In order to harmonize the international private law and simplify situations of cross-border inheritance, EU has imposed a new inheritance regulation, Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession. This regulation governs, among other things, jurisdiction and applicable law in situations of inheritance. The important connecting factor in determining jurisdiction and applicable law is habitual residence. That is why it is important to determine where the deceased person has their habitual residence since the member states’ national regulations look different and thereby have different definitions and interpretations of the term habitual residence. The clarification of the term in the inheritance regulation is therefore important. The question is how the term should be interpreted and which criteria are necessary to acquire habitual residence. The habitual residence term is interpreted as autonomous in the inheritance regulation. This means that the term is interpreted uniformly within all EU member states regardless of the states’ national interpretation of the term. Many circumstances should be taken into consideration when making a determination of habitual residence, such as regularity and duration of the deceased’s presence in the state concerned, the conditions and reasons for that presence, family relationships and social life. These circumstances show where the deceased has their centre of interests and, consequently, also their habitual residence. Furthermore, an analysis is made of which effects the application of the domicile principle will have, instead of the principle of nationality regarding jurisdiction and applicable law, in the Swedish law system. Since the Swedish courts already apply Swedish international private law where the domicile term is used as well as EU-regulations where the domicile principle is applied, it can be assumed that the courts in Sweden will not face particular difficulties in applying the residence principle.

The Main problem formulation of this thesis is to investigate whether taxation in a situa-tion of refunding of a conditional shareholder´s contribution can stand in contradictory to the principle of legal security. Fundamentally is a case, named RÅ 2009 ref. 47:2. In the case the court decided to conform to the tax avoidance act on the situation of refunding of the shareholder´s contribution. The consequence of that was that the part-owner in the case got taxed as it received dividend from the company instead of refunding of the share-holder´s contribution. The Judgment by the court will be investigated in order to clarify whether it can stand in contradictory to the principle of legal security.

In the courts judgment in the case there are several interesting aspects. Firstly because it set outs how the repressive method against tax avoidance are being used in case law. With the use of the method a higher level of understanding of the area of tax avoidance can be ob-tained, together with a higher grade of predictability in situations of tax avoidance and simi-lar situations. The court also conforms to the tax avoidance act on the situation. This con-form is of fundamental importance as it gives guidance of the appliance of the tax avoid-ance act.

What have been investigated and concluded is that the courts judgment in the case RÅ 2009 ref 47:2 cannot be regarded as contradictory to the principle of legal security. As the court both has legislative support in the act of tax avoidance as well as in the case law, I find their decision as from an objective perspective legally correct. 7

However in the judgment it is unfortunate that the court in their motivation to their deci-sion lacks certain information. That is the kind of additional information that could be meaningful in order to predict future judgments by the court within the area.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the case of divorce in family business from a legal perspective and highlight the problems of applying family law in the family business context.

Design/methodology/approach – The authors rely on legal analysis and interviews with estate distribution executors to discuss problems with the legal rules and how they are practiced.

Findings – The findings show that the law is ill fitted to the situation where there is a family business included in the division of marital property. In divorce, family law dictates the division of marital property and the family business is reduced to an asset to be divided like any other. Critical issues are identified and elaborated.

Research limitations/implications – Divorce and other disruptions to the family system should be considered in family business consultancy among other threats to the business. The legal perspective on divorce in the family business offered here primarily concerns ownership issues. The impact of divorce on management is equally in need of exploration, which is the suggestion for further studies.

Practical implications – The paper illuminates in which ways the business is hampered from divorcing owners and discuss critical issues with applying family law in a family business context. Social implications – Policymakers should establish rules in which shares in an unlisted business are by default assigned to separate property until something else is contracted.

Originality/value – New light is shed on the practical problems of interpreting family law in a family business context advancing the understanding of family aspects in family business management.

Article 4 of the Seventh Additional Protocol of the European Convention and Article 50 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights stipulates the principle of ne bis in idem. It means that a person may not be tried or convicted twice for the same crime. In Swedish law, however, a system where the taxpayer can both be imposed penalties and convicted of tax crimes is at hand. This has been considered compatible with the European Convention and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as tax surcharge was regarded as an administrative fee. Whether this is contrary to the double examination prohibition has been discussed extensively in both the courts and in literature. The supreme court, however, in NJA 2013 p. 502 established that the Swedish system of dual procedures can no longer be regarded as compatible with Article 4 of the Seventh Additional Protocol of the European Convention and Article 50 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

For this reason, the government has proposed a locked-regulation and a single sanctioning procedure to modify the Swedish system so that it no longer conflicts with the European Convention and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It is proposed that parallel proceedings should be avoided, as the Supreme Court has considered in its judgment. However, the European court has not been entirely clear whether the double examination prohibition also prevents parallel proceedings. The purpose of this paper is therefore to investigate if it does.

