By Enrico Bonadio and Federico Manstretta at Parma University, IP Law Galli

Back in January 2025, the EU initiated consultations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to challenge the practice of Chinese courts to unilaterally set binding global royalty rates for non-Chinese standard essential patents (SEPs) without the consent of the parties to the litigation. According to the EU Commission press release, this unfairly pressures European high-tech companies to lower their royalty rates worldwide, granting Chinese manufacturers cheaper access to European technologies. Additionally, the EU claims this approach interferes with the jurisdiction of EU courts over patent matters and violates WTO rules, including transparency obligations under the TRIPS Agreement.

The initial 60 days term given to the parties to find a satisfactory solution in the WTO consultations stage has expired, and the EU could then request a panel to be appointed to hear the case.

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Conclusions from Prof Marija Bartl’s presentation at the ISEL City Law School about her new book “Reimagining Prosperity – Toward a new Imaginary of Law and Political Economy in the EU”

By Laura Vialon

On the 20th of March Marija Bartl, Professor of Law at the University of Amsterdam, came to City Law School to present her new book on prosperity in the EU which came out in November last year as open access, available on Cambridge Core. The book argues that a clear imaginary for a shared prosperity in the EU is needed (again), while at the same some efforts in that regard have been already made, attempting to leave neoliberalism behind. For showing that EU policy is becoming “thicker” again, Professor Bartl analysed a variety of important policy fields – consumption, technology, industrial policy and corporate policy.

Professor Bartl passionately and eloquently guided the audience through her three main theses that (1) democracies need prosperity. Prosperity for Bartl means neither economic growth or mass consumption, but a “credible route to material and social basis of a good life” for the current and future generations. We need to have trust in this better future, this is what holds societies together and this trust has been eroded from the 1990’s onwards and heavily crushed after the 2008 financial crisis. Prosperity has become more concentrated in the hands of the few and trust in democracy and its institutions dwindled.

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Call for Papers

4th Conference on Financial Law and Regulation

The City Law School

City St George’s, University of London

Thursday, 3rd July 2025

Submit your paper to ilias.kapsis@citystgeorges.ac.uk

Deadline for abstract submission: Thursday 17th April 2025.

The organisers, Dr Ilias Kapsis, Dr Clara Martins Pereira, Dr Virag Dr Virág Blazsek, Dr Andreas Kokkinis, and Professor Federico Lupo-Pasini, would like to invite paper abstract submissions for the 4th Conference on Financial Law and Regulation to take place at the City Law School, City St George’s, University of London on the 3rd of July 2025. This conference is supported by the Society of Legal Scholars, and the City Law School.

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By Dr Adrienne Yong

Whilst the majority of us consider the home a safe and comfortable place, for one in five people aged 16 and over, it represents a place of fear and violence if they are victim-survivors of domestic abuse. However, what is often lost amongst the already devastating facts and figures about domestic abuse is the reality for those victim-survivors who are also immigrants subject to the harsh realities of the UK’s strict immigration laws.

At the end of April 2021, the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 came into force, representing a sea change in law around domestic abuse in England & Wales. Before this, governance and legislation on protecting against domestic abuse was fragmented, with domestic abuse undefined in the law. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 sought to address many of these problems. It would have been legitimate cause for optimism about the future of victim-survivors’ rights in England & Wales, if it was not for one significant oversight.

When the Domestic Abuse Bill was being debated by the Government, the problem of migrant victim-survivors’ rights regularly surfaced as a problem demanding urgent attention. It was a key campaign focus of many migrant women’s charities, known as “by-and-for” organisations,  and the subject of many tabled amendments, particularly by the House of Lords.

But why exactly does being an immigrant make the situation of a victim-survivor of domestic abuse any different? It all comes down to the way the law impacts on those who are both at the mercy of an abuser and the strict immigration laws in the UK. The latter is known as the hostile environment policy, which has existed since 2012. For years, victim-survivors of domestic abuse who found themselves also subject to UK immigration law were in a unique position of fear – already fearful of consequences from abusers and the authorities when reporting their experiences of domestic abuse, but also fearful of whether they would risk deportation because of also being precarious migrants.

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By Dr Dogan Gultutan at the City Law School

Introduction

Moral damages are as real as material damages and, accordingly, must be compensated where appropriate in the particular case. This is not new law. The position as regards moral damages and its recoverability was settled over a century ago. In 1923 in the Opinion in the Lusitania Cases, the tribunal confirmed it in the following terms:

“That one injured is under the rules of international law, entitled to be compensated for an injury inflicted resulting in mental suffering, injury to his feelings, humiliation, shame, degradation, loss of social position or injury to his credit or to his reputation, there can be no doubt, and such compensation should be commensurate to the injury. Such damages are very real, and the mere fact that they are difficult to measure or estimate by money standards makes them none the less real and affords no reason why the injured person should not be compensated therefor as compensatory damages, but not as penalty.”

