ITALIAN TRADE AGENCY’S REPORT ON US-ITALY TRADE; ITALY KEPT ITS 10TH PLACE AMONG THE INVESTING COUNTRIES IN US

In October 2018, the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) made available a report containing useful information on bilateral investments between USA and Italy. The new data concern the months from January to August. The good news is that US-Italy trade continued its positive trend, increasing 17.6% compared to the same period of the previous year. Italy kept its 10th place among U.S. commercial partners. The first months of 2018 kept up the growing trend registered in 2017 for the following categories Read more [...]

CNIL publishes interesting analysis of blockchain in light of the GDPR

In September 2018, the French Data Protection Agency, the Commission Nationale de l’informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) published a report explaining how Blockchain relates to the GDPR ("Report"). In particular the Report highlights the following. WHO IS THE CONTROLLER IN A BLOCKCHAIN TRANSACTION. Users of the web who decide to submit a transaction to the validation of miners are data controllers as defined under Article 4, GDPR, since they determine the purposes (such as the objectives Read more [...]

Interesting solutions for dispute resolution in the Blockchain era

Do the benefits of smart contracts overwrite their downfalls? While smart contracts bring a lot of benefits, allowing for a quick execution once a certain condition takes place, a lot of value can get lost in these transactions. For example, it is estimated that in 2017, over $1B in value was lost with smart contracts due to bugs allowing hackers to get a hold of millions of dollars. See here. What is currently being done to solve the disputes arising around these losses? A number of projects Read more [...]

FTC’s enforcement in relation to Privacy Shield 

In August, the FTC took action against false claims of participating to the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework. These are the first cases addressing the Privacy Shield Framework introduced on July 12, 2016. Allegedly, the companies under investigation started the application for the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield but never completed it; yet they falsely claimed to be participants. See here. In September 2018, the FTC reached settlements with four other companies that falsely claimed participation in the Read more [...]

California Consumers Privacy Act got amended and enforcement actions delayed

After only three months from its approval the California Consumers Privacy Act (CCPA) was amended. On September 23, 2018 Senate Bill 1121 was signed into law. The legislation, which takes effect immediately, amends the CCPA, which was passed on June 2018. Among other things, the amendment: - clarifies the definition of “personal information”, explaining that it “includes, but is not limited to, the following if it identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, Read more [...]