with greater protection against bankruptcy.

Thailand’s economy does not paint an image that befits the country’s reputation as the “Land of Smiles.” Politics, drought, floods, and conflict in the Deep South have taken their toll on Thai businesses. As a result, we have seen a steadily rising number of business reorganizations over the past few years. This article outlines Thailand’s business reorganization procedures and how creditors can collect debts from companies involved in reorganization.

In a trademark infringement that is endemic in Thailand, genuine containers and packaging bearing the mark of a legitimate trademark owner are refilled with illicit contents and reused by third parties. These are then sold in the marketplace and are intended to deceive the public into believing that the goods are genuine.

The Policy Board, established under the Act Allowing Private Entities to Make Joint Investments in State Businesses, has issued a Notice setting out different procedural rules for the selection and implementation of public-private partnership (PPP) projects.The Notice sets out two separate procedures, which apply depending on the estimated value of the project, as follows: