Medicinal and agrochemical products can be granted a Supplementary Protection Certificate, an intellectual property right associated with patents, to provide up to five years of additional rights and protections once their patents have expired. In order to apply for an SPC, a product must receive approval to be sold on the UK market. Under the Northern Ireland/Ireland Protocol, products to be sold in Northern Ireland must obtain approval under EU law, whilst products to be sold in the rest of the UK will obtain approval under UK law. Currently, this marketing authorisation is only given on a UK-wide basis. This regulation amends the market authorisation process to enable authorisations to be granted for the Northern Ireland market only and for the Great Britain market only.
Documents to download
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Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (80 KB, PDF)
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the EU and USA. The aim of the agreement is to reduce ‘barriers to trade’ and to enhance the compatibility of regulations and standards. The first round of negotiations was held in July 2013 and the most recent round—the ninth—took place in April 2015. Tariffs between the USA and EU are already low, and are likely to be easily reduced or eliminated under an eventual agreement. However, measures to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade and investment could prove harder to agree. Areas of particular contention include food standards and investor-state dispute settlements. If an agreement is reached between the two negotiating authorities it will need to be ratified by all Member States of the EU and the European Parliament before it can come into force.
Documents to download
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Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (80 KB, PDF)
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The Audiovisual Media Services (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020 govern how on-demand programming and video-sharing platforms will be regulated after the Brexit transition period ends.
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The regulation of product safety, and weights and measures, is based on EU law. The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 brings this EU law into UK statute, so that it will continue to have effect after the end of the transition period. Amendments since have made to enable this framework to operate smoothly in the UK, and added provisions such as a UK conformity mark. This article looks at a further statutory instrument that amends retained EU law in the area, particularly in light of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
