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The Court of Justice takes formal notice of the fact that the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the EU has the effect of bringing to an end the mandates of the British Members of the Institution with effect from 31 January 2020 at midnight.  The number of Judges of the Court of Justice and of the General Court, fixed at one for each Member State for the Court of Justice and two for each Member State for the General Court, is therefore reduced with immediate effect at the time of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.  On the other hand, in accordance with the declaration of the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States of 29 January 2020 on the consequences of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU for the Advocates General of the Court of Justice, the number of Advocates General of the Court of Justice, fixed at eleven by the Council Decision of 25 June 2013(2013/336/EU: Council Decision of 25 June 2013 inc...

The EU’s discussions with Poland and Hungary have not yet led these countries to realign with the EU’s founding values, Parliament warned last January . In a resolution adopted with 446 votes to 178 and 41 abstentions, MEPs note that reports and statements by the Commission, the UN, OSCE and the Council of Europe indicate that “the situation in both Poland and Hungary has deteriorated since the triggering of Article 7(1)”. MEPs point out that the hearings organised by the Council under  Article 7 of the Treaty  are neither regular nor structured. They call on the Council to address concrete recommendations to the countries concerned, including deadlines, to ensure EU law is respected. “The failure by the Council to make effective use of Article 7 continues to undermine the integrity of common European values, mutual trust and the credibility of the European Union as a whole”, claims the EP. The text also urges the Commission to use all tools at its disposal to pre...

Author: Maria Rousia, Associate Lawyer at Dionysiou & Partners LLC (Cyprus) Introduction Although generally a Cyprus company must give priority in employment recruitment to Cypriots and EU nationals before attempting to employ third country nationals, there is an exception enabling companies of foreign interests to give priority to the employment of third country nationals instead of locals and EU nationals, provided that certain requirements are met. The main aim of the above exception was the attraction of foreign investments. The criteria that companies must meet in order to benefit from this decision, the categories of staff and the maximum numbers of third country nationals who can be employed in each category of staff are described below. Eligible Companies The company must be a private company and third country shareholders should own the majority of the company’s shares (percentage equal or more than 50% of the total share capital). It is important to note that...

Moroccan journalist and activist Omar Randy will stand trial in Morocco in March on charges of insulting a judge via Twitter, according to the Observatory for Human Rights. Randy, a 33-year-old award-winning journalist who has been involved in corruption reporting in Morocco and has worked with various international media outlets, was due to be sentenced on January 2, 2020, but the case was postponed. According to CNN, Randy faces up to one year in prison if he is eventually convicted of a tweet he made nine months ago against a judge. Several people rallied in support of Randy outside the country's parliament in the capital Rabat demanding his acquittal and speaking about revenge against a reporter for investigative journalism. Last April, Randy posted a critical comment about a judge who upheld the verdict against a protest movement. The leaders of the protest movement were sentenced in June 2018 to 20 years in prison, the Human Rights Watch said. "Let us all ...

Emily O'Reilly has been re-elected  as European Ombudsman, by Parliament with 320 votes in favour out of 600 votes cast. Her second mandate will last for five years. " I am delighted to have been re-elected for a second term. I wish to sincerely thank my fantastic campaign team for the huge effort over the past four months, I wish to thank my colleagues in the Office for all their hard work over the past five years, and today most of all, I wish to thank the Members of the European Parliament,” said Ms O’Reilly. "For the next five years, I will help ensure the EU maintains the highest standards in administration, transparency and ethics. Europeans expect and deserve nothing less. One priority will remain tackling the lack of the transparency of EU law making by national governments in Brussels. We need to stop the ‘blame Brussels’ culture, when often it is citizens’ own national Ministers taking the key decisions in the EU. I will also be holding President Von...

An innovative proposal for those who are not easy to go to the law firm for legal services presented the Justibus program. The new free and traveling legal assistance project was set up in Belgium by the French Order of the Brussels Bar. The JUSTIBUS project is an initiative of the Legal Aid Commission of the French Bar Association of Brussels, with the support of the Minister of Justice Houses in charge of front-line legal aid of the Government of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation- under the leadership of Vinciane Gillet, member of the CCBE Quality sub-group.  Since 14 October 2019, the JUSTIBUS has been travelling in the 19 municipalities of Brussels, according to an established schedule, to provide free legal aid to people in precarious situations. Several volunteer lawyers run mobile hotlines and receive people to provide them with legal information that could potentially help their situation. However, volunteer lawyers and trainee lawyers do not perform legal acts. If ...

ECJ: Airbnb case- France cannot require Airbnb to hold an estate agent’s professional licence as it did not notify the Commission of that requirement in accordance with the Directive on electronic commerce. By its judgment of 19 December 2019, Airbnb Ireland (C-390/18), the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice held, first, that an intermediation service which, by means of an electronic platform, is intended to connect, for remuneration, potential guests with professional or non-professional hosts offering short-term accommodation services, while also providing a certain number of services ancillary to that intermediation service, must be classified as an ‘information society service’ under Directive 2000/31 on electronic commerce. [1] Secondly, the Court found that, in criminal proceedings with an ancillary civil action, an individual may oppose the application to him or her of measures of a Member State restricting the freedom to provide such a service which that indiv...

Article by George Kazoleas,  Lawyer LL.M. (Banking & Capitalmarkets Law) It is well known that loan agreements contain terms and conditions that disturb the balance between the parties to the detriment of the borrower and are therefore legally and judicially  diagnosed as contrary to law. Despite this, most banks insist on including them in their new contracts, refusing to comply with court rulings even by the European Court of Justice. Especially, foreign currency loan agreements (such as the Swiss franc) contain many unfair and opaque terms. Particularly: The Bank had to inform the potential borrower of the foreign exchange risk and explain in detail the relevant clauses before concluding the loan. It is very common, that the loan agreement does not mention anything about this risk, nor does it appear that the borrower has been effectively and properly informed by a competent bank official. According to Cypriot and European legislation and case law, the loan...

