2. In carrying out paragraph 1, each Party shall provide its telecommunications regulatory body the authority to require a major supplier in its territory to offer leased circuits services that are public telecommunications services to service suppliers of the other Party at capacity-based, cost-oriented prices.
Article 12.10. Co-LOCATION
1, Subject to paragraphs 2 and 3, each Party shall ensure that a major supplier in its territory provides to suppliers of public telecommunications services of the other Party in the Party's territory physical co-location of equipment necessary for interconnection or access to unbundled network elements on terms and conditions, and at cost-oriented rates, that are reasonable, non-discriminatory, and transparent.
2. Where physical co-location is not required or not practical for technical reasons or because of space limitations, each Party shall ensure that a major supplier in its territory provides an alternative solution on terms and conditions, and at cost-oriented rates, that are reasonable, non-discriminatory, and transparent.
3. Each Party may determine, in accordance with its laws and regulations, which premises in its territory are subject to paragraphs 1 and 2.
Article 12.11. ACCESS TO POLES, DUCTS, CONDUITS, AND RIGHTS-OF-WAY
1. Each Party shall ensure that a major supplier in its territory affords access to poles, ducts, conduits, and rights-of-way owned or controlled by the major supplier to suppliers of public telecommunications services of the other Party in the Party's territory on terms and conditions, and at rates, that are reasonable, non-discriminatory, and transparent.
2. Each Party may determine in accordance with its laws and regulations the poles, ducts, conduits, rights of way or other structures to which it requires major suppliers in its territory to provide access under paragraph 1.
Section D. Other Measures
Article 12.12. SUBMARINE CABLE SYSTEMS
Where a supplier of telecommunications networks or services operates a submarine cable system to provide public telecommunications networks or services, the Party in whose territory the supplier is located shall ensure that such supplier accords the suppliers of public telecommunication networks or services of the other Party reasonable and non- discriminatory treatment with respect to access (3) to that submarine cable system (including landing facilities) in its territory.
(a) access to submarine cable landing facilities is subject to capacity, and
(b) with respect to access for suppliers of public telecommunications networks or services of the other Party that do not own facilities in the territory of the Party, a Party may comply with this provision by ensuring access to submarine cable systems through facilities leased from, or public telecommunications services provided by, a supplier of public telecommunications networks or services licensed in its territory.
Article 12.13. CONDITIONS FOR THE SUPPLY OF VALUE-ADDED SERVICES
1. Neither Party May Require an Enterprise In Its Territory That It Classifies as a Supplier of value-added services and that supplies those services over facilities that the enterprise does not own to:
(a) supply those services to the public generally;
(b) cost-justify its rates for those services;
(c) file a tariff for those services;
(d) connect its networks with any particular customer for the supply of those services; or
(e) conform with any particular standard or technical regulation of the telecommunications regulatory body for connecting to any other network, other than a public telecommunications network.
2. Notwithstanding paragraph 1, a Party may take the actions described in paragraph 1 to remedy a practice of a supplier of value-added services that the Party has found in a particular case to be anticompetitive under its law or regulations, or to otherwise promote competition or safeguard the interests of consumers.
Article 12.14. INDEPENDENT REGULATORY BODIES
1, Each Party shall ensure that its telecommunications regulatory body is separate from, and not accountable to, any supplier of public telecommunications services. With a view to ensuring the independence and impartiality of telecommunications regulatory bodies, each Party shall ensure that its telecommunications regulatory body does not own equity (4) or maintain an operating or management role in any such supplier.
2. Each Party shall ensure that its regulatory decisions and procedures, including decisions and procedures relating to licensing, interconnection with public telecommunications networks and services, tariffs, and assignment or allocation of spectrum for non-government public telecommunications services, are impartial with respect to all market participants.
Article 12.15. UNIVERSAL SERVICE
Each Party shall administer any universal service obligation that it maintains in a transparent, non-discriminatory, and competitively neutral manner and shall ensure that its universal service obligation is not more burdensome than necessary for the kind of universal service that it has defined.
Article 12.16. LICENSING PROCESS
1, When a Party requires a supplier of public telecommunications services to have a license, the Party shall make publicly available:
(a) all the licensing criteria and procedures it applies;
(b) the period it normally requires to reach a decision concerning an application for a license; and
(c) the terms and conditions of all licenses in effect.
2. Each Party shall ensure that, on request, an applicant receives the reasons for the denial of, revocation of, refusal to renew, or imposition of conditions on a license.
