The Austrian government has reached a compromise in response to the ECJ’s ruling that the former regulation was discriminatory. While introducing a paid holiday over Good Friday for all employees (Levelling-up) would have been complied with the ECJ’s decision, the Austrian government went with a different approach by abolishing Good Friday altogether (Levelling-down), to avoid employers having to provide double pay. Instead they’ve decided on the introduction of a personal holiday for everyone, which is also to replace the former Good Friday provision in collective labor agreements. This personal holiday will be counted as a regular leave day. However, if economic reasons deem it necessary that an employee works on his/her personal holiday, then extra holiday payments have to be made. In effect, the Evangelical Church Augsburg Confession, the Evangelical Church Helvetic Confession, the Old Catholic Church and the United Methodist are losing a public holiday, while nothing changes for everyone else.

In a recent decision, the Supreme Court provided clear guidelines regarding the evaluation whether a creation (here: a newspaper dispenser) has to be regarded as a work of (visual) art and is therefore protected under the Copyright Act.

Ferdinand Graf and Marija Križanac are part of the authoring team of Thomson Reuters „Data Privacy Advisor“ and in charge of “Q&A for Austria” (last update: 28.12.2018). The “Data Privacy Advisor”

provides an overview on world wide data protection law.

The “Data Privacy Advisor” is constantly revised – it is available online under legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/products/data-privacy-advisor.

Marija Križanac is part of the renowned author team of the recently published practice commentary Knyrim (ed.), The DatKomm – the new standard reference work for data protection law (GDPR and DSG [Austrian Data Protection Act]).

Before the most recent update to the online FAQ section by the responsible authority, the answer to this question was unknown. Due to the tight timeframes for complying with the Beneficial Ownership Register Act (BORA) and the range of practical problems arising from it, the question has caused headaches for insolvency law practitioners in Austria.

Under Austrian law, Good Friday is a paid public holiday only for members of the Evangelical Church Augsburg Confession, the Evangelical Church Helvetic Confession, the Old Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church.

In a recent decision the Supreme Court gave clear guidelines as to the circumstances in which the burden of proof regarding the exhaustion of trademark rights shifts from the defendant to the trademark owner.

The General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union denied in the case T-776/16 (Isocell GmbH v. iCell AB) a likelihood of confusion between the earlier word mark ISOCELL and the word part of the younger figurative/word mark “iCell” for identical and similar goods. Considering the low level of distinctiveness of the word elements of the marks and the high attention that would be paid by the relevant consumers, the figurative elements of the mark “iCell” distinguish it clearly from the earlier mark. In this context, the court stated that the word elements of a figurative/word mark must not automatically always be regarded as the dominant element.

On 5 July 2018 Parliament passed a new law that brings sweeping changes to the Working Time Act and will come into effect on 1 September 2018. The most important changes to the Working Time Act and Act on Rest Periods are summarized here.

If a managing director of a company makes payments after a substantive insolvency, they may be liable for damages under Section 25(3)(2) of the Statute on Limited Liability Companies. This does not apply to payments that comply with the duty to exercise due care and diligence of a prudent and conscientious manager even after the occurrence of substantive insolvency. Such liability will arise if there is a reduction in the company's assets which are distributable as part of the insolvent's estate because the managing director filed for insolvency late and payments were made in the meantime. The company is the party entitled to such damages.