Bad practices

Procedure and penalties applicable to infringements of the ethical rules

As soon as a breach of the rules and duties set out above is suspected, the Director shall inform the author(s) and interested third parties.

They will be given a description of the inappropriate conduct and the reasons leading to its qualification. The author(s) will have a period of 15 calendar days to present their rebuttals, after which the Editorial Committee will proceed to resolve the matter, ensuring that the decision is adequately weighted, and will also verify whether the corresponding penalty is appropriate.

If the author(s) or interested parties' rebuttals or explanations fail to disprove the alleged infringement or in justifying the offending behaviour, the Drafting Committee may impose one or more of the following measures as a penalty:

a) Revocation or elimination of the published work;

b) Rejection of the work submitted to the editorial process;

c) Prohibition of publication in the journal for at least one calendar year. This period will be counted from the date of notification of the rejection or revocation of the work.

For the eventual application of any of these measures, the Editorial Committee will consider the seriousness of the event and the eventual damage to the interests of third parties.