Anomi Wanigasekera, LLM (Wales), Attorney-at-Law is the Partner in charge of the Intellectual Property Group at Sir Lankan Julius & Creasy law firm. She holds Diplomas in Intellectual Property Law, International Trade Law, Banking and Insurance Law of Institute of Advanced Legal Studies of the Incorporated Council of Legal Education and has extensive experience in contentious and non-contentious Intellectual Property Law matters. She has extensive experience in the full range of enforcement, management and transactional matters pertaining to intellectual property law, including representing clients before the National Intellectual Property Office, acting for multinationals as well as Sri Lankan conglomerates in respect of infringement actions, applying for injunctions and search and/or seizure orders. She also overlooks the drafting and reviewing of contracts and advises on regulatory compliance matters.

As a thought leader who’s been involved in several complex Trademarks, Designs and Infringement cases, Mrs. Wanigasekera caught up with Finance Monthly to discuss Intellectual Property in Sri Lanka.

What is the most common mistake that companies make in regards to their patenting?

One of the key mistakes that corporation make is delay in filing the patent applications - once the patented products/process is publicised, the novelty is lost.

When it comes to patenting, how has increased use of technology impacted the protection of unique inventions?

The local inventors are more aware of IP protection and we see an increase in the number of patent filings in Sri Lanka.

Moreover, with the globe being more interconnected than ever before, how much easier or difficult does it make to keep on top of updated laws? What other impact has globalisation had for this sector?

Being fully up-to-date is a must. Globalisation has a positive impact with regard to technological development as far as patents are concerned, as it makes it very easy for companies to check if their idea for an invention exists already.

How has the IP sector changed over the years in Sri Lanka?

Sri Lankan IP Law is based on WIPO Model Law.  Code of Intellectual Property Act No. 52 of 1979 came into operation in 1980 and thereafter, in 2003, the Intellectual Property Act o. 36 was enacted which is TRIPS compliance and is the current law in operation.

What future developments are you looking forward to? What developments and regulations do you think the island could adopt from other jurisdictions?

Sri Lanka is considering having a separate act for geographical indications and plant varieties, as well as examining the option of acceding to the Madrid Protocol within the next two to three years. We are also considering to introduce the protection of utility models.

Additionally, Sri Lanka’s National Intellectual Property Office has been computerized and the validation process has been completed and expects to be fully automated within the next few years.

RSM Malta is a professional services and advisory firm with a strong team of professionals with decades of experience assisting clients from a range of industries. The firm’s goal is to be the firm of choice to leading businesses in Malta, offering an excellent and personalised service.

To hear about Tax in Malta, this month Finance Monthly spoke with Dr Timothy Zammit, who has recently been made partner at RSM Malta within the tax and corporate services unit, after having joined the firm in 2010 as a tax lawyer. Together with a team of professionals, Timothy is responsible for assisting clients with their corporate and tax advisory needs.

As a newly appointed Partner at RSM Malta in the tax advisory and corporate services, what are the key services that you assist clients with?

Together with fellow tax partner, George Gregory, and a team of financial and legal professionals, I assist clients with enhancing their fiscal efficiencies through the setting up of companies, special purpose vehicles and corporate restructuring while providing transactional support in acquisitions, mergers and divisions, together with business succession planning while ensuring clients’ full compliance with their tax and corporate obligations. I also advise clients on matters including personal taxation, benefitting from one of the tax residence programmes, taking up residency in Malta and applying for Maltese citizenship.

How complex is the tax system in Malta?

Malta’s tax system is fully compliant with EU Directives and also includes a number of elements that are attractive to both businesses and individuals. Malta is the only EU Member State that has maintained the full imputation system while imposing tax according to the nature of the income’s source. A cornerstone of Malta’s tax system is that universal taxing rights are claimed on persons (both individuals and companies) that are both resident and domiciled in Malta. Malta has also been moving towards a system based on final taxation at source, primarily on property transactions, in the past years. It is the interoperation of these complexities that makes Malta such an attractive option.

In your opinion, are there any unique advantages of conducting business in Malta from a tax perspective?

