After almost one year of enactment of the Myanmar Trademark Law 2019 (for our previous article about the law, please see here, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOC”) has brought implementation of the law on schedule. A draft regulation of the Trademark Law has been circulated for comments, and the MOC is testing the new on-line filing systems for trademark registration. In light of the recent meetings held by MOC to […]

Please note that a Statement by the Internal Revenue Department, Yangon Region (“IRD”) has been issued regarding enforcing monthly Personal Income Tax (“PIT”) return filings and payments. This statement by the IRD states that as per the newly enforced Tax Administration Law (“TAL”) Section 40 (a) and Section 49(a), if the party responsible for deducting […]

လျှပ်စစ်စွမ်းအင်မရှိဘဲ မည်သည့်အလုပ်ကိုမျှ လုပ်ကိုင်၍ မရပါ။ လမ်း၊ ဆိပ်ကမ်းနှင့် မီးရထား သံလမ်းများ မရှိဘဲ မည်သည့် နေရာကိုမျှ သွား၍ မရပါ။ လျှပ်စစ်စွမ်းအင် အပါအဝင် အခြေခံ အဆောက်အအုံများသည် မြန်မာ နိုင်ငံ၏ စီးပွားရေး အလားအလာကောင်းများ နှင့် အများပြည်သူတို့၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားကို လမ်းဖွင့်ပေးမည့် သော့ချက်ဖြစ်သည်။ ကောက်နှုတ်ချက် ၁။ ယခုချက်ချင်းပင် အသေးစား စီမံကိန်းများကို အလျင်အမြန် ပြီးမြောက်အောင် ဆောင်ရွက်၍ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ ဂုဏ်သတင်းကို ပိုမို ကောင်းမွန်အောင် ဆောင်ရွက် ရန် လိုပါသည်။၂။ အစိုးရအနေဖြင့် စာချုပ်ပါ ဝတ္တရား များကို ဖော်ဆောင်ပြီး မိမိပေး ဆောင်ရမည့် အဖိုးအခ များကို ပေးဆောင်မည်ဖြစ်ကြောင်း နိုင်ငံခြား ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံသူများကို အာမခံရန် လိုအပ်ပါသည်။၃။ […]

On 19 August 2019, the Union Parliament of Myanmar, Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, enacted Land Acquisition, Resettlement and Rehabilitation Law (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Law No. 24/2019) to replace the colonial-era Land Acquisition Act (1894) as well as to provide a legal framework for resettlement and rehabilitation for the first time in Myanmar. Highlights of this note Overview What’s […]

Following previous announcements by the Ministry of Planning and Finance (“MoPF”), foreign life and non-life insurance companies can now form joint ventures with local insurance companies. In light of the recent developments, VDB Loi has been engaged by applicants in the application process. On 31 July 2019, the MoPF by way of Announcement No. (3/2019) […]

On 12 June 2019, the Division of Industry and Commerce, Vientiane (“DIC-Vte”) issued Instruction No. 0651 (the “Instruction”) regarding measures to be taken against the illegal operation of businesses by foreigners. The Instruction’s scope covers foreigners who operate unapproved businesses, defined as those who: Operate a business without an enterprise registration certificate (“ERC”) or business […]

As we mentioned in our previous article on the Myanmar Trademark Law 2019 [10 Frequently Asked Questions About the Myanmar Trademark Law 2019], the Myanmar Industrial Design Rights Law 2019 (the “Industrial Design Law”) was passed at the same time. Highlights of this note What kind of industrial design is registrable? Can I sell the […]

With the recent celebration of our seventh anniversary as well as the upcoming Thingyan Festival in Myanmar, we at VDB Loi would like to thank you for your continued support. We are very pleased to share with you some of VDB Loi’s best moments and achievements over the past year. We are delighted to report […]

Highlights of this note What kind of mark is registrable? Does the trademark law adopt a “first-to-file” or “first-to-use” system? Can I claim priority rights? How long can a registered trademark be protected? What rights does a trademark owner have? If I identify a pending trademark application infringing upon my rights, what can I do? […]

We have a particularly extensive TMT track record in our markets, advising on the full range of telecom investments and transactions. Our firm has a role in many of the region’s high- profile telecom deals and is recognized as a tier-one practice in this field. Our advice is trusted by governments, multinational operators and vendors, […]

According to the recent Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (“DICA”) announcement issued on 8th March 2019, companies who missed the 31 January deadline now have until March 30 to re-register. However, any companies who fail to re-register by this new deadline will be struck off from the registry, and will not be able to carry on business […]

According to a previous notice of the Ministry of Commerce (“MOC”) dated 22 December 2017, all corporate entities were required to complete their online re-registration with the MOC by 31 December 2018. Recently, the MOC issued another notice, No. 0384, dated 30 January 2019, regarding further extension of the online re-registration deadline to 31 December […]

Financing and tax 2018 saw several changes to the tax regulations. The application of transfer pricing rules in Cambodia is now a reality. Starting from 2018, companies have to comply with the regulations issued in October 2017, which adopt the arm’s length principle in accordance with the OECD’s guidelines. The regulations left many questions unanswered, […]

The market for Internet Service Providers (“ISP”) in Myanmar is stabilizing. Refinancing strategies, retooling and opportunities for expansion are fueling the need for new cash. Foreign financing remains one of the most obvious ways for ISPs to attract new funding. Highlights Official Approvals for a New Foreign Loan Regulatory Regime of an ISP Due Diligence […]

Further to the amendment in 2018 of the Labor Law and Prakas 443 on seniority payment, which is applicable to all existing unlimited duration contracts (for more details, please see our Cambodia legal update here), the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training (“MLVT”), through its information declaration on seniority payments dated 28 December 2018, has provided […]

The Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population published the Leave and Holidays Rules (Notification 69/2018) and the Shops and Establishment Rules (Notification 68/2018) (the “Rules”) which implement the relevant laws. The Rules provide new forms for use by employers in lodgments to labor offices, and clarify entitlements relating to days off, public holidays, leave and […]

Seniority payment On 11 July 2018, the Labor Law was amended by Royal Decree (“Labor Law Amendment”), particularly Articles 89, 90, 91, 94, 110, 120, and 122. One notable amendment is the elimination of the “indemnity for dismissal”, which is equivalent to severance pay and paid upon employment termination only, and the introduction of the […]

The recently effective Myanmar Companies Law (the “MCL”) brings about groundbreaking changes to the corporate landscape in Myanmar, as it modernizes the rules related to entities (companies, branches and representative offices) conducting business in Myanmar. Despite the changes companies still need to act so they can reap the benefits of the new measures. In this […]

On 20 August 2018, the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training (“MLVT”) issued notice No. 028 K.B./S.Ch.N (“Notice 028”) regarding approval requests for employing foreign employees (“Quota Approval”) and renewing work permits for 2019. According to Notice 028, employers or managers of any corporate entities employing foreign employees must apply for the 2019 Quota Approval […]

A recent Myanmar Investment Commission notification allowing foreign investment in private schools is the first in a raft of changes for the sector, with a planned Private School Law set to introduce government licensing for teachers and the vetting of international school curricula. Click the following link to read article. https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/new-rules-for-private-schools