The entry into force of the Law 39/2003, of November 17, 2003, on the Rail Sector, which was meant to take place on May 18, 2004, has been postponed until December 31, 2004 by Royal Decree-Law dated May 7, 2004.

The Portuguese Arbitration Act (Lei de Arbitragem Voluntária), similar to many others, does not address the issue of multiparty disputes. Moreover, the act is clearly designed to accommodate disputes between only two parties – a claimant and a defendant.

<P>There have been significant legislative developments in the Spanish judicial system over the last few years. These developments began with the enactment of the Civil Procedure Act 7/2000, of 2000, which entered into force in 2001, repealing the old Civil Procedure Act of 1881.</P>

The Court for the Defence of Competition has issued two decisions rejecting applications submitted by two card payment system associations (Sistema 4B and Servired) to obtain individual exemptions for their respective agreements on intra-system interchange fees (ie, fees applied to domestic consumer card transactions in retail outlets when the acquirer's and the merchant's banks are members of the same card payment system association).

Europe's journey toward a low-carbon future heavily relies on the growth of carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS).

A new Spanish Arbitration Act was approved on December 23, 2003 and will come into force in March, 2004. The new Arbitration Act replaces the one previously in force, dating from 1988.

The Rail Sector Act entered into force on December 31 2004. The act implements three EU Railway Infrastructure Directives (12/2001/EC, 13/2001/EC and 14/2001/EC).

There are two matters that come to mind when reference is made to the effectiveness of arbitration proceedings, namely, the adoption of interim measures in arbitration proceedings and the enforcement of both international and domestic arbitration awards.

For our final post on this topic of the top 100 European independent firms, our first stop is the Iberian peninsula.

On March 15, 2004, Law Nos. 10,847 and 10,848 were enacted establishing the guidelines for the "New Regulations on the Electrical Energy Sector" (the "New Regulations"). The New Regulations are intended to provide incentives to both private and public entities in order to maintain sufficient output capacity to guarantee electricity supply to the whole of Brazil and at the same time providing reasonable consumer rates through competitive electricity bidding processes.

A new study reveals majority of lawyers in the trade bloc believe regulatory changes, new service lines and a ‘more positive outlook' will lead to law firms expanding.