Blog / What did you miss? Five things that happened while all eyes were on COVID-19
Over the past few months it’s been hard to think about much other than the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world, and Lexology has been no exception to this – to date, we’ve published more than 75,000 pieces of content bearing the ‘Coronavirus’ tag and that number continues to rise. But despite the pandemic, the legal world has carried on: laws have been passed, courts have issued rulings and regulatory bodies have handed down guidance. Here we highlight five non-virus-related developments that our Lexology experts reported on while COVID-19 turned the world upside down.
Sexual harassment: states introduce harassment prevention training
Since the start of 2020 Illinois and California have both taken steps to help employers tackle the ongoing issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. The Illinois Human Rights Act now requires employers to provide sexual harassment training by the end of 2020 and every calendar year thereafter. To this end, the Illinois Department of Human Rights has issued guidance to help employers to comply. In California, where Senate Bill 1343 mandates that non-supervisory employees receive one hour of harassment prevention training every two years, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing has published guidance on the legal requirements and, more recently, has introduced online harassment training which employers can ask employees to carry out.
Data protection: GDPR two years on
Monday 25 May 2020 marked the second anniversary of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force – and two years on, interest in reading about the regulation is as high as ever. Since its introduction there have been developments at both EU and member state level as companies work to comply with its requirements and regulatory authorities act to enforce its provisions. One key issue for companies has been how to ensure that their contractual provisions comply, as the requirements differ according to how a service provider is classified and where they are located, but fundamental questions around who the GDPR applies to remain.
Excessive pricing: Court of Appeal of England & Wales confirms legal test for unfair pricing
In March 2020 the Court of Appeal of England & Wales upheld a Competition Appeal Tribunal decision that the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had misapplied the legal test for unfair pricing when it found that Pfizer and Flynn had charged unfairly high prices for anti-epilepsy drug phenytoin sodium. The CMA had imposed fines of £90 million on the two companies based on its finding that the charges constituted a serious breach of the law. In its ruling the appeal court clarified the legal test for excessive pricing, first set out in the United Brands case, and focused particularly on the unfairness limb of the test. One of the key takeaways from the decision is that competition authorities need to establish a benchmark but need not implement a specific hypothetical benchmark price to determine whether pricing is excessive. The court also refused to reinstate the record fines imposed by the CMA.
Money laundering: European Commission launches action plan
Hot on the heels of member states’ implementation of the Fifth Anti-money Laundering Directive, the European Commission has published the Action Plan for a Comprehensive Union Policy on Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, which aims to introduce a unified approach to fighting money laundering and terrorist financing. The action plan is built on six pillars which are designed to harmonise the relevant EU rules. The plan is open for consultation until 29 July 2020 but only time will tell how successful it is – finding divergence is one thing, but eliminating it is a very different challenge.
Social media: Facebook fined for misleading privacy practices
Social media behemoth Facebook Inc received a C$9 million fine (plus costs) from the Canadian Competition Bureau in May 2020 following an investigation into its privacy practices. The bureau found that Facebook had made false or misleading claims about the privacy of Canadians’ personal information on Facebook and Messenger. The decision ties in with one of the bureau’s key enforcement priorities, which is to tackle misleading and deceptive practices in the digital economy. The ruling has major implications for businesses which handle consumer data and highlights that the Competition Act applies equally to both free and paid-for services.
What’s next?
As the world slowly starts to return to normal – or at least, to the ‘new normal’ – Lexology authors will continue to cover all the key topics, both COVID and non-COVID related. So to keep an eye on what’s trending with Lexology readers, check out our Popular hub; and to see what they’re watching, have a look at our recently relaunched Learn hub, which now highlights the webinars and videos related to our trending topics. And if after reading this you’re ready for more COVID-19 content, it’s all available on our Coronavirus hub.