[Opinion in the Lusitania Cases, 40]

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By Professor David Collins

Maintaining a smooth trading relationship with the European Union (EU) is rightly a top priority for the new Labour government. While there is strong growth in the UK’s trade with other countries around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific, the EU is still one of the UK’s most important trading partners. Non-tariff barriers in the form of product safety regulations are among the most significant modern impediments to trade, particularly since the EU tends to employ dense and constantly evolving regulations on a wide range of goods and services.

The Product Regulation and Metrology (PRM) Bill reflects the UK government’s concern that it does not currently have sufficient powers to respond to EU regulatory initiatives fast enough that there will not be adverse trade consequences. The EU’s new General Product Safety (GPS) Regulation, which will come into force in mid-December of this year, should entail significant product standard regulatory changes. The GPS will introduce specific safety obligations for economic operators and online marketplaces, reinforced product traceability requirements, as well as specific rules on handling product recalls, including a mandatory recall notice template.

The PRM Bill is intended to allow UK domestic law to be updated to reflect new or revised EU product requirements with a view to minimizing trade frictions. Under clause 2(7) of the PRM, future UK product regulations can provide that a product requirement is to be treated as fulfilled if it meets specified provisions in relevant EU law. This captures the government’s view that any EU regulation is presumptively valid from the standpoint of safety – a reasonable perspective given the EU’s devotion to the precautionary principle of mitigating even the most miniscule of risks. It is odd, though, that only the EU’s standards are granted this status – the Bill does not make reference to any other international standard setting bodies. It says nothing about the costs of these measures as borne by businesses.

It is not quite right, moreover, to term this clause in the PRM Bill as indicative of ‘mutual recognition’ since there is no indication that the deference will work in the opposite direction (e.g. UK standards being presumptively accepted for products entering the EU). The EU remains concerned that the UK will apply product standards in such a way that it will make it more competitive, drawing economic activity away from the continent.

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By Dr Jed Odermatt

Article 3(5) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) sets out the Union’s obligation to “contribute […] to the strict observance and the development of international law”. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has interpreted this to mean that “when [the Union] adopts an act, it is bound to observe international law in its entirety, including customary international law, which is binding upon the institutions of the European Union.” Until now, however, the CJEU had not gone so far as to annul a Union legal act on the basis that it violates international law. On 4 October 2024 the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice upheld the General Court’s decision to annul two economic agreements concluded between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco. The landmark judgment is the first time the CJEU has annulled an EU agreement for violating international law binding on the Union.

The legal and factual background to these cases has been discussed elsewhere on this blog. The cases relate to the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, which is considered by the United Nations to be a non-self-governing territory. In a 1975 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognised the people of Western Sahara have the right to self-determination. The status of the territory continues to be subject to a long-stalled United Nations mediated peace process. France, the only EU Member State with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, recently backed Morocco’s autonomy plan that would recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over the territory.

The economic agreements between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco have been the subject to ongoing litigation before the CJEU and domestic courts in the EU Member States over the last decade. In December 2015, the General Court annulled the Council Decision approving the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement concluded between the EU and Morocco in so far that it applies to the territory of Western Sahara. That decision was reversed on appeal in 2016. In these judgments, the Court highlighted two important factors. First, the territory of Western Sahara is separate and distinct from Morocco. Second, as Western Sahara is considered a ‘third party’ to these agreements, they can only apply with respect to Western Sahara with the consent of the people of Western Sahara.

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By Muhammad Tanvir Hashem Munim

For the last few days, Bangladesh has seceded from the outside world. The government has imposed a communication blackout amid its crackdown on the student protestors demanding quota reforms. It has enforced a nationwide curfew and deployed military forces.

The student protests in Bangladesh demanding quota reforms began in early 2018. The movement was sparked by growing frustration among university students over the existing public sector job quota system, which they felt disproportionately favoured certain groups at the expense of merit-based selection. The quota system in the country reserves 56% of government first-class and second-class jobs for some specific groups. In some job sectors, this quota reservation may reach as many as 96% of the jobs. Such a system caused discontent among the university students.

The discontent led to organised demonstrations, initially gaining momentum at Dhaka University and quickly spreading to other universities across the country. The students’ primary demand was to significantly reduce the quotas and allocate more jobs based on merit, ensuring equal opportunities for all candidates. The movement gained widespread support, highlighting broader issues of fairness and transparency in government recruitment processes.

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