Met de publicatie van de ‘Leidraad. Afspraken tussen leveranciers en afnemers’ onderstreept de ACM de nieuw ingeslagen weg met betrekking tot verticale prijsbinding: er zal meer aandacht bestaan voor en strenger worden opgetreden tegen verticale prijsbinding. Deze actievere handhaving staat duidelijk in contrast met het (prioriterings)beleid dat de ACM slechts vier jaar eerder uiteenzette in het Visiedocument over verticale afspraken. De nieuwe koers is mede ingegeven door de vlucht die internetverkoop heeft genomen en zorgt ervoor dat de ACM weer in pas loopt met de Commissie (en de rest van de EU-lidstaten).
ACM, ‘Leidraad. Afspraken tussen leveranciers en afnemers’, 26 februari 2019, www.acm.nl/sites/default/files/documents/leidraad-afspraken-tussen-leveranciers-en-afnemers.pdf

Similar to pharmaceutical products, medical devices play an increasingly important role in healthcare worldwide by contributing substantially to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases. From the patent law perspective both, pharmaceutical products and a medical apparatus, product or device can be patented if they meet the patentability requirements, which are novelty, inventiveness and entail industrial applicability. However, regulatory issues also impact on the whole cycle of the innovation. At a European level, enhancing competitiveness while ensuring public health and safety is one of the key objectives of the European Commission. This article undertakes literature review of the current and incoming regulatory framework governing medical devices with the aim of highlighting how these major changes would affect the industry at issue. The analysis is made in the framework of an on-going research work aimed to determine whether SPCs are needed for promoting innovation in the medical devices industry. A thorough analysis the aforementioned factors affecting medical device’s industry will allow the policymakers to understand the root cause of any optimal patent term and find appropriate solutions.

This article relies on the premise that to understand the significance of Open Access Repositories (OARs) it is necessary to know the context of the debate. Therefore, it is necessary to trace the historical development of the concept of copyright as a property right. The continued relevance of the rationales for copyright interests, both philosophical and pragmatic, will be assessed against the contemporary times of digital publishing. It follows then discussion about the rise of Open Access (OA) practice and its impact on conventional publishing methods. The present article argues about the proper equilibrium between self-interest and social good. In other words, there is a need to find a tool in order to balance individuals’ interests and common will. Therefore, there is examination of the concept of property that interrelates justice (Plato), private ownership (Aristotle), labour (Locke), growth of personality (Hegel) and a bundle of rights that constitute legal relations (Hohfeld). This examination sets the context for the argument.

Cooperation by professionals dealing with cases of stalking by former partners is complex. First and foremost professionals should focus on a shared ambition in order to stop stalking. But in order to achieve that goal partners in safety and security should be in the clear regarding practical matters: how do they consult each other? What appointments are made? How is invested in the development of a mutual relationship and the understanding of each other’s tasks?

Intelligence-led policing (ILP) has been adopted by police organisations worldwide, yet organisational implementation appears to be difficult. Results of this study uncover organisational factors that affect ILP and give insight on how these facilitate or hinder ILP. The organisational factors can be categorised into technological, structural, cultural and people related factors. This research was conducted by means of a literature review and two case studies on the investigation of organised drug-related crime and on football and safety in two different units of the Dutch police. The results of this study can be considered as relevant input regarding future implementation of intelligence-led operations in the whole criminal justice chain.

Structured assessment of the risk of repeated offending has become common practice in the judicial system. However, much less attention has been paid to the way of communicating about the results of these risk assessments to the court or forensic settings. Research shows that the way of communicating about risks of relapse may affect decision-making by judges. In this article, these research results will be summarized and the different approaches to risk communication are discussed. Finally, recommendations are provided for clear communication about risk assessment results.

De wereldeconomie is na 2001 snel verder geïntegreerd. De globalisatie heeft een extra dimensie gekregen door de opkomst van platformbedrijven. Het gaat hier feitelijk om virtuele ondernemingen die zich betrekkelijk eenvoudig aan de fiscale regels kunnen onttrekken. Ook de financiële sector is sterk geglobaliseerd, maar het toezicht op deze sector is nog steeds grotendeels voorbehouden aan lokale autoriteiten. Om effectief toezicht te kunnen houden zouden de natiestaten bevoegdheden moeten overdragen aan supranationale autoriteiten. Dat staat echter op gespannen voet met de mogelijkheid om op basis van een lokaal democratische legitimatie beleid te voeren. In deze bijdrage worden een aantal casusposities geanalyseerd en verschillende oplossingsrichtingen besproken.

