I want to obtain biological material for research purposes, should I consider the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol?

Client

Global chemicals and Life Sciences group

The situation

The Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their utilisation (ABS – Access and Benefit Sharing) are regulations of which many businesses in the Life Sciences, chemicals and research sectors are unaware or know too little about. Yet their violation carries both legal and reputational risk. A global chemicals group was planning to obtain isolated sugar for research purposes. The question was: does the planned operation trigger any obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Nagoya Protocol or other Polish regulations? Is the consent of the country of origin of the material required, and is a benefit-sharing agreement (MAT) needed?

Our role

We conducted a legal analysis of the client’s planned operation against obligations arising from the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Nagoya Protocol, EU Regulation No 511/2014 on access and benefit sharing, and Polish law. This is a niche but growing area of law at the intersection of environmental law, intellectual property law and product law in which we were among the first to identify the need for advisory services on the Polish market and among the first to build advisory expertise.

The result

This is an example of advisory work in a completely new regulatory area where even large global companies do not always know that the regulations apply to them at all. Being a pioneer in this kind of advisory on the Polish market is part of our strategy: we track regulatory trends across Europe and globally and build expertise before clients start asking questions.

Does your company use biological or genetic resources for research or production? We will check whether the Nagoya Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity impose obligations on you.