BY JOHN EASTWOOD, HEATHER HSIAO AND JEFFREY LIEN It’s never pleasant when a company needs to get rid of a senior manager, but many practical issues arise when a termination has to occur. American companies operating in Taiwan and in the larger Asia-Pacific region have started placing greater emphasis on legal, ethical, and office-conduct compliance,…
Criminal cases are moving through the courts, but companies see the need for still more education of judges and prosecutors. China is pushing rapidly to meet ambitious targets for developing its high-tech industries in its quest to move its economy up the global value chain and achieve greater self-sufficiency. As it does so, though, leading…
Strengthening protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) is crucial to attracting investment in Taiwan’s pharmaceutical sector. In order to better protect IPR for innovative products, the Pharmaceutical Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei recommends completing the legislative process for Patent Linkage and Data Exclusivity. Patent Linkage prevents regulatory authorization of generic medicines…
In order to increase business competitiveness while continuing to protect the local labor force, the American Chamber of Commerce’s Human Resources Committee recommends that the Ministry of Labor (MOL) make the Labor Standards Law (LSL) more flexible and more predictable. The current labor laws regulating overtime work and employer-employee relations are based on traditional labor-intensive…
As Taiwan’s population matures into a “super-aged” society, with a predicted 20% of its population 65 years or older by 2025, the problem of long-term care for Taiwan’s elderly population looms. Taiwan’s doctors of chiropractic see themselves as potential contributors to meeting this challenge. Chiropractic, dedicated to the treatment and prevention of disorders of the…
Through improved legislation, stricter enforcement, and the fast-tracking of intellectual property rights (IPR) cases through the court system, Taiwan has developed one of the strongest IPR protection regimes in the Asia Pacific region. While acknowledging the progress already achieved, however, the Intellectual Property & Licensing section of the newly published 2017 Taiwan White Paper of…
Taiwan’s Statute for Control of Cosmetics Hygiene (the Cosmetics Act for short) was first enacted in 1972. Now the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) is proposing a series of amendments aimed at modernizing the law to take into account developments in the cosmetics industry over the past four-plus decades. In the recently published 2017…
A visiting delegation urges early passage of Patent Linkage legislation. During a recent visit to Taipei, a six-member delegation from the Washington, DC-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) urged Taiwan’s legislature to give early attention to pending bills to strengthen intellectual property protection for pharmaceuticals. Passage of the proposed amendments to the Pharmaceutical…
BY PAUL J. CASSINGHAM AND JEFFREY LIEN Like many jurisdictions, Taiwan has long imposed restrictions on the enforceability of employee post-termination noncompetition agreements. For many years, Taiwan courts have enforced such agreements only if the employer had a business interest worthy of protection, and only if the scope and duration of the noncompetition obligation were…
TFDA shares its views on how the prospective new statute will be implemented. For the past several years, the Taiwan government has been working on revisions to the Statute for Control of Cosmetics Hygiene (the Cosmetics Act for short) to bring it up to date with current market approaches to protecting consumer interests. With the…