Article 12.17. ALLOCATION AND USE OF SCARCE RESOURCES
1. Each Party shall administer its procedures for the allocation and use of scarce telecommunications resources, including frequencies, numbers, and rights-of-way, in an objective, timely, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner.
2. Each Party shall make publicly available the current state of allocated frequency bands, but retains the right not to provide detailed identification of frequencies
allocated or assigned for specific government uses.
3. A Party's measures allocating and assigning spectrum and managing frequency shall not be considered inconsistent with Article 10.4 (Market Access) either as it applies to services.
cross-border trade in services or through the operation of Article 10.1.3 (Scope) to an investor or covered investment of the other Party. Accordingly, each Party retains the right to establish and apply spectrum and frequency management measures that may have the effect of limiting the number of suppliers of public telecommunications services, provided that it does so in a manner consistent with this Agreement. This includes the ability to allocate frequency bands, taking into account current and future needs and spectrum availability.
4. Each Party shall endeavor to allocate and assign spectrum for non-government telecommunications services in a manner that encourages economically efficient use of the spectrum and competition among suppliers of telecommunications services, recognizing that a Party may encourage this behavior through a variety of means, including through administrative incentive pricing, auctions, or unlicensed use.
Article 12.18. ENFORCEMENT
Each Party shall provide its telecommunications regulatory body with the authority to enforce the Partyâs measures relating to the obligations set out in Articles 12.2 through 12.12. That authority shall include the ability to impose effective sanctions which may include financial penalties, injunctive relief (on an interim or final basis), corrective orders, or the modification, suspension, or revocation of licenses.
Article 12.19. RESOLUTION OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS DISPUTES
Further to Articles 16.3 (Administrative Proceedings) and 16.4 (Review and Appeal), each Party shall ensure that:
Recourse
(a) (i) service supplier may have recourse to a telecommunications regulatory body of the Party to resolve disputes regarding the Party's measures relating to matters set out in Articles 12.2 through 12.12; and
(ii) suppliers of public telecommunications services of the other Party that have requested interconnection with a major supplier in the Party's territory may seek review, within a reasonable and publicly specified period after the supplier requests interconnection, by its telecommunications regulatory body to resolve disputes regarding the terms, conditions, and rates for interconnection with that major supplier; and
Judicial Review
(b) any service supplier whose legally protected interests are adversely affected by a determination or decision of the Party's telecommunications regulatory body may obtain review of the determination or decision by an impartial and independent judicial authority of the Party. No Party may permit an application for judicial review to constitute grounds for non-compliance with the determination or decision of the telecommunications regulatory body unless the relevant judicial body stays the determination or decision.
Article 12.20. TRANSPARENCY
Further to Article 16.1 (Publication), each Party shall ensure that:
(a) regulatory decisions, including the basis for such decisions, of its telecommunications regulatory body are promptly published or otherwise made available to all interested persons;
(b) where applicable, interested persons are provided with adequate advance public notice of, and reasonable opportunity to comment on, any rulemaking that its telecommunications regulatory body proposes;
(c) its telecommunications regulatory body responds in its rulemaking to all significant and relevant issues raised in comments filed with the telecommunications regulatory body; and
(d) its measures relating to public telecommunications services are made publicly available, including:
(i) measures relating to
(A) tariffs and other terms and conditions of service;
(B) specifications of technical interfaces;
(C) conditions for attaching terminal or other equipment to the public telecommunications network; and
(D) notification, permit, registration, or licensing requirements, if any; and
(ii) procedures relating to judicial and other adjudicatory proceedings.
Article 12.21. MEASURES CONCERNING TECHNOLOGIES AND STANDARDS （5）
1. No Party shall prevent suppliers of public telecommunications networks or services or value-added services from having the flexibility to choose the technologies that they use to supply their services.
2. Notwithstanding paragraph 1, a Party may apply a measure that limits the technologies or standards that a supplier of public telecommunications networks or services or value-added services may use to supply its services, provided that the measure is designed to satisfy a legitimate public policy objective and is not prepared, adopted or applied in a manner that creates unnecessary obstacles to trade.(6)
Article 12. RELATION TO OTHER CHAPTERS
In the event of any inconsistency between this Chapter and any other Chapter, this Chapter shall prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.
