Emerging sunshine rules obscure privacy rights for European healthcare professionals

In an expert view piece, Ronald Wisor (above, left) and Hein van den Bos — partners at the global law firm Hogan Lovells — discuss the challenges created by Europe's evolving transparency laws.

The 2010 Physician Payments Sunshine Act created a new standard of transparency for financial relationships between pharmaceutical companies and health care professionals in the USA. Now, countries across Europe are following suit by rolling out their own 'sunshine' rules. But these rules differ from country to country, which means navigating a challenging regulatory patchwork of nation-specific regulations, managing press around existing relationships, and dealing with new costs related to compliance.

In some countries, sunshine rules are laid down in the law itself and there are penalties for non-compliance. But in other countries, the rules are established by industry or physician codes of conduct and it is softer regulation, often without any penalties. And in some other countries, there aren't really sunshine rules at all.