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USA | Regulatory | FDA issues new regulations on Nutritional Facts Label for Packaged Foods
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The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) modified the nutritional facts label guidelines for packaged foods in order to reflect current scientific data and information for easier understanding for consumers.
Its modification involves changes in the information to be included on the labels such as calories value, and updates of base portions and nutrition values.
The deadline for food manufactures to update the nutritional facts label of its products expires on July 26, 2018; however, producers with annual food sales lower than 10 USD million dollars will have an additional year from that date to comply with the new regulation.
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COLOMBIA | Unfair Competition, Copyright | Issuance of First Instance Ruling On Unfair Competition Lawsuit between Colombian Private Television Channels and Pay Television Distributors
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The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC), the Colombian authority for Antitrust and Intellectual Property matters, issued a first instance decision in the aforementioned lawsuit and ruled in favor of private TV channels Caracol and RCN. SIC determined that pay television distributors Telmex, Telefónica, DIRECTV and ETB transmitted unauthorized signal retransmission of these channels.
In addition, precautionary measures were requested by Caracol and RCN against the above mentioned pay television distributors. The SIC granted the precautionary measures and Pay television distributors appealed the decision. The Andean Justice Tribunal issued an opinion on this matter. This opinion is known as “Interpretacion Prejudicial” in Spanish and is mandatory to be obtained for appeal rulings in unfair competition cases. The SIC’s decision is in alignment with the Andean Justice Tribunal’s opinion, which we reported in a previous OM Weekly Digest edition.
For more information, please visit the following link.
COLOMBIA | Unfair Competition | The Colombian Antitrust Authority Investigates A New Case of Corporate Cartels
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On 10 August 2016, the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) opened an investigation with a list of objections against Ecopetrol, the largest and most important oil company of Colombia) and 16 supplies of construction material for the alleged violation of free market competition laws.
More specifically, it is alleged that Ecopetrol induced i) price fixing and ii) quota allocation for supply of construction material in favor of several companies that stock civil work contractors in connection with works or projects conducted for Ecopetrol.
In light of the SIC Collaboration Benefits Program, 6 companies involved in the problem accepted their participation and provided evidence in exchange for being exonerated from fines either completely or partially.
For more information please click here.
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NICARAGUA | Trademarks | Implementation of the 10th edition of the Nice Classification in Nicaragua
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On 13 July 2016, the 10th edition of the Nice Classification entered into force in Nicaragua (by means of MIFIC Agreement 014-2016), being mandatory its use in all trademark prosecution procedures, including renewals.
Nice Classification is an international classification which categorizes products and services for trademark registration.
CHILE | International Law | Reminder: Chile now accepts documents legalized by Apostille
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As previously reported, from 30 August 2016, Chile accepts documents that are legalized apostille.
Brazil and Chile are new members of the Hague Convention.