By Soulla Dionysiou, Lawyer, Founding Partner at Dionysiou & Partners LLC Τhe Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD) which was adopted by the European Parliament on 19 April 2019 will need to be transposed into National Law by all Member States by 10 January 2020, i.e. 18 months after its adoption. Although some Member States have already done so, the rest will need to follow suit as the deadline is fast approaching. The directive incorporates for the first time a regulation on virtual currencies (cryptocurrencies) and introduces their definition, according to which: “virtual currencies” means a digital representation of value that is not issued or guaranteed by a central bank or a public authority, is not necessarily attached to a legally established currency and does not possess a legal status of currency or money, but is accepted by natural or legal persons as a means of exchange and which can be transferred, stored and traded electronically (Article 2 d (18)). ...

By George Kazoleas, Lawyer LL.M. The right of early repayment of the loan by the borrower is enshrined in both European law and national legal systems. There are essentially two main effects of this right’s exercise: On the one hand, the consumer/ borrower is entitled to a reduction in the total cost of the credit consisting of interest and charges for the remaining period of the contract. On the other hand, the bank shall be entitled to reasonable and objectively justified compensation for any costs directly linked to early repayment of the credit, provided that the early repayment is made within the period for which the borrowing rate is fixed. (Article 16 (1) of Directive 2008/48). Bank’s compensation The relative clauses used by most banks regarding the issue of early repayment of the loan are vaguely worded and non-transparent and have therefore been repeatedly declared illegal, unfair and abusive. It is commonly stated that compensation includes any costs, expenses, losse...

Αn important decision on the right of the arrested or detained person to a speedy decision on the lawfulness of detention has issued on 22.10.2019 the European Court of Human Rights. According to Article 5(4) οf the European Convention of Human Rights, “everyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings by which the lawfulness of his detention shall be decided speedily by a court and his release ordered if the detention is not lawful”. Systematically the above provision is subject to the more general right to liberty and security (Article 5) In ECHR’s Chamber judgment in the case of Venet v. Belgium (application no. 27703/16) the Court held, unanimously, that there had been a violation of Article 5 § 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned proceedings in which the Applicant unsuccessfully challenged his pre-trial detention. He complained that he had been unable to attend the Court of Cassation’s hearing o...

Article By Paris Hadjipanayis, Lawyer Ιn a recent high profile case ( C-260/18 ) adjudicated by the first instance court of Warsaw, Poland, a preliminary question was forwarded to the European Court of Justice on the 03/10/2019 to decide on a number of questions regarding the effect of abusive consumer clauses inserted in a mortgage loan, specifically with reference to the issuing of a loan in Swiss Francs (CHF) currency and released in national (PLN) currency. The question concerned the fate of such a consumer clause, whether it could be enforceable and if not whether abolition could grant the right to a National court to insert provisions from national (domestic) applicable legislation to fill in the gaps and protect the contract as well as the consumer. The matter of interest rate also became relevant to this question as the interest imposed originally was the one based on the reference point of LIBOR CHF 3M and the usual marginal profit of the lending bank. The applicant...

Ι n the case of Pastörs v. Germany (application no. 55225/14) the European Court of Human Rights held on 3.10.2019, unanimously, that the applicant’s complaint under Article 10 (freedom of expression) was manifestly ill-founded and had to be rejected, and, by four votes to three that there had been no violation of Article 6 § 1 (right to a fair trial) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case concerned the conviction of a Land deputy for denying the Holocaust during a speech in the regional Parliament. The Court found in particular that the applicant had intentionally stated untruths to defame Jews. Such statements could not attract the protection for freedom of speech offered by the Convention as they ran counter to the values of the Convention itself. There was thus no appearance of a violation of the applicant’s rights and the complaint was inadmissible. The Court also examined a complaint by the applicant of judicial bias as one of the Court of Appeal judges who...

European Commission decided to refer Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU regarding the new disciplinary regime for Polish judges, requesting an expedited procedure. On 3 April 2019, the Commission launched this infringement procedure on the grounds that the new disciplinary regime undermines the judicial independence of Polish judges and does not ensure the necessary guarantees to protect judges from political control, as required by the Court of Justice of the EU. Specifically, the Polish law allows ordinary court judges to be subjected to disciplinary investigations, procedures and sanctions on the basis of the content of their judicial decisions, including the exercise of their right under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to request preliminary rulings from the Court of Justice of the EU. Moreover, the new disciplinary regime does not guarantee the independence and impartiality of the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Co...

The Greek Data Protection Authority has imposed a fine of 150,000 euros on PWC BS A.E. for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation. In particular, the Personal Data Protection Authority, upon a complaint, investigated on its own motion the legality of the processing of the personal data of employees of PWC BS (PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS BUSINESSSOLUTIONS SA) pursuant to which the abovementioned employees were forced to consent to the processing their personal data for three (3) distinct purposes. The Authority considered PWC BS as the controller: 1) has undergone unlawful processing, in breach of the provisions of Article 5 (1) (e); a) of the GDPR (principle of legality), the personal data of its employees, as it applied an inappropriate legal basis under Art. 6 (1)   a   GDPR (consent) instead of the appropriate legal basis for the performance of the contract, compliance with a legal obligation and the superior legal interest (Art. 6 (1), b, c' and g   ...