The Legal 500

Legal Developments worldwide

• Boult Wade Tennant partner to speak at Management Forum’s Trademark Administrator conference

  Felicity Hide, a partner in Boult Wade Tennant’s Trade Mark and Domain Name Group, will be speaking at the Management Forum’s Trademark Administrator conference on 28 October 2010 at the Rembrandt Hotel in London.
  - Boult Wade Tennant

• THE NEW PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP LEGISLATION IS ADOPTED IN UKRAINE

  On 26 July the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych signed the Law “On the Foundations of Cooperation of the State with Private Partners” (the “Law”) which was adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament on 1 July to establish a framework for public-private partnership (“PPP”) in Ukraine. In May 2009 the Parliament already adopted the framework law on PPP, which, however, was later set aside.
  - Avellum Partners

• Employers’ age discrimination of under-18s legal

  On 30 June 2010, the Danish Eastern High Court established that the provisions and the practice on a number of areas covered by collective agreements, supporting a lower pay for employees under 18 years and termination of the employees when they turn 18, cannot be deemed to constitute a violation of the Employment Equality Directive (Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000).
  - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris

• Danish Holiday Act amended

  The Danish Ministry of Employment wants to stop employees speculating in having their holiday pay paid out. This has resulted in an amendment of the Danish Holiday Act.
  - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris

• ”Honey” was not sexual harassment

  Close physical contact and calling an employee “honey" was not enough to prove that a manager had sexually harassed an employee.
  - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris

• Doubt about how to interpret part-time leave agreement

  The Danish Board of Equal Treatment was not satisfied that an employer’s interpretation of an agreement about part-time leave was in breach of the Danish Act on Equal Treatment of Men and Women.
  - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris

• Part-time and fixed-term employment in the EU

  Three provisions of Austrian law about part-time and fixed-term employment met with opposition at the European Court of Justice – they were held to be at odds with EU law.
  - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris

• Public-sector managers, too, are entitled to freedom of speech

  The Danish Parliamentary Ombudsman has established once again that public-sector employees enjoy a high degree of freedom of speech.
  - Norrbom Vinding Law Firm, member of ius laboris

• Wikborg Rein newsletter: Paying for pirates

  Background: Attacks by Somali pirates are still commonplace and the fall-out from kidnappings of individuals and seizures of ships by pirates are still being dealt with by insurance companies, P&I clubs, arbitration tribunals, courts of law and national governments.
  - Wikborg Rein

• Friendlier Norwegian hedge funds regulations in force

  FRIENDLIER NORWEGIAN HEGDE FUNDS REGULATIONS IN FORCE July 2010 sees friendlier Norwegian hedge funds regulations entering into force – at last. New regulations lift the previous general marketing ban, implying that marketing licences shall now be obtainable.
  - Wikborg Rein