Legal Shield: scam, pyramid, or legitimate opportunity?

Amidst the evolving professional landscape, the allure of autonomy, self-determination, and the prospect of crafting a unique career trajectory has gained significant traction. Legal Shield, operating within the multi-level marketing (MLM) framework and offering legal services, remains a focal point of this discourse for several decades. The pivotal question remains: Does Legal Shield present a bona fide opportunity, or is it emblematic of the typical MLM pitfalls? This article undertakes a comprehensive examination.

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Case C-526/15, Uber Belgium – facilitating a mobility service not a taxi service

Do occasional private car drivers who use Uber’s software and get paid to take people on journeys but who do not receive remuneration or a wage, provide a taxi service requiring a license?

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Case C-424/15, Ormaetxea Garai – dismissed so unfairly as to query the independence of regulators

Many of Spain’s national regulators have been merged into one mega regulator. People formerly running those regulators have been made redundant even with retroactive effect. Is retroactive dismissal contrary to the general principles of EU law? And since people have been removed from their jobs prior to the end of their fixed-term contracts, is this not contrary to EU law’s requirement that national regulators be completely independent, as per the EU’s ‘communications networks’ Directive 2002/21/EC?

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Case C-434/15, Asociación Profesional Élite Taxi – Uber’s new software destroys the old order of labour

Traditionally, people wanting to be driven from A to B could hail a cab on the street. Subsequently, cabs could be hailed by telephoning for one. Now it is possible to use a smartphone to organise an ‘electronic hail’. However, if the smartphone uses Uber’s software, then the car that comes to pick them up will not be a licensed taxi. The question is: can Uber’s new software destroy the old order of labour that governs the life of a taxi-driver, a legal order characterised by the state-licensing of taxi cabs?

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Case C-547/14, Philip Morris Brands – the Second Tobacco Products Directive is invalid

Is the EU’s Second Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU invalid?

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Case C-74/14, Eturas – computerised cartels and limits on price discounts

In Lithuania, a travel agency ran a computerised online travel system which offered customers various package tours. However, when it came to offering customers discounts on the price of their holiday, the computer system put a ceiling on the maximum amount of discount which a customer could be offered. It was a computerised booking system that was used by many travel agents. Is this not an example of price-fixing among members of a concerted practice and thus contrary to Article 101 TFEU?

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Case C-41/14, Christie’s France – the single market in reselling art works ‘Going! Going! Gone!’

When original works of art are resold, the EU’s artists’ resale right Directive 2001/84/EC requires that a royalty is paid to the author of the work by the seller. The Directive goes on to allow either the seller or professional sellers, such as art galleries, to share the liability for paying the royalty in accordance with national law. In this case, a French auction house decided to change its terms and conditions so that the buyer, and not the seller, became liable to pay the royalty. Can contract derogate from the seller’s obligation to pay the royalty that is enshrined in the Directive?

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Case C-30/14, Ryanair – grounding a go compare an airfare website

Price-comparison websites in the EU are often lawful because the websites they take their information from are databases frequently unprotected by either copyright or the ‘sui generis’ right enshrined in the EU’s Database Directive 96/9/EC. This is true of Ryanair’s website. But Ryanair’s website is however protected by a plank of deviant Dutch ‘copyright’ law. In this case, a Dutch website that compares the price of airfares is seeking to rely on a Dutch exception to the Dutch ‘copyright’ rule, an exception that corresponds to one found in the EU’s Database Directive. The legal question has become whether the Directive applies to all databases and thus websites – even the unprotected ones – and, if so, whether the price-comparison website qualifies as a ‘lawful user’, who does not need to obtain Ryanair’s consent to use Ryanair’s website.

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Case C-518/13, Eventech – driving a minicab through the rules governing bus lanes

London’s bus lanes can generally be used by ‘black cabs’ but not by ‘minicabs’. Do the rules underpinning that distinction: involve the use of state resources, constitute a disproportionate response in view of the policy aims of bus lanes, and threaten to affect trade between the Member States? If they do, then they could be an illegal state aid.

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