While Malta’s corporate tax rate is one of the highest in Europe at 35%, at a time where there is a trend of lowering corporate tax rates, the full imputation system offers a business-friendly environment, while eliminating economic double taxation. Malta’s tax system provides shareholders the right to credit the tax paid by the company to their personal tax liability. Where the shareholders’ tax rate is lower than the 35% corporate tax rate, they may apply for a refund between their applicable tax rate and that of the company. This is available to both residents and non-residents, offering a favourable and business-friendly tax environment.

Malta not only offers an attractive tax regime. The ‘can do’ attitude that is adopted by the authorities in regulating and doing business in general, coupled with the Mediterranean lifestyle gives investors a very appealing option.

How do you help your clients mitigate their tax liability whilst remaining fully compliant with tax laws?

When dealing with cross border businesses, an international tax advisor can never only look at the situation in one jurisdiction – as any solution is only a solution if it works in all the right jurisdictions. It is through the availability of reliable professionals globally with the right experience and background being part of RSM, that we may truly assist clients ensuring that they are fully compliant.

 You’ve recently been made Partner – what does this mean to you? How will your current responsibilities change? What are the goals that you’re arriving with?

Being made Partner in a firm with 170 professionals is a strong vote of confidence by my fellow Partners that gives me renewed enthusiasm to continue contributing to the firm’s growth and solidifying RSM’s position as the mid-tier firm of choice. My role as Partner comes at a challenging time where the industry is facing a multitude of challenges, ranging from changes to tax systems globally in the light of the financial crisis, BEPS and the trend of full disclosure and exchange of information to the industry disruption that will be caused by technologies such as the Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence in the coming years. The challenge is to be able to help identify and adopt the right approach that will guarantee our clients’ continued future success while ensuring that they are fully compliant with their obligations in all the jurisdictions that they operate.

Website: www.rsm.com.mt

Phone: +356 2278 7000

Marlene de Sousa Teixeira is Founding Partner of Teixeira & Guimarães, specializing in Banking and Finance and advising and representing both national and global companies. Marlene believes that today’s society needs focused, assertive and faster answers, and that the standard model of a full-service legal firm is becoming less attractive. Here she offers her insights into dispute resolution in Portugal and the challenges that her clients face.

Can you provide a brief overview of the dispute resolution process in Portugal?

The dispute resolution process in Portugal, from a technical point of view, has considerably evolved in the past. Being from a different nature when compared to common law countries, the process is based on Civil Law and its general and abstract legal standards apply to generality and abstraction of situations and where judge-made law has a different value than that of common law countries. This results in better legal certainty in regards to the different kind of economic players, since the kind of interpretation of the ruling is also determined legally.

In regards to less positive aspects, in Portugal, we are faced with frequent delay in the delivery of verdicts. However, this does not mean the decisions are more or less fair, or that the quality of the verdicts is not good enough.

How important can it be to resolve disputes as quickly as possible? What are the challenges you face as a lawyer tasked with understanding the technical nature of a business so that a speedy resolution can be found?

The resolution time of a dispute should always be a variable to be taken into account in all matters that relate to coming up with a solution. Understanding the technical nature of a business will not help you make a faster or slower decision. It is clear that if you understand the core of a business, you are going to be assertive and efficient, but the problem is not going to be settled faster because of your know-how. Yet, the know-how will provide you with several other advantages and will introduce you to more hypotheses.

Which types of disputes are you normally called upon to help resolve? How do you develop the best strategy for resolving a dispute?

Usually, I am called to intervene in cases of financial, banking and civil nature – that is my main area of expertise. In fact, T&G was the first law firm in Portugal to be certified by the new standard EN NP ISO 9001:2015 within credit litigation.
Regarding the strategy procedures, the best way to think about it is getting to know the interests in a dispute, because a good strategy doesn’t necessarily mean a winning strategy. In many circumstances, a good strategy means acting in a certain way, regardless of the verdict.

Are there any business sectors that are particularly prone to commercial disputes? What do you attribute this to?

In the past few years, Portugal has witnessed the development of our financial industry. A number of national courts are clogged with mortgage foreclosures and debt recovery lawsuits on unsecured credits. It is clear that a lot of these litigation proceedings were due to the economic situation.

Although this has improved in the past few recent months, it is easy to identify a pattern and easily predict that lawsuits related to foreclosures or debt recovery will definitely continue to be relevant.