De opkomst van de platformeconomie, met als prominente voorbeelden Uber en Deliveroo, deed de discussies omtrent de aard van de arbeidsrelatie heropleven. Zijn deze platformwerkers in werkelijkheid werknemers, en is het arbeidsrecht aan hervorming toe indien ze het wel of niet zijn? Deze bijdrage heeft eveneens tot doel om de werkingssfeer van het arbeidsrecht ter discussie te stellen door de regelgeving omtrent private arbeidsbemiddeling en uitzendarbeid toe te passen op platformen. Dienaangaande bepleit deze bijdrage om ten eerste de regelgeving omtrent private arbeidsbemiddeling aan te wenden om ook de bemiddeling van dienstverleningsovereenkomsten tussen werkzoekenden en opdrachtgevers te omkaderen. Ten tweede wijst de bijdrage op de mogelijke totstandkoming van ‘verdoken’ uitzendarbeid door middel van digitale platformen. Om dit te voorkomen stellen de auteurs een ‘vermoeden van uitzendbureau’ voor.

In dit themanummer wordt bijzondere aandacht gegeven aan sanctiewetgeving. In dit redactioneel wordt ingegaan op de mogelijkheden om betrokkenheid van ondernemingen bij ernstige mensenrechtenschendingen aan te pakken, naast het gebruik van de Sanctiewet. Verkend wordt wat de aard en omvang van dit fenomeen is en welke juridische en niet-juridische middelen worden ingezet om de betrokkenheid van ondernemingen bij ernstige mensenrechtenschendingen te voorkomen en wat daarvan het effect kan zijn. Vervolgens zullen de beschikbare juridische middelen en quasi-juridische reacties en het gebruik daarvan worden geïnventariseerd. Ten slotte wordt gereflecteerd op de mogelijke effecten van het gebruik van deze instrumenten ter preventie van de betrokkenheid van ondernemingen bij ernstige mensenrechtenschendingen.

The Netherlands functions as an important source and transit country for international organized drug trafficking. This is in part due to its large logistical nodes in the world economy, like the airport and the seaport. Based on in-depth analyses of sixteen cases of the Dutch Organized Crime Monitor, this article explores how drug traffickers operate at logistical nodes, in particular airports. The results demonstrate that organized crime groups deploy mainly three types of tactics to traffic drugs, namely defying, avoiding, and neutralizing security checks. Occupational embeddedness is manifested through several job-related factors. Autonomy, mobility, and the similarity between legitimate duties and criminal activities facilitate discrete engagement in organized crime activities during work time. Port employees are also attractive to organized crime groups because of their job-related social capital and knowledge.

This article focuses on the challenges associated with public-private partnerships in tackling drug crime in the port of Rotterdam. The authors identified the actors involved in the fight against drug crime and, more generally, security in the port. The authors show how these various actors view the subject of drug crime (so-called mentalities), what they set as objectives (finalities) and how they try to achieve these objectives. Subsequently the various aspects of the interactions between these actors are being analyzed. The article is empirically based on 76 interviews with public and private actors in the port of Rotterdam, that were conducted in the period from January 2018 to February 2019, and an analysis of literature, news items, government reports and other documents.

De recente ontwikkelingen in de Nederlandse jurisprudentie en de herziening van de Corporate Governance Code zouden kunnen dienen als een belangrijke katalysator voor meer ‘duurzame’ overnamebesluiten door het benadrukken van het belang van langetermijnwaardecreatie. De auteurs interviewden belangrijke actoren in overnameconflicten om hun visie te geven op de kansen en bedreigingen van langetermijnwaardecreatie. De reflecties zijn in lijn met de ontwikkelingen en aldus doorgedrongen in het maatschappelijke speelveld. Concrete invulling geven aan langetermijnwaardecreatie is complex vanwege de uiteenlopende visies op het vennootschappelijke belang: de shareholders, stakeholders en de entiteit. Dit schept echter ook de ruimte om autonoom invulling te geven aan langetermijnwaardecreatie.

In het arrest Eesti Pagar heeft het Hof van Justitie de taak van steunverleners bij beoordeling van het stimulerend effect van steunverlening afgebakend. Verder heeft het Hof van Justitie een verplichting voor steunverleners uitgesproken om op eigen initiatief alle consequenties te trekken uit niet-naleving van de Algemene Groepsvrijstellingsverordening, waaronder verplichte terugvordering met inbegrip van rente. In dat kader heeft het Hof van Justitie zich ook uitgelaten over het vertrouwensbeginsel, verjaring en de vordering van rente. Het arrest is voor de praktijk van belang omdat het meer duidelijkheid geeft over de toepassing van de Algemene Groepsvrijstellingsverordening.
HvJ 5 maart 2019, zaak C-349/17, Eesti Pagar AS/EAS, ECLI:EU:C:2019:172

For social scientists undertaking critical research on elites in organisational contexts securing access is a challenging exercise that may rely on the use of several access strategies over extended periods. This process is further complicated by the existence of research ethics frameworks that establish boundaries to access strategies, posing dilemmas on how to best balance access needs with a commitment to ethical practices. This article focuses on such dilemmas – or the ‘ethics of access’ – through a reflection on PhD fieldwork during 2016-2017 in Luxembourg spent researching the European Investment Bank. The paper will conclude by calling for an overhaul of existing frameworks in order to foster more research on elites.

Attempting to understand the Greek narrative of crisis, this paper examines the most prominent forms of violence that emerged in the period of acute economic recession and political upheaval in Greece namely structural, institutional and anti-institutional violence. This paper aims to highlight existing theoretical gaps and avoid common fallacies of the current body of knowledge. In contrast to some of the more common features of the discussion on violence, this note sets out to: a) acknowledge that violence is not necessarily a physical act, b) acknowledge that the outcomes of violence performances might not be physical either, c) specify and adequately distinguish agency and structural dynamics and d) address the cultural and contextual aspects of violence. Vital to this endeavor is to acknowledge, identify and understand the interactive relation between different forms of violence that emerge during the same period of time in a context in which conflict escalates.

Multi-national corporations are increasingly facing attention and disapproval by different actors, including authorities, public and (non-) commercial organizations. Digital globalization and especially social media as a low-cost, highly interactive and multidirectional platform shape a unique context for this rising attention. In the literature, much attention has been devoted to top-down approaches and strategies that corporations use to avoid stigmatization and sanctioning of their behaviour. Reactions to corporate harm are, however, seldom researched from a labelling perspective. As a result, corporations are not considered as objects towards whom labelling is targeted but rather as actors who hamper such processes and who, as moral entrepreneurs, influence which behaviour is labelled deviant. Based on theoretical analysis of literature and case studies, this article will discuss how the process of labelling has changed in light of the digitalized, late-modern society and consequently, how the process should be revisited to be applicable for corporate deviance. Given a diversification of moral entrepreneurs and increasingly dependency of labelling and meaning-making on the online sphere, two new forms of labelling are introduced that specifically target institutions; that is bottom-up and horizontal labelling.

The notion of ‘sharia in the West’ is by now fairly well established, both in social, political and scientific circles, but both the terms ‘sharia’ and ‘West’ remain difficult to define. It is therefore striking that the combination of these two terms is used with such self-evidence. This article wants to answer the question: what exactly is the sharia that Western Muslims arguably want, and how is this sharia received in the West? To this end, a model is presented that provides a description of the complex interaction between sharia as practiced by Western Muslims on the one hand, and the conditions that the Western environment sets for it on the other. The model shows that ‘sharia’ cannot be compared to a law system, and that the Western environment has a major influence on the extent and ways in which Muslims apply sharia. From a Western perspective, the model shows that sharia issues are mainly discussed in legal terms, while most controversies are not of a legal nature, but rather a cultural one.

If, as criminologists, we really want to contribute to solutions for the great challenges of our time, we should be…surfing more. In a dynamic environment full of contradictions, we should be constantly in motion, moving left and right between different theoretical-normative perspectives as well as between methodological perspectives. This paper clarifies that surfing movement with some illustrations. It then proposes three goals for a criminological research agenda that should help us address the great challenges: actual (as opposed to superficial) relevance for practice, causal ambitions and multidisciplinarity. The paper concludes with some reflections about the organization and funding of criminological research.