Text and Data Mining (hereinafter, TDM) issue for the purpose of scientific research or for any other purpose which is included in the provisions of the new EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (hereinafter, DSM). TDM is a term that includes Web harvesting and Web Archiving activities. Web harvesting and archiving pertains to the processes of collecting from the web and archiving of works that reside on the Web. In the following analysis we will elaborate briefly upon provisions in EU Copyright law which were discussed during the proposal for a new Directive on Copyright in the DSM as well as provisions which are included in the text of art.3 and art.4 of the new Directive 2019/790/EU per TDM. In addition, the following analysis presents legislation in very few EU Member States which pertains to TDM and preceded the rulings of Directive 2019/790/EU. Digital legal deposit remarkable examples from EU Member States are also presented in this paper. The example of Australia is also presented below hereto because it is one of the oldest and most successful worldwide. The National Library of Australia’s digital legal deposit is state-of-the-art.

The Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht – BAG) has decided that the entitlement to paid annual leave only expires at the end of the calendar year or at the end of a carry-over period if the employer has previously put the employee in a position to take his leave and yet the employee has not taken the leave out of his own free will. The court held that the employer must cooperate in granting the leave. He has to encourage the employee to take his – concrete numbered - leave and inform him accurately and in good time, that the entitlement to paid leave would otherwise expire.

Relying on the prohibition of age discrimination stemming from Directive 2000/78, the Labour Tribunal of Leuven refused to apply a Collective Labour Agreement establishing the minimum monthly salary for employees depending on their work experience even if not relevant and the Royal Decree enforcing it. The jurisdiction grounded its decision on the fact that this gave a strong advantage to older employees without objective justification.

Traditionally, it has been taught, or prohibited, for mediators to charge ‘success fees’ or ‘contingency fees’ as remuneration for the work they do. This article argues that such overall prohibition lacks nuances. Mediation rules and rules of ethics for mediators should not prevent the parties and the mediators from agreeing on some sort of higher remuneration in case of successful outcome of the mediation. There are limits. In particular, making the mediator’s remuneration a percentage of the settlement amount should remain prohibited.
However, if the mediator’s interests are aligned with those of the parties, which shall frequently be the case, there should be no blank prohibition for the mediator to charge higher fees in case of successful outcome of the mediation process.
There is a need for the mediator to be fully transparent about the system he proposes, which includes explaining to the parties and securing their understanding of the pros and cons of the remuneration system he suggests.

This contribution places the provisions of the Treaty creating a free trade area and customs union between the Member States (Articles 28-31 TFEU) in their wider context. It then focuses on the interpretation of Article 30 in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Throughout, it casts sideways glances at corresponding provisions of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As it turns out, the abolition of customs duties and charges having equivalent effect, and the establishment of a customs union between Member States, were important milestones in the development of European unification. They became overshadowed later by more spectacular developments in the case law on the free movement of goods, persons and services. As a consequence, the importance of the customs provisions is widely underrated. Brexit concentrates the minds in this respect, as an important economy is about to rearrange and even recreate the basic building blocks of its international trading relations.

The increasing volume of waste generated globally is one of the most prominent environmental issues we face today. Companies responsible for the treatment or disposal of waste are therefore among the key actors in fostering a sustainable future. Yet the waste industry has often been characterised as a criminogenic one, causing environmental harm which disproportionately impacts the world’s most vulnerable regions and populations. In this article, we illustrate how companies operating in global supply chains exploit legal and enforcement asymmetries and market complexities to trade waste with countries where facilities for environmentally sound treatment and disposal of waste are lacking. We draw on two contemporary cases of corporate misconduct in the Global South by companies with operating headquarters in the Global North: Seatrade and Probo Koala. We compare these cases building on theories about corporate and environmental crime and its enforcement. This explorative comparative analysis aims to identify the key drivers and dynamics of illegal waste dumping, while also exploring innovative ways to make the waste sector more environmentally responsible and prevent the future externalisation of environmental harm.

A series of imperfections in the CISG touching upon various areas are laid out thereby prompting the question of whether the Convention ought to be reformed. Two possibilities, namely supplementing the CISG with additional hard law instruments and drafting a new convention, i.e. CISG 2.0 are discussed and evaluated.

A number of collective labour agreements unjustifiably have excluded allowances from holiday pay. Recently, social partners have had difficulties in repairing these flaws. Two recent cases demonstrate this, both similar claims but with different outcomes. This leaves social partners with the problem of how to proceed.

In two appeal cases considered jointly, the Court of Appeal (CA) has ruled that it is not direct or indirect sex discrimination, nor a breach of equal pay rights, to provide enhanced pay for maternity leave and statutory pay only for shared parental leave (SPL).

