Alerts

The Biden Administration is using a comprehensive set of tools to stick closely to campaign promises around — and the public demand for — climate action.

Harvard University must pay its own defense costs in the ongoing legal challenges to its affirmative action program after losing a battle with its insurance carrier, Zurich American Insurance Company (Zurich).

Already permitting employees to take leave to care for a wide scope of family members, California now will allow them to use state family and medical leave and paid sick leave to provide care for a “designated person.” The term has a slightly different meaning between the two laws.

Algorithmic tools, including machine learning and other artificial intelligence technologies, are becoming more common in the health care sector for predicting health outcomes and influencing clinicians’ decision making.

On December 22, 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adapted the rules that govern investment advisor advertisements and payments to solicitors. The amendments consolidated the previous advertising and cash solicitation rules into one rule, called the Marketing Rule.

Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries

On October 25, 2022, the US Copyright Office proposed a new rule that would end and reverse actions of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) that have deprived songwriters and their heirs of US copyright royalties after they have recaptured ownership of their musical works.

On October 26, 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a new rule and rule amendments under the Investment Advisors Act that, if passed, would prohibit registered investment advisors from outsourcing certain services without conducting their own due diligence.

A new federal proposal may reduce the burden and costs for wind energy projects and power lines to ensure compliance with federal wildlife protections.

Many states are now enacting laws to further promote pay transparency, and if you have employees in those jurisdictions, you need to take note. Not surprisingly, California’s Pay Transparency Act is a leading example of this and has a number of important and new requirements.

The Internal Revenue Service recently issued Notice 2022-53, which provides much needed transition relief in the form of an IRS waiver of the 50% excise tax that could otherwise be imposed upon certain beneficiaries of qualified retirement plans or individual retirement accounts.

On October 28, 2022, the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry (BIS) issued FAQs on the new semiconductor regulations. The FAQs are short and relatively clear (thank you!) even if they were released on a Friday afternoon.

The Metaverse presents a variety of possibilities: from technology that enables digital content to be laid over the real world to application of real-world characteristics to a purely online environment.

Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries

Securing environmental permits is often big part of operating a business. How the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent focus on environmental justice (EJ) issues might affect that permitting remains something of an open question.

The “Foreign Adversary Communications Transparency Act” (FACT Act), introduced by Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to publish a list of every entity that both holds an FCC license or authorization.

On October 20, 2022, the New York Court of Appeals ― the highest court in New York ― issued its opinion in In the Matter of Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New York Inc., et al. v. New York State Department of Financial Services, et al.

On October 25, 2022, the Supreme Court of Georgia answered a certified question from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals concerning Georgia’s insurable interest statute, OCGA § 33-24-3 (1995).

In a recent US EPA letter issued to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) and the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH), the Biden Administration deploys its plans to use the “whole of government” to address what it believes are long-standing civil concerns.

On October 18, 2022, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published the long anticipated final rule for the modernization of Customs broker regulations under 19 CFR part 111.

There is often an assumption that restrictive covenants entered into in connection with a sale of business will be enforceable, even if they are broader in scope of time, geography, and restricted activity than would otherwise be acceptable to a court. 

Headlines that Matter for Privacy and Data Security.

Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries

As we move toward two full years of the Biden Administration, we can see the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) environmental justice (EJ) efforts move from the creation of new offices and guidance materials toward seeing EJ-focused changes occurring in EPA’s efforts.

On October 14, 2022, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed changes to its New Source Review (NSR) regulations that would expand the number of projects that trigger NSR permitting at existing facilities by requiring that all major stationary sources consider fugitive emissions.