COVID-19: Pressure Points: Supply Chain Difficulties – new global guide, including IP, advertising and collaboration issues

Herbert Smith Freehills has published a new global guide on supply chain difficulties arising from the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions and solutions.

Supply chain difficulties are at the heart of the pressures facing businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our latest guide we look at supply chain pressure points and what is being and can be done to alleviate them.

Click here to access the COVID-19: Pressure Points:Supply Chain Difficulties guide .

In particular we focus on maintaining the links in supply chains (including managing supplier financial distress); competition laws and their relaxation in some cases to relieve supply issues; product-related issues emerging from over-demand or lack of supply (including counterfeiting, misleading advertising and collaborations); and contractual suspension or termination issues including force majeure. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) and human rights issues are also explored.

The guide includes country-specific overviews and insights on the issues covered, including, in relation to the above product issues, content from the UK, Italy, France, EU, China, Russia, Australia, the US, South Africa and the UAE.

The intellectual property and advertising issues discussed in the Product Issues section of the guide, fall into three main areas:

• Accessing resources/supplies/components
• Counterfeiting, misleading advertising, parallel imports
• Innovation and collaboration