The Office for the Protection of Competition has recently published the results of a sectoral investigation in the pharmaceutical sector. The sectoral investigation is a tool used by both, national competition authorities and the European Commission to comprehensively investigate competition rules in a given sector, especially if they suspect that competition rules are being violated.

The EU’s headline target for its Member States is to have a climate-neutral economy by the year 2050. To reach this goal, the European Commission have called on Member States to prepare their National Energy and Climate Plans (“NECPs”) as the first mandatory step towards the Energy Union.

On 18 April 2023, the EU Parliament approved the provisional political plan to reduce CO2 emissions in the EU agreed on by the Council and the European Parliament on 18 December 2022. This plan is based on proposals of the "Fit for 55" package presented by the European Commission in 2021 to reduce the EU's net greenhouse gas emissions by 55 % compared to 1990 levels by 2030 and to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

Last week the European Union took a major step towards regulating the fast-growing cryptocurrency market with the final approval of the Regulation on Markets in Crypto-Assets (“MiCA”). The new regulation was approved by the European Parliament on 20 April 2023, and is now subject to formal endorsement by the European Council and publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

On Tuesday, the EU Parliament unleashed a legislative game-changer in the global climate battle, adopting the world’s first carbon border tax (CBAM). The MEPs also formally adopted the deals reached with the Council in December 2022 on several other critical pieces of legislation, including the closely-related revised EU’s Emissions Trading System (“EU ETS“) and a new Social Climate Fund (“SCF“), all a vital part of the EU’s Fit for 55 package, designed to help the bloc cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 against a 1990 baseline.

Non-competition agreements are popular for protecting the employer’s economic interest in Hungary. While employers try to secure their businesses as much as possible by stipulating excessive restrictions in the non-compete clauses, it is not always the right tactic, as shown by a recent decision of a Hungarian appellate court. The analysis of this decision provides a perfect opportunity to see how not to fall into the pitfall of an invalid non-competition agreement in Hungary.

On 11 April 2023, the Hungarian Parliament adopted a whistleblower protection act setting aside the previous one first adopted back in 2013.

An overview of important legislative changes in the Czech Republic.

Since the beginning of Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities have imposed personal sanctions on about 5,000 individuals and 2,500 legal entities.

Web scraping refers to several techniques used to collect data from the internet and is also known as screen scraping or data mining. With the web scraping method, the content available on someone else's website on the Internet is collected through software that simulates website browsing and is used on the scraper's websites or services. The best-known examples of web scraping are various price comparison sites, flight tracking programs, and news-curated websites.

The specific connection procedure of power plants based on the requests of 2 May 2022 has been amended again, as a result of which deadlines set for authorized network operators are also amended. According to the government decree published on 29 March 2023, the new deadline to provide the technical and economic conditions for industrial-size power plants and electricity storage facilities as well as for all investments with a connection needed to a medium voltage network is 10 May 2023, while for the rest of the power plant investments it is 30 June 2023.

With the new year, a significant amendment to the Czech consumer protection laws came into force that further strengthens consumer rights and increases transparency in providing information to consumers. But there are also important changes in the marketing area, including tighter restrictions on using influencers to promote products and services.

Social and economic changes in 2022 have broken a long downward trend recently, with the number of tax categories increasing from 51 to 59 last year. We give you the latest lowdown.

Many books have been written and just as many films have been made trying to show what the future will look like, but we are much closer to knowing it with the advent of artificial intelligence and, more specifically, generative artificial intelligence. Generative artificial intelligence is a type of artificial intelligence that can generate new content, as opposed to systems that simply analyse or act statically on an existing data set.

Since the parties cannot resort to state courts as long as there is an arbitration agreement (Article 5 of the ICC and Article 413 of the CCP), the parties may be deprived of the right to resort to state courts if the arbitration proceedings take longer than necessary. On the other hand, one of the most important advantages of arbitration is that arbitral proceedings can be completed in a shorter period of time than state courts. Taking these principles into consideration, the legislator has limited the arbitration proceedings to a time limit in the International Arbitration Law and the Code of Civil Procedure.

The answer is simple: to make EU membership top priority, to form the team with the capacity to drive and stay on the train until the final destination. But it is not only important for the team to have only the Loco pilot only to drive the train, the team must have other members with the understanding who is in the train, the train route both in Serbia and EU and who share strong belief that the final destination will bring the benefits not only to the country of the departure (passengers) but also to the countries and citizens of  the destination. If something is missing in that chain, it may happen that the Loco pilot may drive the train via Antarctica to EU with the possibility that the train may get stuck somewhere on the route and may never reach its final destination.

New legislation amending the Labor Code and other relevant acts was signed by the President and published in the Journal of Laws. This legislation implements two European Union Directives: Directive (EU) 2019/1158 of 20 June 2019 on work-life balance for parents and carers and Directive (EU) 2019/1152 of 20 June 2019 on transparent and predictable working conditions in the European Union. New provisions will come into force on 26 April 2023.

Croatian Consumer Protection Act authorizes qualified entities such as consumer organizations and public authorities to bring civil proceedings against traders or trade associations engaged in practices that violate Croatian consumer protection laws. Under the current regime, the competent court is authorized to (i) establish that the infringement occurred, (ii) order the respondent (e.g., trader) to cease the prohibited behaviour and, if possible, to adopt measures necessary to eliminate the harmful effects of respondent’s prohibited conduct, and (iii) prohibit any such or similar future behaviour.