While the European Commission’s Recommendation on Shale Gas of January 22, 2014 is not legally binding, it may have different legal impacts on EU institutions and agencies as well as public authorities and private parties in the EU Member States. The attached article published in the Environmental Law Reporter describes four different legal scenarios that
April 2014
Innovations in Vaccine Delivery in Africa
By Covington
For decades, a significant public health challenge in Africa has been the delivery of vaccines to rural locations where refrigeration is not readily available. Maintaining the so-called “cold chain” to keep vaccines viable has been a longstanding challenge to vaccination campaigns in such areas, and is one of the reasons that millions of people…
European Data Protection Regulators Clarify the Scope of the Balancing Test Required for Reliance on the “Legitimate Interests” Ground for Data Processing
On 9 April, the Article 29 Working Party (“WP29”) adopted an Opinion on the notion of legitimate interests of the data controller under Article 7(f) of the EU Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC (the “Opinion”). The Opinion has two main objectives: to ensure correct interpretation and implementation of the “legitimate interest” ground for data processing at…
Brazil Enacts “Marco Civil” Internet Civil Rights Bill
By Dan Cooper
By Philippe Bradley and Dan Cooper
On April 23rd, 2014 Brazil’s president signed into law a wide-ranging civil rights bill for Internet users and service providers (the “Marco Civil da Internet”, or “Marco Civil”). The law had been in the works since 2009; it was made a priority by the Brazilian government in the wake…
Virginia Enacts New Gifts and Ethics Legislation
The Virginia General Assembly passed new ethics legislation on Wednesday to little fanfare. Legislators voted unanimously to adopt the new law with Governor Terry McAuliffe’s technical amendments. We previously blogged about the law’s major provisions. The law supplements the much stricter executive order limiting gifts to the executive branch, signed by Governor McAuliffe in…
Federal Judge Finally Tosses Aside Limits on Contributions to New York Super PACs
Super PACs in the Empire State and in the Big Apple are about to become more “super.” Today, a New York federal court finally (albeit begrudgingly) struck down a state law that effectively capped contributions to state Super PACs at no more than $150,000. Prior to today’s ruling, New York had been one of a…
Potential CFTC Regulatory Changes for Energy Market Participants Highlighted by Commissioner Scott O’Malia
At a recent speech at an energy industry conference CFTC Commissioner Scott D. O’Malia highlighted energy market participant concerns with the CFTC’s Dodd-Frank Rulemakings. These concerns indicate potential regulatory changes at the CFTC that could impact energy market participants.
Commissioner O’Malia noted that the CFTC must re-visit the swap dealer definition rule to “establish a…
European Regulators Set Out Data Anonymization Standards
This post was originally published on our sister blog Inside Privacy
On April 10, 2014, the Article 29 Working Party adopted an Opinion on anonymization techniques. The Working Party accepts that anonymization techniques can help individuals and society reap the benefits of “open data” initiatives – initiatives intended to make various types of data more…
Change in the Wind: 2014 EU-Africa Summit
At the fourth EU-Africa Summit held earlier this month under the banner, “Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace,” Heads of State from the two continents reaffirmed their commitment to objectives set forth in the Joint Africa- EU Strategy (JAES), including moving away from a traditional relationship to forge a real partnership characterised by…
EPA Issues Direct Final Rule to Revise 2013 Cellulosic Biofuel Renewable Fuel Standard
On April 22, EPA issued a direct final rule to revise the 2013 cellulosic biofuel renewable fuel standard (“RFS”) that it had originally issued on August 15, 2013. The new rule reduces the cellulosic biofuel RFS to 0.0005%, which reflects the number of cellulosic biofuel renewable identifications numbers (“RINs”) that were actually produced and available…