The Higher Labour Court of Berlin-Brandenburg (Landesarbeitsgericht (LAG)) has held that the pro rata reduction of annual leave depending on the period of parental leave is lawful. In general, statutory holiday entitlement also exists for the period of parental leave. However, the employer has the right to reduce leave pro rata for each full month of parental leave according to Section 17 paragraph 1 sentence 1 of the Federal Parental Allowances and Parental Leave Act (Bundeselterngeld- und Elternzeitgesetz (BEEG)). The proportional reduction is in line with European law.

The Latvian Supreme Court recently used the ECJ Max Planck and Kreuziger judgments to explain how an employer can escape its obligation to compensate an employee for unused leave at the end of the employment relationship. The employer must prove that (a) it was possible for the employee to use the leave, and (b) the employer has in good time informed the employee that leave, if not used, might be lost and will not be compensated.

The decision pronounced by the first instance court related to the right of professional foster parents to request payment in lieu of untaken annual leave based on ECJ case law has been overruled by the Court of Appeal by making reference to a different ECJ ruling.

The Luxembourg Court of Appeal (Cour d’appel de Luxembourg) confirmed that an employee dismissed with notice and exempted from performing their work during the notice period is no longer bound by the non-competition duties arising from their loyalty obligation and can therefore engage in an employment contract with a direct competitor of their former employer during that exempted notice period. However, the Court of Appeal decided that, even if the former employee is in principle entitled to use the know-how and knowledge they acquired with their former employer, the poaching of clients during the notice period must, due to the facts and circumstances and in the light of the rules applicable in the financial sector, be considered as an unfair competition act and therefore constitutes serious misconduct justifying the termination of the employment contract with immediate effect.

Under a former Austrian law effective until February 2019, Good Friday was a public holiday only for a minority belonging to certain Christian Evangelical churches. In the case at hand, Austrian courts had to assess if this regulation and its legal consequences were valid under European Union law, or if they constituted discrimination.

In establishing the Brussels International Business Court (BIBC), Belgium is following an international trend to attract international business disputes to English-speaking state courts. The BIBC will be an autonomous business court with the competence to settle, in English, disputes between companies throughout Belgium. This article focuses on the BIBC’s constitutionality, composition, competence, proceedings and funding, providing a brief analysis and critical assessment of each of these points. At the time of writing, the Belgian Federal Parliament has not yet definitively passed the Bill establishing the BIBC, meaning that amendments are still possible.

The Singapore International Commercial Court (‘SICC’) was launched on 5 January 2015, at the Opening of Legal Year held at the Singapore Supreme Court. What prompted the creation of SICC? How is the SICC model of litigation different from litigation in the Singapore High Court? What is the SICC’s track record and what does it tell us about its future? This article seeks to answer these questions at greater depth than existing literature. Importantly, it examines these questions from the angle of reimagining access of justice for litigants embroiled in international commercial disputes. It argues that the SICC’s enduring contribution to improving access to justice is that it helps to change our frame of reference for international commercial litigation. Hybridisation, internationalisation, and party autonomy, the underpinning values of the SICC, are likely to be the values of the future of dispute resolution. International commercial dispute resolution frameworks – typically litigation frameworks – that unduly emphasise national boundaries and formalities need not and should not be the norm. Crucially, the SICC co-opts a refreshing public-private perspective to the resolution of international commercial disputes. It illuminates on the public interest element of the resolution of such disputes which have for some time fallen into the domain of international commercial arbitration; at the same time, it introduces greater scope for self-determination in international commercial litigation.

On April 2019 the Directive on Unfair Trading Practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain has entered into force. In particular the remedies that the Member States are supposed to offer seem to be designed after the blueprint of competition law enforcement, and the practices deemed “unfair” in this Directive are closely related to abusive practices under Article 102 TFEU. While such practices are typically based on an economic dependence, no dominant position as required by Article 102 TFEU will be found. So, the question is whether an expansion of the scope of control of unilateral conduct under competition law might be the way to implement the Directive.
Germany has a long-standing tradition with respect to the expansion of the scope of control of abusive conduct to undertakings with less than a dominant position. Following a brief introduction that outlines the contents of the Directive (I.) this contribution is going to give a picture of the provisions on control of so-called “relative market power”, i.e. a position of independence not versus all competitors and the opposite market side as defined by the ECJ, but only in the relation to individual trading partners under German competition law (II.), and finish with an outline of the structural problems that might stand in the way of implementing the new rules with a simple application or amendment of the competition law provisions on relative market power (III.)

In this transnational road transport case, the Dutch Supreme Court had to elaborate on the ECJ Koelzsch and Schlecker cases and asks for guidance from the ECJ on the applicability and interpretation of the Posting of Workers Directive.