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Database

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Establishment restrictions

ESTONIA

Since 2009

Chapter Business mobility  |  Sub-chapter Quotas, Labour Market Tests, Limits of Stay
Aliens Act, 2009, Art. 177, 181
There are labour market tests for independent service supplier (ISS) for stays above six months in Estonia, but no permit is required when the stay is below six months.
Coverage Horizontal
Establishment restrictions

ESTONIA

Since 2009

Chapter Business mobility  |  Sub-chapter Quotas, Labour Market Tests, Limits of Stay
Aliens Act, 2009, Art. 113
There is an immigration quota which states the amount of foreign workers cannot be higher than 0.1% of permanent population annually. This quota of 0.1% was not reached in recent years according to the European Commission. Researchers and students are exempted from the quota.
Coverage Horizontal
Establishment restrictions

ESTONIA


Chapter Intellectual Property Rights  |  Sub-chapter Copyright
Copyright inadequately enforced
Several industries benefiting from copyright, and in particular the software industry, are concerned about the weak overall enforcement in Estonia. It was reported that the software piracy rate was estimated at 48% in 2011, far higher than the Western European region (35%).
Coverage Software sector
Establishment restrictions

ESTONIA

Since 2004

Chapter Intellectual Property Rights  |  Sub-chapter Copyright
Directive 2001/29/EC (The Copyright Directive)

Copyright Act, as amended in 2004
In the European Union, there is no general principle for the use of copyright protected material comparable to the fair use/fair dealing principle in the US. Directive 2001/29/EC defines an optional, but exhaustive set of limitations from the author´s exclusive rights under the control of the “three-step test”. This is a clause in the Berne Convention that establishes three cumulative conditions to the limitations and exceptions of a copyright holder’s rights. The Directive has been transposed by Member States with significant freedom.

The Estonian Copyright Act provides for a series of already existing limitations which have not been altered following the transposition of the directive. It also implements few of the non-mandatory limitations. The three step test is implemented without significant changes in the text.
Coverage Horizontal
Fiscal Restrictions

ESTONIA

Reported in 2017

Chapter Public Procurement  |  Sub-chapter Preferential purchase schemes covering digital products and services
Limits to foreign participation
It is reported that non-discriminatory treatment in the public procurement process is only guaranteed to EEA members or parties to the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement.
Coverage Horizontal
Fiscal Restrictions

ESTONIA

Since January 2015

Chapter Taxation & Subsidies  |  Sub-chapter Discriminatory tax regime on online services
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 1042/2013 amending Implementing Regulation (EU) No. 282/2011, Mini One-Stop Shop (MOSS)
The European Regulation No. 1042/2013 amending the Council Implementing Regulation No. 282/2011, declares that from January 2015, all supplies of telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services will be taxable at the place where the customer belongs. These include, inter alia:
- images or text, such as photos, screensavers, e-books and other digitised documents e.g. PDF files;
- music, films and games, including games of chance and gambling games, and of programmes on demand;
- online magazines website supply or web hosting services distance maintenance of programmes and equipment;
- supplies of software and software updates advertising space on a website.

Both EU and non-EU suppliers have to register for VAT purposes and comply with the relevant obligations of the Member State where the customer is established, has his/her permanent address or usually resides. This may be burdensome as there are 81 VAT rates across the 28 EU countries and the rates may vary between 3% (Luxembourg) to 27% (Hungary) across member states. Furthermore, member states impose varying thresholds at which companies must begin paying VAT, ranging from EUR 0 to EUR 60,000.

As an alternative to obtaining multiple VAT registrations in each Member State where a supplier has a customer, affected suppliers may be able to opt to account for VAT across the EU via a a web-portal in the Member State in which they are identified. Hence, the system, known as the Mini One-Stop Shop (MOSS) scheme, allows taxable persons to avoid registering in each Member State of consumption.
Coverage B2C suppliers of telecommunications, broadcasting and electronically supplied services
Fiscal Restrictions

ESTONIA

Since 2005

Chapter Taxation & Subsidies  |  Sub-chapter Discriminatory tax regime on digital goods and products
Directive 2001/29 (EU Copyright Directive)

Estonian Copyright Act
The EU Copyright Directive allows “fair compensation” for copyright owners. As a result, several Member States have imposed national levy systems.

In Estonia, manufacturers, importers, sellers of storage media and recording devices are responsible for payment of copyright levies. The following rates apply:
- CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW discs: 8% per unit;
- Minidiscs: 8% per unit.
Coverage Storage media
Trading restrictions

DENMARK

Since January 2012

Chapter Online sales and transactions  |  Sub-chapter Online sales
Danish Act on Gambling
A company that wishes to provide online gambling to Denmark must be established within the EEA (European Economic Area) and have a legal representative in Denmark. Betting and online casinos need licenses which require high fees and an annual renewal.
Coverage Online gaming
Trading restrictions

DENMARK

Reported in August 2013

Chapter Online sales and transactions  |  Sub-chapter Barriers to fulfillment
De minimis rule
The European de minimis threshold for import duties is harmonized. Goods with a value of up to 131 SDR / 150 EUR / 198 USD are exempted from customs duties. The VAT de minimis threshold is not harmonized within the EU and can vary between 10 and 22 EUR, i.e. Member States can decide on a value within this range to grant an exemption on VAT for imported goods.

