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Vietnam: Competition Law Fact Sheet
Overview of the main provisions of the Competition Law, and discussion of the enforcement regime and recent enforcement trends.
Global | Publication | January 2018
The government has announced that it intends to tackle what it considers to be unfair practices in the residential leasehold market “as soon as Parliamentary time allows”.
Statistics show that there has been an increasing trend of developers selling new-build houses as leasehold, as opposed to the more traditional freehold ownership. One motive for this in many cases is to generate an additional income stream from the ground rents payable when a house is leasehold, with that income stream often sold on to investors.
Another recent trend is a significant increase in the cost of ground rents for long residential leases, which traditionally have been nominal. Such increases can create an unforeseen financial burden for the owner and make the property harder to sell or to mortgage, particularly as mortgage lenders are increasingly wary of such onerous terms.
Following a consultation that elicited over 6,000 responses, the government has announced a series of measures to tackle these issues in England. They include:
Houses built on land that is subject to an existing lease cannot be sold as freehold. The government’s answer to this is to propose a ban on the sale of leasehold houses on land that was not subject to an existing lease at the date of the announcement: 21 December 2017.
Once enacted these measures will clearly have a major impact on new – and some aspects of existing - residential developments. We will report further when flesh has been put on the bones of the proposals and a timetable for implementation is announced.
For further information please contact Sian Skerratt-Williams or your usual contact at Norton Rose Fulbright.Publication
Overview of the main provisions of the Competition Law, and discussion of the enforcement regime and recent enforcement trends.
Publication
Artificial intelligence (AI) raises many intellectual property (IP) issues.
Publication
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) recently ruled in Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz & Ors v. Switzerland (Application No. 53600/20) that Switzerland had breached the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention) by not taking sufficient action against climate change. In particular, it found a breach of the right to respect for private and family life contained in Article 8 of the Convention, based on Switzerland’s failure to mitigate the impact of climate change on the lives, health, well-being and quality of life of its citizens. It also ruled that Switzerland had breached the right to a fair trial in terms of Article 6, in that the domestic courts failed to examine the merits of the applicants’ complaints, including the scientific evidence. In this article we consider the key features of this landmark judgment, which has wide ramifications for Member States of the Convention.
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