Article 12.23. DEFINITIONS
For the purposes of this Chapter:
commercial mobile services means public telecommunications services supplied through mobile wireless means;
cost-oriented means based on cost, and may include a reasonable profit, and may involve different cost methodologies for different facilities or services;
end-user means a final consumer of or subscriber to a public telecommunications service, including a service supplier other than a supplier of public telecommunications services;
enterprise means an enterprise as defined in Article 1.7 (Definitions) and includes a branch of an enterprise;
essential facilities means facilities of a public telecommunications network or service that:
(a) are exclusively or predominantly provided by a single or limited number of suppliers; and date of entry into force of this Agreement.
(b) cannot feasibly be economically or technically substituted in order to supply a service;
interconnection means linking with suppliers providing public telecommunications services in order to allow the users of one supplier to communicate with users of another supplier and to access services provided by another supplier;
leased circuits means telecommunications facilities between two or more designated points that are set aside for the dedicated use of, or availability to, a user;
major supplier means a supplier of public telecommunications services that has the ability to materially affect the terms of participation (having regard to price and supply) in the relevant market for public telecommunications services as a result of:
(a) control over essential facilities; or
(b) use of its position in the market;
network element means a facility or equipment used in supplying a public telecommunications service, including features, functions, and capabilities provided by means of that facility or equipment;
non-discriminatory means treatment no less favorable than that accorded to any other user of like public telecommunications networks or services in like circumstances;
number portability means the ability of end-users of public telecommunications services to retain, at the same location, the same telephone numbers without impairment of quality, reliability, or convenience when switching between the same category of suppliers of public telecommunications services;
physical co-location means physical access to space in order to install, maintain, or repair equipment, at premises owned or controlled and used by a supplier to provide public telecommunications services;
public telecommunications network means telecommunications infrastructure used to provide public telecommunications services;
public telecommunications service means any telecommunications service that a Party requires, explicitly or in effect, to be offered to the public generally. Such services may include, inter alia, telephone and data transmission typically involving customer-supplied information between two or more points without any end-to-end change in the form or content of the customerâs information, and excludes value-added services;
reference interconnection offer means an interconnection offer extended by a major supplier and filed with or approved by a telecommunications regulatory body that sufficiently details the terms, rates, and conditions for interconnection such that a supplier of public telecommunications services that is willing to accept it may obtain interconnection with the major supplier on that basis;
service supplier of the other Party means, with respect to a Party, a person that is either a covered investment in the territory of the Party or a person of the other Party and that seeks to supply or supplies services in or into the territory of the Party, and includes a supplier of public telecommunications services;
telecommunications means the transmission and reception of signals by any electromagnetic means;
telecommunications regulatory body means a body at the central level of government responsible for the regulation of telecommunications;
user means a service consumer or a service supplier; and
value-added services means services that add value to telecommunications services through enhanced functionality. (7)
Chapter 13. ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
Article 13.1. GENERAL
The Parties recognize the economic growth and opportunity that electronic commerce provides, the importance of avoiding barriers to its use and development, and the applicability of the WTO Agreement to measures affecting electronic commerce.
Article 13.2. ELECTRONIC SUPPLY OF SERVICES
1. The Parties affirm that measures affecting the supply of a service delivered or performed electronically are subject to the obligations contained in the relevant provisions of Chapters 9 (Investment) and 10 (Cross-Border Trade in Services), which are subject to any exceptions or non-conforming measures set out in this Agreement that are applicable to such obligations.
2. This Chapter shall not apply to government procurement.
Article 13.3. CUSTOMS DUTIES
1. No Party may impose customs duties on or in connection with electronic transmissions of digital products.
2. For greater certainty, paragraph 1 does not preclude a Party from imposing internal taxes or other internal charges on electronic transmissions of digital products, provided that the taxes or charges are imposed in a manner consistent with this Agreement.
Article 13.4. NON-DISCRIMINATORY TREATMENT OF DIGITAL PRODUCTS
1. No Party may accord less favorable treatment to some digital products (1) transmitted electronically than it accords to other like digital products
(a) on the basis that:
(i) the digital products receiving less favorable treatment are created, produced, published, stored, transmitted, contracted for, commissioned or first made available on commercial terms in the territory of the other Party; or
(ii) the author, performer, producer, developer, distributor or owner of such digital products is a person of the other Party; or
(b) so as otherwise to afford protection to other like digital products that are created, produced, published, stored, transmitted, contracted for, commissioned or first made available on commercial terms in its territory.
