Month: April 2016
Chaos and disorder in copyright law – happy #WorldIPDay!
Many of us are mourning the loss of Prince, one of the world’s great music talents. What most of us don’t know is that he was also a champion of copyright enforcement. On the 16th edition of World Intellectual Property...
Whipping up a transatlantic trade agreement? Shop wisely.
The EU and US negotiators of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) meet in New York this week for the 13th round of negotiations. In the media storm that accompanies TTIP it is not easy to keep a bird’s-eye...
Regulators and consumer organisations – less me and more we
Without rules, consumers are at the mercy of traders. The same applies if the rules aren’t enforced. European Commissioner Věra Jourová, in charge of justice and consumer affairs, wants to see a big change in this area calling for proper...
Energy Label – a compass that needs calibration
At a time when the EU is supposed to deal only with the ‘big’ things, I‘d like to talk about a small sticker. A sticker which has a significant impact though, both for consumers’ pockets and the climate. You find...
A regulatory tsunami – really?
Memory in politics is often short. Less than a decade after a devastating financial crash caused by a lack of regulation in the financial sector, the gates to deregulation seem to be opening again. Banks like to refer to the...
It’s time for the EU Ecolabel to fly!
Environmental labels have proliferated in the past decades [1]. As demand for more sustainable products has grown, so have the initiatives to label them. So much so that there are now over 500 such labels in use worldwide. That doesn’t...