At the beginning of 2022, a reform of tax regulations entered into force in Poland, which, in particular, significantly increases the cost of employing a Polish employee. In practice, the new law is called the “Polish Deal” and it is precisely the Act of October 29, 2021 amending the Act on personal income tax, the Act on corporate income tax and some other acts (Polish Journal of Laws, item 2105 with subsequent amendments). The Polish Deal, in particular, increases the operating costs of foreign entrepreneurs employing Polish workers on a large scale under an employment contract under the Polish Labor Law. In such a case, the foreign entrepreneur must bear a much higher cost of maintaining a Polish employee compared to the situation that took place in 2021.
Reducing the Employee’s remuneration as a method of optimizing employment costs? Is it legal?
In practice, entrepreneurs try to use the right to amend an employment contract to unilaterally reduce the employee’s remuneration. This new change in law may result in the fact that from January 2022, employers will propose new, lower remuneration to their employees. The salary is reduced by the amount that is needed to bring the cost of maintaining the employee to the level before the tax reform introduced by the Polish Deal was in force. On the other hand, Polish authorities deny that changing the employment contract with regard to the reduction of remuneration is a legal method of circumventing the provisions of the Polish Deal.
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What are tobacco products and what is e-cigarette?
In accordance with the Polish Act of 22 July 2016 amending the Act on the protection of health against the consequences of tobacco and tobacco products, electronical cigarette is a device that can be used to ingest nicotine-containing vapor via a mouthpiece, or all components of that device, including cartridges, tanks and devices without a cartridge or tank. Electronic cigarettes may be disposable or refillable with a refillable cartridge or tank or rechargeable with a disposable cartridge.
According to the same Act, tobacco product is a product intended for consumption by consumers, consisting even partly of tobacco, including genetically modified tobacco.
The registration of tobacco products
The submission of detailed information on tobacco products to the competent authorities of Member States is done electronically through a common EU-CEG platform administered by the European Commission. Transmission of this information through the EU-CEG, in the appropriate format (Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/2186 of 25 November 2015) is equivalent to compliance with statutory obligations referred to in Article 8a of the Act on Health Protection against the Effects of Tobacco and Tobacco Products.
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In this case plaintiff AMA was a Nevada limited liability company that produces and distributes “adult entertainment over the Internet.” It owns several online websites where paying customers can view AMA’s materials. Its videos are copyrighted as audiovisual works. It also displays the company’s trademark in the corner of the screen.
Defendant was a citizen and resident of Poland, who operated ePorner, an adult video website, through MW Media, a Polish civil law partnership.
What is the case about?
AMA discovered that ePorner.com (“ePorner”), an international website where users can search for and watch adult movies displayed AMA copyrighted materials. At the time this lawsuit was filed ePorner allowed users to anonymously post adult videos. The website does not charge visitors. Instead of it, it generates revenue solely through advertising. Users of ePorner.com see ads based on their perceived location. For example, visitors who believe they are in the United States see selected ads in English.
AMA Multimedia, LLC (“AMA”) appealed the district court’s dismissal of its copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition action against the defendant for lack of personal jurisdiction.
Important is the fact that AMA was unable to determine who owned and operated ePorner, so, AMA sued all defendants as Doe Defendants and Roe Corporations in the United States. The district court permitted AMA to conduct early discovery to ascertain who owned the domains which forwarded visitors to ePorner.com. Then AMA discovered that two companies located in Arizona, GoDaddy.com and Domains by Proxy, were used to register the domains and privatize the owner’s identity. The Polish defendant was the registrant of the domains.
Path to resolve the case
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KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI KG LEGAL is heavily involved in complex assistance to clients operating in clinical trials sector and it diligently observes the market in this respect within new technologies used in clinical trials. In 2020 there have been noted considerable challenges for the science and technology, including technologies in clinical trials. The pressure that has been placed on the healthcare systems turned out to be unprecedented. The rapid spread of coronavirus has lead to the global debate on the reassessment of the approach to clinical trial conduct. Previously, it was believed that the driving force of medicine development is technology.
Remote clinical trials: a new standard
In March 2020 biopharmaceutical companies managed to conduct more than 9,000 clinical trials in the U.S. However, the pandemic outburst has brought the future biopharma development into a question. Nevertheless, some researchers decided to take the advantage of the wide range of available information and communication technology devices. Combining novel tactics like mailing medications and relying on digital technologies such as transmitting photos of home-based blood pressure readings via text message has resulted in remote clinical trials. At this point, it is fundamental to stress the surprising advantages of clinical trials conducted remotely, which are:
- personalizing and strengthening patient engagement,
- accelerating recruitment (recruiting more people and more quickly than with a local study),
- improving patient diversity and data quality (reaching greater geographic area and patients of different ethnic background, providing more comprehensive patient monitoring),
- accelerating time to market.
Wearable technologies in remote clinical trials
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On 5 October 2020 the EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol has published a new report – The Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) 2020. The report includes information about the latest developments with regard to cross-cutting crime facilitation. It also treats about the challenges related to criminal investigations, cyber-dependent crime, online child sexual exploitation, payment fraud and criminal abuse via the dark web.
The report shows that technological developments make it easier to commit cybercrime. Many modern financial instruments such as cryptocurrencies, for example, make it possible to pay for various forms of crime online. Recently the key trend seems to be sim-swapping.
What is sim-swapping?
Sim-swapping is a cybercrime. This is a type of account takeover fraud that generally targets a weakness in two-factor authentication and two-step verification in which the second factor or step is a text message (SMS) or call placed to a mobile telephone.
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