We are pleased to share with readers the following news from Moldova, provided by Ion Tiganas of Tiganas & Partners IP Law Firm:

Recently, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Moldova proposed for public debate a draft law, which also covers the intellectual property field. The draft law was designed to improve the business climate. In this respect, adjustments are proposed to the Criminal Code, the Criminal Procedure Code, the Contravention Code and a number of other normative acts.

For the intellectual property field, the draft provides for the following changes:

• Establishing a new ground for the release from criminal liability: a person who has committed an intellectual property offence will be released from criminal liability if he meets cumulatively more conditions. Thus, the offence must be committed for the first time, and the person shall remove the infringements and repair the damage caused to the right holders. The accused must also pay into the state budget an amount equal to the amount of the material damage caused to the right holders but not less than twice the maximum limit of the fine provided for by the sanction of the corresponding article.
• Prohibition on collecting evidence: by referring to a case of copyright infringement in the on-line environment, the retrieval of documents, objects, data storage devices or original information systems will only be possible if their removal does not inevitably stop the company’s economic activity.
• Assigning the competences for finding the contraventions to the National IP Office (AGEPI): by supplementing the Contravention Code, AGEPI will be acting as an offence-finding agent. Thus, contraventions in the IP field will be excluded from police competences. As a result of this conceptual change, AGEPI public servants will have the right to determine IP-related contraventions (except for GI, AO and STG, which will remain the competence of the Consumer Protection Agency) and to make corresponding concluding minutes/reports. At the same time, the AGEPI Director General will be entitled to examine the contravention cases and to apply sanctions.

Our firm is directly involved in the public debates on this draft law. According to our first statement and given the magnitude and complexity of the proposed changes, a profound analysis of these changes is required to identify both the benefits and the risks they entail.