Licks Attorneys' COMPLIANCE Blog

This is certainly one of the most controversial topics in recent years with regard to the interaction of the medical profession with the health industry – which encompasses the pharmaceutical industry, medical and hospital products and even cosmetics and food.

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Administrative Sanctions Regulation on Dosimetry and Application of Administrative Sanctions, which establishes the dosimetry guidelines for sentences, especially calculating the base value for fines the agency may apply. It is an initiative of the rapporteur and director of the ANPD – Arthur Sabbat, in which he was unanimously followed by the rest of the board. Although the criteria set out below establish clear guidelines, the ANPD may depart from its methodology or review the penalty, if impaired proportionality is found between the severity of the violation and the intensity of the sanction.

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Going to prison in Brazil is any easy task. The Brazilian procedural law, especially in criminal law, creates so many mechanisms for postponing the final and unappealable decisions that anyone having the resources to hire a lawyer or relying on an active public defender can postpone it. As such, many cases end up time-barred, although Brazilian legislation is slowly advancing in making crimes such as femicide or rape imprescriptible.

Transparency International is a non-profit anti-corruption organization headquartered on Berlin that operates internationally. Its purpose is to combat corruption and criminal activities related to corrupt acts.

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In the second half of December 2022, the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) published an amendment to the Security Incident Reporting form, to be used by all those who need to report security incidents starting January 1, 2023.

While some countries are failing in the fight against corruption, Brazil has achieved a real negative milestone in recent years. The country managed to deconstruct the Car Wash Operation , the most powerful symbol of the fight against corruption ever carried out in the country and also  encouraged impunity to public agents who commit acts of administrative impropriety, by sanctioning Statute 14,230 of 03.31.2022. Since then,  public agents can no longer be held responsible for damages caused by recklessness, negligence or malpractice, since only deceit (the intention to do or not to do) characterizes impropriety in the corresponding crimes typified by law. An open door for the "I don't know" people... For those who intend to prove anything, they must manage on their own prove that the agent intentionally did the act...

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Cookies continue to be a source of concern for authorities responsible for data protection in all countries, even more so if one considers the lack of transparency in the collection and use of much of this data. Behold, the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) issued an orientation guide for dealing with cookies in Brazil, although the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) itself has not displayed specific rules on the subject. Even for that very reason, this ANPD guide comes at a good time to resolve doubts and serve as a basis for guiding everyone on how to deal with the issue in Brazil.

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In Brazil the concept of the whistleblower continues to be ignored –  as having been incorporated into our legal system by former Minister Sérgio Moro's anti-crime package, approved by the National Congress underStatute 13,964 of December 24, 2019 (which utilizes the definition of informant rather than the North American definition of whistleblower) – along with the benefits that its employment could bring to the country, especially in the fight against corruption. While the United States, at the end of 2022, have just passed the Anti-Money Laundering Whistleblower Improvement Act, making significant progress in the battle against money laundering.

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According to the Brazilian Constitution of 1988, the Legislative, Executive and the Judiciary Branches are balanced among themselves.

Although Brazilian antitrust rules follow the example of US antitrust law, the pioneers in the subject were not them, but their Canadian neighbors, since the first known antitrust law was published in 1889, in Canada. By the way, this was the year in which Brazil ceased to be an empire, when the Republic was proclaimed on November 15, 1889, by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca.

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The Patient Support Programs (PSPs) developed by the pharmaceutical industries are often controversial as to the real benefit they provide, how much they contribute to patient loyalty and the risks they bring to the companies implementing them.

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One of the great frustrations of those who work in companies where there is a solid compliance culture is dealing with the limits imposed by their internal policies and procedures, as compared to competition that, sometimes, uses dubious and loose processes, which lead to numerous conflicts of interest, but which can translate into increased sales.

The entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, in 2018, gave rise to concerns about the issue of protection of personal data in the United States of America, especially after the European Court ruled that the Privacy Shield would no longer be accepted as a guarantee for the transfer of personal data of European citizens to the US.

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Recently, a judge in the State of California, United States, rendered a decision ruling that the Food and Drug Administration cannot regulate stem cell treatments as a medicine. Such a decision generated controversy, as there are other decisions that consider cell therapies as medicines regardless of their nature.

Since the GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) came into force on May 25, 2018, the internet search giant Google, which belongs to Alphabet, started to internally and intensively work not only to adapt itself to the GDPR, but also to create tools that mitigate the misuse of personal information from third parties. Such an effort was not just a privilege of Google, but also of companies that develop internet browsers such as Safari and Mozilla Firefox,  which began to offer the option of blocking third-party cookies in their software.