2. Paragraph 1 does not apply to measures adopted or maintained in accordance with Article 9.12 (Non-Conforming Measures) or 10.6 (Non-Conforming Measures).
3. Paragraph 1 does not apply to:
(a) subsidies or grants that a Party provides to a service or service supplier, including government-supported loans, guarantees and insurance; or
(b) services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority, as defined in Article 10.1 (Scope).
Article 13.5. ELECTRONIC AUTHENTICATION AND ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES
1. Except where otherwise provided for in its law, a Party shall not deny the legal validity of a signature solely on the basis that the signature is in electronic form.
2. No Party may adopt or maintain measures for electronic authentication that would:
(a) prohibit parties to an electronic transaction from mutually determining the appropriate authentication methods for that transaction; or
(b) prevent parties from having the opportunity to establish before judicial or administrative authorities that their electronic transaction complies with any legal requirements with respect to authentication.
3. Notwithstanding paragraph 2, a Party may require that, for a particular category of transactions, the method of authentication meet certain performance standards or be certified by an authority accredited in accordance with the Partyâs law, provided the requirement:
(a) serves a legitimate governmental objective; and
(b) is substantially related to achieving that objective.
Article 13.6. ONLINE CONSUMER PROTECTION
1. The Parties recognize the importance of maintaining and adopting transparent and effective measures to protect consumers from fraudulent and deceptive commercial practices when they engage in electronic commerce.
2. The Parties recognize the importance of cooperation between their respective national consumer protection agencies on activities related to cross-border electronic commerce in order to enhance consumer welfare.
3. Each Party's national consumer protection enforcement agencies shall endeavor to cooperate with those of the other Party in appropriate cases of mutual concern involving fraudulent and deceptive commercial practices in electronic commerce.
Article 13.7. PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION
Recognizing the importance of protecting personal data in electronic commerce, each Party shall adopt or maintain measures for the protection of the personal data of users of electronic commerce and share information and experience on the protection of personal data in electronic commerce. In the development of personal data protection standards, each Party shall take into account principles and guidelines of relevant international organizations.
Article 13.8. PAPERLESS TRADING
1. Each Party shall endeavor to make trade administration documents available to the public in electronic form.
2. Each Party shall endeavor to accept trade administration documents submitted electronically as the legal equivalent of the paper version of those documents.
Article 13.9. COOPERATION
1. The Parties shall endeavor to establish cooperation mechanisms on issues arising from electronic commerce, which will, inter alia, address the following:
(a) the recognition of certificates of electronic signature issued to the public and the facilitation of cross-border certification services;
(b) the protection of personal data;
(c) the liability of providers with respect to the transmission or storage of information;
(d) the treatment of unsolicited commercial electronic messages;
(e) technology for electronic commerce;
(f) the protection of consumers in the field of electronic commerce; and
(g) any other issue relevant for the development of electronic commerce.
2. The Parties shall endeavor to share information and experiences on laws and regulations related to electronic commerce and shall cooperate to help micro, small and medium-sized enterprises overcome the obstacles they face in the use of electronic commerce.
3. Recognizing the global nature of electronic commerce, the Parties agree to actively participate in regional and multilateral fora to promote the development of electronic commerce and to exchange views, as necessary, within the framework of such fora on issues related to electronic commerce.
Article 13.10. DEFINITIONS
for the Purposes of this Chapter:
digital products means computer programs, text, video, images, sound recordings, and other products that are digitally encoded and produced for commercial sale or distribution; (2) (3)
electronic authentication means the process or act of verifying the identity of a party to an electronic communication or transaction or ensuring the integrity of an electronic communication;
electronic signature means data in electronic form that is in, affixed to or logically associated with an electronic document and that may be used to identify the signatory in relation to the electronic document and indicate the signatory's approval of the information contained in the electronic document;
electronic transmission or transmitted electronically means the transfer of digital products using any electromagnetic or photonic means;
personal data means any information about an identified or identifiable natural person;
trade administration documents means forms a Party issues or controls that must be completed by or for an importer or exporter in connection with the import or export of goods; and
unsolicited commercial electronic messages means an electronic message including a voice or fax message which is sent for commercial purposes to a consumer without the consent of the recipient, or against the explicit rejection of the recipient, using an internet carriage service or other telecommunications services.
Chapter 14. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
Section A. General Provisions
Article 14.1. PRINCIPLES AND OBJECTIVES
1. Each Party shall endeavor to maintain intellectual property regimes that aim to: