The Bribery Act 2010 is intended to be brought into force in the UK in April 2011 and will create consistency between UK law and the OECD Bribery Convention, which the UK ratified in 1998. It has recently been signalled by the Ministry of Justice that the implementation of the Act may be now delayed due to intense business lobbying.

There are four main offences under the Act: the general offences of paying and receiving bribes, the bribery of foreign officials and the failure of commercial organisations to prevent bribery.

A round up of other recent developments in Life Sciences. 

Consolidation of Cosmetics Rules

The cosmetics industry is currently regulated in the EU by the Cosmetics Directive (76/778/EEC) together with several amending Directives which have been enacted since. This legislation is set to change dramatically in the next few years following the adoption of Regulation 1223/2009 in late 2009.

In order for the cosmetic industry to have time to comply with the provisions of the new Regulation, the majority of the provisions will not come into force until 11 July 2013, however Articles 15(1) and 15 (2) relating to Carcinogenic, Mutagenic or Reproductively Toxic substances came into force 1 December 2010 while further provisions will take effect on 11 January 2013.

In July 2010, the General Court of the EU ruled on an appeal by AstraZeneca against a 2005 decision of the European Commission. The Commission had fined AstraZeneca €60 million for abusing its dominant position by blocking or delaying generic versions of Losec (its proton pump inhibitor drug) and by preventing parallel imports of the same pharmaceutical. 

Please click on the title above to view the latest edition of our Life Sciences & Healthcare e-zine. 

The Potential Impact of Monsanto Technology LLC v. Cefetra & Others. on Patent Infringement

A recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) opinion in proceedings between Monsanto Technology LLC v. Cefetra BV & Others may inflict serious harm on the European biotechnology industry.

In its ruling, the ECJ interpreted the EU Biotechnology Directive (98/44/EC) on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (“the Directive”) as not conferring patent protection in the circumstances of this case. In this instance, the patent protected product, a herbicide resistance gene, was contained in soy meal. However the resistance claimed by the patent did not operate in the soy meal. This function was previously performed in the soy plant, from which the soy meal is processed. Further, the resistance would possibly operate again after it had been extracted from the soy meal and inserted into the cell of a living organism.

Please click on the above title to read our Legal News for February 2011.

The Finance Bill 2011 is expected to be enacted in the coming week. Significant amendments were made to the Bill since it was first published on 21 January 2011.  Our Tax Department outlines some of the most significant amendments to the Bill.

Regulated entities can expect increased levels of enforcement activity as the Central Bank of Ireland has made it clear in its recently published Enforcement Strategy that it will not tolerate breaches of regulatory obligations. Our Insurance & Reinsurance Department reports on the Central Bank's new approach to enforcement.