Industries

Legislative fix: Laws covering commissions payable to real estate agents set to change

Published by Alexandra Tighe The State Government of Victoria has now announced that amendments will be made to the Estate Agents Act which stipulates the circumstances in which commissions are payable to real estate agents. The amendments have been foreshadowed by Consumer Affairs Victoria and the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) to be released in the coming weeks. The REIV has stated that the ‘legislative fix’ is an excellent result for the REIV and its members. However, the result will be to the detriment of consumers who will presumably no longer be able to claim the return of commissions paid under the industry standard exclusive sales authority, which was issued by the REIV to its members, as approved by the Director of Consumer Affairs. You may recall previously we identified there were potentially significant claims which could be made against the REIV and/or the Director of Consumer Affairs by consumers or agents as a result of the non-compliant pro forma sales authority. The form was made compliant in November 2017, but commissions flowing from every real estate transaction in the recent times prior to that date were potentially susceptible to claims and at risk. Some industry insiders had even

Further Opening-up for Foreign-Invested Banks

Since 2017, there have been several regulations and policies promulgated with the aim of opening-up the PRC’s banking industry:

The Reform of Imported Drugs Registration Encourages the Marketing of New Drugs in China

This article was written by Huang Jianwen (partner). On October 10 2017, the China Food and Drug Administration (“CFDA”) issued the Decisions Concerning the Adjustment of Imported Drug Registration (No. 35 Order by CFDA, “Decisions”). This implements the policy of encouraging new drug marketing following the earlier issuances of Opinions on Deepening the Reform of Evaluation and Approval System and Encouraging the Innovation of Drugs and Medical Devices by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council on October 8. The three major issues affected by the Decisions are the following: Synchronized declarations of research & development for multi-regional clinical trials are permitted China has issued the test guide for multi-regional clinical trials (“MRCT”) in 2015. However, according to the Measures for the Administration of Drug Registration (“Measures”), drugs in MRCT must have already been registered overseas or have entered phase II or phase III clinical trials. This lags the process of declaration of research & development (“R&D”) of drugs in China, affecting the public access to new drugs. The Decisions stipulate that drugs in MRCT in China are now permitted to launch synchronized phase I clinical trials inside and outside China

New Era for Infant Formula in China

Infant formula products cannot be distributed or sold in China without formula registration.

RMAC (The Red Meat Advisory Council ) ACBM is authorised to link

RMAC (The Red Meat Advisory Council ) is an industry advocacy group. They are producers, lot feeders, manufacturers, retailers and livestock exporters of beef, goat meat and sheepmeat.