Website: http://www.tesg.pt/

As a founder of one of the two merged firms, Michael Siebold now acts as one of the managing partners of Arnecke Sibeth, an independent full service firm based in Germany.  Michael’s key responsibilities in managing the firm include HR and PR while, as a lawyer, he is mainly involved in infrastructure projects and corporate transactions that are almost exclusively cross-border.

Could you tell us a bit about your career path?

 Following my clerkship (‘Referendariat’) in Munich, I did my LL.M. at the University of Toronto, followed by some practical working experience in Canada before relocating to Germany. I have always been very business and commercially orientated. In 1989, I found the firm that today, after mergers in 2000 and 2015, is now Arnecke Sibeth. I embarked on this journey with one associate, who quickly became a partner and remains a pillar of our firm to this day.  As a firm, we soon specialized in transportation, aviation and logistics as an industry; and developed that practice to become one of the leading practices in that area. We now offer a full range of corporate legal services, to a range of industries and sectors.

What are Arnecke Sibeth’s top priorities towards its clients? How have these evolved over the years?

Two priorities stand out, from the many that I could mention: Truly adding value to our clients’ businesses and fair, intelligent, value-add based pricing. One of the key ways we look to add value to our clients is through our membership of elite global legal network Interlaw. Our affiliation with this network of more than 7,000 expert lawyers around the world means that we can easily and safely recommend legal advisers to our increasing client base, which looks to work internationally. We are also able to project manage multi-jurisdictional projects on behalf of our clients, providing one point of contact and one invoice for cross-jurisdictional deals or cases.

Additionally, with digitalisation being an increasing focus, some services, traditionally provided by lawyers, are expected to soon be commoditised. As a result, we are constantly evolving the products that Arnecke Sibeth offers and the skills that our lawyers have, so the advice and services we provide truly add value to our clients’ businesses. Simultaneously, hourly billing has been replaced by value-add based schemes, where a client pays on the basis of the value our law firm brings to their business or a transaction, rather than on the time spent working on the particular case.

You are also the Chairman of the global legal network of independent law firms worldwide called Interlaw– could you tell us a bit more about the organization and your involvement in it?

Indeed, I have had the privilege to serve as Chairman of Interlaw for five years so far and, together with an experienced international board and a lean but truly excellent staff, to steer the business of one of the most innovative international legal platforms. Based on personal relationships, often including decades-long friendships, Interlaw provides a platform where leading lawyers can cooperate seamlessly for the benefit of their clients, while being able to offer bespoke on-the-ground expertise in each jurisdiction.

Through our selective due diligence and ongoing quality monitoring system, we ensure that we attract the best independent law firms in the jurisdictions where we have a presence. What sets Interlaw members apart is the mindset of going the extra mile for a fellow member firm’s clients. This differentiates us from many other traditional networks, multi-national firms and other organizations. Unlike what is often experienced when dealing with international law firms, as Interlaw members genuinely value working with each other, there is no infighting at any level; simply great service at fair market prices. For Arnecke Sibeth and our clients, being a member of the network has opened doors to many new opportunities.

With your background as a common lawyer for a while in Canada in the mid-80s, you are often invited to speak on the relationship between Canada and Germany - what are the hottest topics being discussed in regards to this?

Canada and Germany, combined in their mutually shared views on almost all major political issues, are both working hard these days to make CETA a success on both sides of the pond. Poor communication and lack of information prevail where CETA is faced with skepticism, and this is the aspect that we are trying to assists with. Obviously, Brexit in whichever form, as well as future developments within the EU and the Eurozone remain hot topics on the Canadian-German agenda.

What lies on the horizon for you and Arnecke Sibeth in the near future?

We are well on our journey to becoming a truly national player in Germany, but will be filling some geographical gaps in order to wholly achieve this, namely in Hamburg and the Dusseldorf/Cologne area, where we are currently looking for suitable candidates. At the same time, we look to continue strengthening our base in core legal areas in the industries we focus on.

We plan to work hard toward marketing our service more than ever, through the in-depth knowledge of the industries and sectors that our clients work within. Matching the demand in a more digital world in the future will be a further task. As a response to this, we have a team led by young ‘digital native’ partners who work on solutions both for the firm and, more importantly, for our clients.