Amendments to Thailand’s Trademark Act were published in the Royal Gazette on April 29, 2016. The amendments will become effective on July 28, 90 days after the publication date. Among the amendments is a new chapter on trademark registration which introduces a number of changes that set the stage for Thailand to accede to the Madrid Protocol in 2016.

The Office of Insurance Commission (OIC) has released draft Notifications—applicable to both life and non-life insurance companies—which introduce provisions on internal risk management in insurance companies.Under these provisions, life and non-life insurance companies must:

On June 1, the fees to register a company and other related corporate documents will be revised in Myanmar. If you already have a registered company, or you are contemplating establishing one, you should be fully aware of the revised registration fees.

Under the ASEAN IPR Action Plan—a plan to harmonize intellectual property (IP) systems in the region—member countries such as Thailand are expected to join the Hague Agreement, which allows applicants to register a design in any number of participating countries by filing a single application. This saves applicants time and costs, compared with filing a separate application in each country where they want to register their design.

Under Vietnam’s new Penal Code No. 100/2015/QH13 (“new code”) coming into force on July 1, 2016, the dismissal of an employee will become more challenging because managers of companies will be exposed to greater risks of criminal liability than under the existing Penal Code No. 15/1999/QH10 as amended by Law No. 37/2009/QH12 (“old code”). This criminal liability would be imposed in addition to any civil liability that might be imposed under Vietnamese labor laws.

Insurance and Reinsurance, published by Practical Law Company, provides a Q&A-style overview of insurance and reinsurance law in 30 jurisdictions around the world.

The Insurance and Reinsurance Multijurisdictional Guide 2016/17  presents a Q&A-style overview of insurance and reinsurance law and practice in key jurisdictions worldwide. The Vietnam chapter of the guide, written by Vinh Quoc Nguyen, a senior associate in Tilleke & Gibbins’ corporate and commercial group, provides details on the following subjects:

“Born in Canada, Living in London, Made in Italy” is the brand motto of Dsquared2, the famous international fashion brand originally created by Dean and Dan Caten, twin brothers from Canada who have used the series of trademarks D2, DSQUARED, D2 DSQUARED2, and DSQUARED2 since 1994.The trademarks were filed in many countries under the name Belmont Brands Ltd., and they were subsequently assigned to DSquared2 TM S.A. In Thailand, however, DSquared2 discovered that its trademarks had already been registered by a Thai company that is also in the fashion industry.