After reviewing the case law of the European Court and the European Court of Justice it can be noted that Article 4 of the Seventh Additional Protocol of the European Convention and Article 50 of EU Charter of Fundamental Rights not constitute a safeguard against lis pendens. Parallel proceedings are compatible with the double examination prohibition, however, is made an offense in cases where the first procedure is not ended after the second procedure announced a final decision.

The patenting of ‘life’ forms - including human parts – raises a number of important issues that challenge the traditional understanding of intellectual property protection suggesting the need for institutional and policy reform. In Europe this debate has focused mainly on the EU Biotech Directive which has been incorporated into the European Patent Convention. In Europe, the vast majority of biotech inventions are essentially considered patentable on ethical grounds. However, the Court of Justice of the EU was called to decide on important issues raised by patenting of embryo stem cells in Brüstle and, more recently in International Stem Cell Corporation v Comptroller. The legal uncertainty generated by these contradictory decisions seems to be very similar to the current confusion created in the United States by the Supreme Court’s decisions in Mayo and Myriad. In order to mitigate the uncertainties coming from these decisions, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is working on a new guidance on subject matter eligibility. In particular, on the 16 of December 2014 the USPTO issued a new guidance describing an innovative eligibility test. The Guidance has the purpose of assisting USPTO staff in examination and post-grant proceedings to define whether claimed subject matter is eligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. Considering this overall framework, the paper has the aim to discuss and analyze this new guidance attempting to clarify the new rules for granting biotech patents.

The article focuses on copyright as a possible andadditional form of intellectual property protection forengineered DNA sequences. In particular, recent progress in synthetic biology and bioengineering have triggered a resurgence of the debate on genetic copyright. Considering the evolving conception of copyright subject-matter, the current narrow patent-eligible protection over living organisms and the advance of emerging technosciences such as synthetic biology, the article looks with renewed interest at the debate on copyright law as an additional potential form of protection for engineered biological creations. The contribution of this investigation is to reveal that copyright seems not only flexible enough to handle contemporary technologies producing living organisms, but also socially preferable to patent protection for accessing and using essential public knowledge assets in the life sciences.

The aim of this paper is to recognize and discuss the inherent risks associated with Internet regulation and control over digital content. The key point of this analysis is that Internet content regulation can present human rights risks. In particular, the paper examines how restrictions over Internet content are posing regulatory issues directly related to the growing importance of an equitable access to digital information. It also considers the relevance and impact of computer-mediated communication, its potential on democratization of freedom of expression and the problem of conflicting rights. Drawing upon comparative and case study material, the paper finally discusses and investigates the potential risks and vulnerabilities related to communication technologies focusing on legislative reforms in the area of digital communications and their implications for fundamental freedoms.

The paper considers the global impacts of digital communication technologies and how they can influence media pluralism and media freedom as well as the ways in which legal systems aim to support and protect them within the context of ongoing technological developments. In particular, it suggests that although new media may potentially help pluralism, there are also significant challenges to achieving effective freedom and pluralism through new media. The paper concludes by proposing recommendations on how the current legislation could be used, adapted or modified in order to encourage media freedom and pluralism also in the digital context. 

The proposed investigation aims to draw a picture of current possible new spaces for copyright protection.

The presentation will, in particular, expand on whether modern copyright law should be more flexible as to whether new and unconventional works - including graffiti, tattoos, body painting, culinary works, sport movements, yoga, jokes, magic tricks, dj-sets, perfume making, engineered DNA sequences, typefaces, illegal and immoral works - deserve protection. This could be secured, for example, by interpreting the rules on protectable subject matter more broadly as well as relaxing the requirements to obtain protection.

