Articles

Over the years, radio broadcasters and copyright owners i.e., music producers have been in a tussle before various courts and tribunals on various issues pertaining to music licensing. In the past year, radio broadcasters and music producers have been at crossroads with each other regarding compliance with certain rules prescribed for obtaining a statutory licence.

18 July 2022

The Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) in recent years, has become a vigorous regulator. Frequent, suo moto investigations, exemplary penalties to create a deterrent effect, and market studies to better understand evolving markets are some of the actions taken by the CCI in the past few years.

8 July 2022

The World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) concluded the 12th Ministerial Conference (‘MC 12’) in Geneva on 16 June 2022. Being the first Ministerial Conference since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in 2020 and being held after a more than four-year hiatus, MC 12 was one of the most anticipated Ministerial Conferences.

30 June 2022

On the 5th Anniversary of implementation of GST in India, the article discusses the levy of compensation cess which was initially imposed to compensate the States for their revenue loss due to GST implementation, and which was supposed to expire after 5 years. Elaborately discussing the levy, the article deliberates the background of the recommendation of the GST Council to extend the levy till March 2026. It also notes how the States will not get any compensation after June 2022. The authors.

24 June 2022

Under the Constitution of India, ‘labour’ is a subject matter of the concurrent list. Therefore, both Central and State Governments have the power to enact labour and employment legislations. This has frequently resulted in legal quagmires because of numerous laws being enacted having overlapping provisions and governing similar subject matters relating to labour and employment.

22 June 2022

The year 2022 has witnessed major changes in exemption regimes available to charitable institutions under the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘IT Act’). Through these changes, while the Government has seemingly decayed one issue faced by charitable institutions, it has also given birth to a new one. The following paragraphs will discuss both these issues and analyze the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the amendments of 2022.

20 June 2022

The present article deals with a noteworthy decision of the Indian Patents Office (‘IPO’) on the pre-grant opposition under Section 25(1) of the Patents Act, 1970 (‘Patents Act’). The said order was issued pursuant to the Delhi High Court (‘High Court’) remanding the matter to the Assistant Controller of Patents & Design (‘Controller’).

16 June 2022

Recently, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (‘MEITY’) released a draft amendment (‘Draft Amendment’) to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (‘Guidelines’) for public consultations. The Draft Amendment proposes to bring about certain changes to the grievance redressal mechanism, timelines for responding to grievances and proposes constitution.

15 June 2022

In November 2019, the Government of India (‘GOI’) surprised the international trading community by withdrawing from the negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive and Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), which it had been part of for several years.

31 May 2022

This article concerns Section 50 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (‘CGST Act’). Much has been said and done about whether interest is liable to be paid on the gross tax liability in case of delayed payment of taxes.

25 May 2022

Securities Market Regulator, SEBI, on 5 May 2021, made it mandatory for the top 1,000 listed entities (by market capitalization calculated as on the 31st day of March of every financial year) to provide annually a Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) from the financial year 2022-23.

20 May 2022

A contentious issue that has seen much litigation in the recent past is regarding the claim of expenditure under Section 37 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (‘IT Act’) incurred by pharmaceutical companies on gifting of freebies to doctors.

18 May 2022

On 14 February 2022, the Review Board of the United States Copyright Office (‘Board’) opined on the registrability of works generated by Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’), a topic which has been deliberated by scholars and professionals in the field of intellectual property law since the advent of autonomous technology.

17 May 2022

The article analyses a recent decision of the Delhi High Court wherein the Court refused to grant the prayer seeking issuance of an omnibus order restraining the Defendants from offering domain names containing the word ‘SNAPDEAL’. Yet, the Court held that the Defendants will not be granted the ‘safe harbour’ protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 if they continue to provide alternate domain names, for commercial profits, which infringe the registered trademarks.

16 May 2022

The CERT-IN has released a set of Directions dated April 28, 2022 under the Information Technology Act (“Directions”) which relate to reporting of cyber security incidents and adopting additional measures towards protection of the IT and internet ecosystem in India. The article discusses the directions, enhanced obligations and new obligations introduced under the Directions for virtual private networks, virtual private servers and virtual asset providers.

9 May 2022