Thought Articles

This chapter is from International Product Liability - Second Edition - Juris Publishing, Inc. 2017 www.jurispub.com Product liability emerged as a stand-alone branch of law in Romania only during the last few decades. However, it is essentially grounded on “classical” civil law, which has acknowledged and regulated fundamental principles such as tort liability and contractual liability for more than a century. Product liability is thus based on the traditional civil law under the New Civil Code and the special statutes regulating product liability.

The latest, hottest, subject in the privacy rights and data protection area is the General Data Protection Regulation, which comes into force on 25 May 2018. The Regulation ushers in significant financial sanctions, rights of compensation and group litigation mechanisms. DAC Beachcroft worked closely with data protection experts from all of the 28 Member States so as to put together a report into how these GDPR measures will change the compensation and regulatory sanctions regime.

Reproduced with permission from Online Gambling Lawyer (Volume: 16 Issue: 8 (August 2017). The article first appeared on http://www.cecileparkmedia.com/online-gambling-lawyer/article_template.asp?Contents=Yes&from=woglr&ID=2478 Members of the Romania Parliament have put forward an amendment that would prohibit the advertising of gambling, which is registered for debate within the Senate. Lawyers from Tuca Zbarcea Asociatii, discuss the proposed amendment and what they believe will be the negative consequences for the Romanian online gambling industry if the amendment is passed.

Reproduced with permission from Media Law International. This article first appeared in Media Law International 2017. The freedom of contract is one of the main principles governing the Romanian civil law. According to Art. 1169 of the Civil Code, the parties are free to enter into any contracts and to establish their content, within the limits imposed by law, public order and accepted principles of morality. The activity of the media agencies was governed by the freedom of contract principle, without particular legal restrictions, until April 2013 when the Romanian Government approved the Government Emergency Ordinance No. 25/2013 (“GEO 25/2013”) amending the Audiovisual Law No. 504/2002 (“Audiovisual Law)”) and introducing new rules applicable to the purchasing of TV advertising. The preamble of GEO 25/2013 justified the legal intervention on the need to fight the corruption in the advertising market (kick-backs and other forms of bribery), as well as the non-transparent and anti-competitive systems in this field, which affect the activity of TV broadcasters and the “right of the public to correct and quality information”. Furthermore, the Government indicated some of the media agencies involved in the financial circuits between TV broadcasters and advertisers are bad payers to the state budget.

Partially reproduced with permission from DataGuidance.com. The full article is available by subscription only at https://app.dataguidance.com/guidance/index.asp?id=594 The main legal enactment in data privacy field is Law No. 677/2001 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and the Free Movement of Such Data ('the Privacy Act'), published in the Official Gazette of Romania No. 790 dated 12 December 2001, as subsequently amended and supplemented. The Privacy Act fully implements the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), having substantially similar provisions.

Over the last 10 years, the popularity of online gambling has made this industry one of the most profitable at an international level, and an important source of revenues for states that have secured a mutually beneficial and attractive legislative framework to operators. In Romania, although online gambling has been regulated since December 2010, the first functional regulatory framework only took shape following legislative efforts over 2015–2016. To a great extent, it is the Romanian National Gambling Office (ONJN) that reformed the legislative framework further to dialogue with all stakeholders, i.e., the associations representing online gambling operators and the state institutions in charge of monitoring, checking and penalizing industry-related activities. The current regulatory framework covers stakeholders’ needs and supports the development of this sector.