The first copyright statutes granted protection only to a very few works such as books, charts and maps. In several jurisdictions, for example UK, the belief has for long been shared that just selected and closed categories of artistic and creative endeavours deserve to be protected by this intellectual property right. Yet, such belief has subsequently proved anachronistic, also as a consequence of technological progress. Indeed, the subject matter protected by copyright laws has progressively expanded over the years, covering inter alia photographs, phonographs, works of applied art, films and broadcasts, computer programs and databases: this has taken place not only in jurisdictions having an “open-ended list” of authors’ rights subject matter (such as France, Germany and Netherlands), but also in countries with “closed lists”.

The progressive expansion of copyrightable subject matter has not stopped. Authors and creative people are indeed continually finding new ways of expressing themselves, being often difficult to foresee the forms that these new expressive methods will take. And the way the traditional, exhaustive and privileged classification of copyrightable works have been defined (as well as the narrow way “open-ended lists” have often been interpreted by courts) has still little to do with how several contemporary artists, practitioners of new forms of art and entertainment and even commercial enterprises nowadays define their own practice and activity. Therefore, rigid classifications as well as judicial “restrictions” of copyrightable subject matter may (again) become anachronistic as an increasing number of creative human endeavours may produce results which arguably do not fall within any of the enumerated (or judicially identified) categories of protectable works, but that are nevertheless the result of intellectual efforts.

The presentation will focus on those forms of expression (see the list above) which have recently attracted attention amongst copyright scholars. In particular, the subjects have been selected with the mere purpose of identifying trends and highlighting possible commonalities and differences in the progressive expansion of the protectable subject matter. In particular, we have selected just those topics that have had or may have jurisprudential impact or have contributed to policy changes at the national level.

Before signing a contract, it is important to read and understand the terms in order to know what is being agreed to. However, it has been shown that this is not done to the same extent online. Even though users accept the terms of use for online services, the terms are rarely read, meaning that the user has no idea of what is agreed to. When it comes to social media sites, these have some sort of service for distribution of content, such as photographs. As these are considered creative works, they are most certainly protected by copyright. This means that copyright protection comes in question. As services are accessible from different nations, these need to comply with different kinds of legislation regulating the protection of copyright. The purpose of this study is to investigate the terms of use for specific online services available on the Internet for distribution of digital content and analyse the legal conditions in order to establish congruence with European and US copyright law.

The sites legally gain rights to the content that is uploaded by the users. However, there seems to be some unclarity regarding the terms that potentially results in use of the sites that is not accepted. Further, there seem to be possible problems in protecting the moral rights of the authors due to the extent of the licences that is granted to some of the sites.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME's), of which most are family owned businesses (FOB's), play a crucial role in upholding many of the topics at the heart of the International Conference on Applied Business Research. They are especially noteworthy in relation to economic development, growth and innovation, sustainable development and rural development. The practice of FOBs is quite different from large companies with scattered ownership (Nordqvist, Hall & Melin, 2009). The practice turn in social science, well embraced in management studies (Vaara & Whittington, 2012), is relevant to develop new knowledge in the field of business law. We study the practice of shareholder protection and aim to narrow the gap between theory and practice regarding business law and FOBs. An entrepreneurially friendly and inspiring environment presupposes that business owners can protect their ownership positions against unwanted acquisitions of shares, as well as that they are not unwillingly locked-in in a position as minority owners. In addition, this requires legal rules that are not unnecessarily costly, time and energy consuming to comply with, administer and uphold. Legislators should, if possible, thus provide a set of rules that facilitates for owners to effectively avoid both unwanted acquisitions of shares and locked-in positions. We conclude that default rules in the form of e. g. a right of first refusal should be included in the articles, since the lack of an open market place anyhow makes it highly difficult to sell the shares. Furthermore, we find it important to allow also clauses that enhance the possibility to avoid locked-in positions in the articles whereas most national legislations today permit only clauses that contribute to the protection of ownership positions. Key words: family business development, small-medium sized enterprises (SME), business law, share transfer restrictions, minority shareholders, articles of association, shareholder's agreement, practical implications.

The principle of ‘the best interests of the child’ (art. 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child) is sometimes put forward as being the leading guide, i.e. it will in the long run – via, e.g. court cases and legal writing – give accurate and detailed information on the scope of children’s rights and the responsibilities of, e.g., parents. We claim that this principle does not provide us with the necessary analytical tools to enhance the legal rights of children. To this end it is more efficient to accept the explanatory power and apply the elements of the Interest theory, i.e. the chain of children’s interests and rights, obligations of e.g. parents and sanctions against failures. In this context we also illustrate that rights can have different strengths by briefly examining the role of social authorities in relation to the rights of children.