China Opens Up to Foreign Law Firms
China — China’s Ministry of Justice has given its approval to 11 foreign law firms to open two or more representative offices in the country. At present, around 150 foreign law firms are offering legal services in China,
mostly confined to consulting services. (Source: www.isinolaw.com.)
New Rules to Combat Money Laundering
China — China will more closely monitor people and companies carrying out large-sum bank transactions, as three laws to combat money laundering took effect this month.
Under the new laws, people carrying out transactions involving over 200,000 yuan (US$24,184) on individual bank accounts will be monitored. Corporations making payments of over 1m yuan or receiving payments of over 200,000 yuan
will also be monitored.
Authorities will also monitor individuals depositing more than US$10,000 or making more than US$100,000 in non-cash transactions in a single day, and corporations making transactions of over US$500,000 in a single day. (Source: www.isinolaw.com.)
Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Strengthened
China — Following China’s entry into the WTO, law enforcement departments across the country have destroyed a total of RMB90m illegal audio and video products last year in the enforcement of intellectual property rights. Over
200 major sales venues of illegal audio and video products have also been shut down in the past year. (Source: www.isinolaw.com.)
Research On Human Cloning Prohibited
India — Research on human cloning with intent to produce an identical being has been prohibited in India since its safety, success, utility and ethical acceptability have not been established. The Central Ethics Committee on
Human Research of the Indian Council of Medical Research has evolved a set of ethical guidelines, according to which the possibility of human cloning cannot be rejected. The guidelines have been accepted and circulated among all
the scientific institutions in the country involved in research on human beings for its compliance. (Source: www.indlawnews.com.)
Bill to Help Crime Victims Shelved
UK — Plans to give legal rights to victims of crime have been shelved to make way for a crackdown on begging and antisocial behaviour. The victims’ bill was also supposed to champion the rights of victims and witnesses and
introduce a statutory code of practice backed by an independent ombudsman. So far, plans to set up a ‘victims’ fund’ to ensure that they receive the financial compensation due to them from offenders more quickly have become bogged
down. In some cases, victims have been waiting for years to be paid compensation ordered by the courts.
This will now be postponed indefinitely in favour of a white paper focusing on spot fines against truants, drunks, louts and noisy neighbours. The plans include proposals which would effectively ban begging. (Source:
www.guardian.co.uk.)
Proposed Anti-Terror Legislation Could Breach Human Rights
US — Although the security challenges facing the United States are ongoing and serious, draft anti-terrorism legislation currently being circulated by the Justice Department includes many provisions that undermine basic civil
liberties and human rights, many of which, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has charged, bear no obvious relationship to increased security.
For example, the draft legislation would legalise secret arrests, deny US citizens being held in military jails the right of access to legal counsel and strip detainees of their citizenship altogether. (Source: www.lchr.org.)
Online Porn Law Struck Down
US, Philadelphia — A three-judge panel of the third US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Child Online Protection Act restricted free speech protected under the First Amendment by barring Web page operators from
posting information inappropriate for minors unless they limited the site to adults. The ruling upheld an injunction blocking the government from enforcing the law.
The court said that the law made no distinction between things inappropriate for a five-year-old and things harmful to someone in their early teens. This made it difficult for adults to view non-pornographic sites, rendering
the law ‘constitutionally infirm’.
On appeal, the Supreme Court said that difficult evaluation standards alone did not make the law unconstitutional, and has sent the case back for further evaluation. (Source: news.findlaw.com.)
New Rules for Dietary Supplements
US, Washington — The Food and Drug Administration (‘FDA’) proposed the first manufacturing standards for largely unregulated dietary supplements, saying the long-awaited rules could cut fraud and contamination and finally
ensure consumers get what they pay for. However, there will be no guarantee that the pills or powders work or are even safe to swallow.
What the new manufacturing standards will do, is to set out requirements for quality control, testing, maintaining records and handling consumer complaints. Companies that do not meet the manufacturing standards could face FDA action, including having their products pulled from the market. (Source: news.findlaw.com.)