According to Austria's de minimis rule, goods with a value of up to 19 SDR / 22 EUR / 29 USD are exempted from VAT.
Coverage Horizontal
Trading restrictions

DENMARK


Chapter Online sales and transactions  |  Sub-chapter Barriers to fulfillment
Act for certain payment means
In Denmark, the local debitcard 'Dankort' is a popular payment method. Due to the higher fees charged by banks for the use of non-Danish issued cards (that consist of foreign card network interchange fees plus Danish banks own fees), many Danish merchants only accept Dankort and Danish-issued credit cards, but not foreign cards. Some merchants might not even accept cards with foreign brands (such as Visa, MasterCard, and so on) since these cards were identified as foreign cards despite being issued in Denmark.

This means that foreign companies need to offer a payment method with Dankort in order to penetrate the market. However, to be able to offer Dankort as a payment method, a Danish registration number (CVR) is required. In practice, this requires foregin e-traders to establish an office in Denmark.
Coverage Foreign e-tailers
Restrictions on data

DENMARK

In 2011

Chapter Content access  |  Sub-chapter Bandwidth, net neutrality
Restriction on the use of cloud services
In 2011, the Danish Data Protection Agency denied the city of Odense permission to transfer “data concerning health, serious social problems, and other purely private matters” to Google Apps, citing security concerns.
Coverage Cloud computing
Source
  • Anupam Chander et Uyên P. Lê, 2015, Data Nationalism, Emory Law Review, 64, 677, p. 678-739. Available at http://law.emory.edu/elj/content/volume-64/issue-3/articles/data-nationalism.html
Restrictions on data

DENMARK

Since 2010

Chapter Content access  |  Sub-chapter Censorship and filtering of web content
European Court of Justice ruling - Case C-314/12 "UPC Telekabel Wien GmbH v Constantin Film Verleih GmbH and Wega
Filmproduktionsgesellschaft mbH"

Gambling Act, Act 848.
The European Court of Justice has interpreted in 2014 that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may be ordered by national courts to block customer access to a copyright-infringing website. This ruling aims to limit online piracy.

In 2010, the Danish Supreme Court ordered Internet service providers (ISPs) to block unlicesed gambling websites in accordance with the Danish Gambling Act.
Coverage Internet service providers
Restrictions on data

DENMARK

Since 2002

Chapter Intermediary liability  |  Sub-chapter Lack of safe harbor for intermediary liability
Danish E-commerce Act
The Directive 2000/31/EC (E-Commerce Directive) is the legal basis governing the liability of Internet Services Providers (ISPs) in the EU Member States and includes a conditional safe harbor. The Directive covers any type of infringement of third-party rights, including intellectual and industrial property rights and personality rights.

The limitations on liability in the Directive apply to clearly delimited activities (mere conduit, caching and hosting) carried out by internet intermediaries, rather than to categories of service providers or types of information. While it was not considered necessary to cover hyperlinks and search engines in the Directive, the Commission has encouraged Member States to further develop legal security for Internet intermediaries.

Since not all Member States have transposed the relevant articles consistently, the national case law is divergent and leads to legal insecurity on an EU level.

The Danish E-commerce Act implements the Directive and comprises a number of provisions which exempt internet providers from liability regarding intellectual property right infringements relating to the mere conduit, caching and hosting of material, provided that certain specific conditions are met.
Coverage Internet intermediaries
Restrictions on data

DENMARK

In 2011

Chapter Data policies  |  Sub-chapter Other
Restriction on the use of cloud services
In 2011, the Danish Data Protection Agency denied the city of Odense permission to transfer “data concerning health, serious social problems, and other purely private matters” to Google Apps, citing security concerns. In its opinion, the Agency spefied that the reason behind the decision lies on the impossibility to assess whether "all of Google Inc.'s data centres in Europe are located within the EU/EEA".
Coverage Cloud computing
Source
  • Anupam Chander et Uyên P. Lê, 2015, Data Nationalism, Emory Law Review, 64, 677, p. 678-739. Available at http://law.emory.edu/elj/content/volume-64/issue-3/articles/data-nationalism.html
Restrictions on data

DENMARK

Since 2006

Chapter Data policies  |  Sub-chapter Data retention
Data Retention Directive 2006/24/EC

Judgment European Court of Justice in Joined Cases C-293/12 and C-594/12 Digital Rights Ireland and Seitlinger and Others
Under the Directive on Data Retention, operators were required to retain certain categories of traffic and location data (excluding the content of those communications) for a period between six months and two years and to make them available, on request, to law enforcement authorities for the purposes of investigating, detecting and prosecuting serious crime and terrorism. On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) declared the Directive invalid. However, not all national laws which implemented the Directive have been overturned.

The Danish law on data retention is still into force after the ECJ ruled the Data Retention Directive unconstitutional. However, it now does not affect session logging requirements.
Coverage Telecommunication sector