On November 17, 2023, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law Senate Bill 4516, amending General Obligation Law Section 5-336 (GOL 5-336). As set forth in our earlier alert from when the law was first enacted, Section 5-336 limited employers’ use of nondisclosure provisions in agreements releasing claims involving sexual harassment ...
A summary of the key takeaways from a recent webinar on 2023 Changes to the Immigration Rules. The webinar was hosted by Pavan Sumal and Rachel Harvey and a recording of the webinar can be found below along with a summary of the key takeaways ...
In some ways, the 2023 proxy season might be met with a sigh of relief as some extraneous factors impacting United States capital markets—such as the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict—have stabilized in terms of their increased effect. In that same vein, some changes that may have once been viewed as “trends” in disclosure are very much here to stay ...
As the American press focuses on the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, the wheels have been set in motion to implement new health care legislation that enjoys strong bipartisan support. The 21st Century Cures Act (the “Act”), signed by President Obama on December 13, addresses a broad range of health care priorities, including drug innovation, biomedical research, and mental health reform ...
January 2, 2024 By: Braeden Mansouri and Alicia Guerra The California Legislature’s laser focus on addressing the state housing crisis did not subside during the 2023 legislative session. While legislators proposed over 150 housing bills, only a fraction of those bills were approved by both chambers. Still, Governor Gavin Newsom signed 56 housing bills into law ...
Governor Wolf announced that 24 Pennsylvania counties will move from the red phase to the yellow phase of the reopening plan beginning at 12:01 a.m. Friday, May 8. The 24 counties announced today are: Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Union, Venango and Warren ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on March 13 issued a highly consequential decision in U.S. Securities andExchange Commission v. Rashid, interpreting and applying the mental state for liability of investment advisers under the Investment Advisers Act. Over a strong dissent, the court reversed a finding of liability of the defendant investment adviser under basic principles of negligence law, and in doing so, provided a road map for future enforcement actions under the act ...
On Aug. 31, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued its decision in In re Charter Communications Inc., (2d Cir. Aug. 31, 2012), expressly adopting an abuse of discretion standard for reviewing equitable mootness determinations ...
The False Claims Act (FCA) was enacted to punish and deter fraud against the United States, and to recover moneys obtained through such fraud. Whether an alleged fraud was actually against the United States is a threshold question not posed in the typical FCA case, where allegations usually involve claims for payment submitted to the Army, Navy, Medicare, or other entity clearly part of the federal government. But some cases are not so clear ...
The glacial pace at which the federal government has implemented cannabis policy–particularly in light of the rapid evolution of cannabis laws at the state level–is at the same time predictable and frustrating to those seeking a measure of certainty ...
When not conducted carefully, internal investigations cancause more harm than good. Deciding to investigate a suspected problem is onlythe first of several key determinations. The responsible executive must planand execute the investigation deliberately to avoid self-inflicted harm. Anorganization can protect itself—while still conducting an investigation that isconfidential, full and fair—only by carefully thinking about how best touncover the alleged wrongdoing or compliance issues ...
In the recent decision of Abdul Malek Bin Mohamed v MISC Bhd dated 17 June 2020 [Award 840 of 2020], the Industrial Court recognised that the tenure of service of an employee in an organisation does not shield the employee from having to render satisfactory performance at the level required by the Company. The Industrial Court upheld the dismissal of an employee for poor performance after 32 years of service ...
As U.S. hospitals and health clinics continue preparing for novel coronavirus (COVID-19) patient surges, federal regulatory agencies are developing resources to help health care providers comply with myriad regulatory requirements. In this context, the U.S ...
On April 1, 2019, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) launched a secure website that lists the maximum price drug manufacturers may charge 340B-covered entities for 340B-eligible drug purchases (the 340B Ceiling Price Site). Drug manufacturers and 340B-covered entities may access the 340B Ceiling Price Site through their HRSA Office of Pharmacy Affairs information system (the 340B OPAIS) account here: https://340bopais.hrsa ...
On June 15, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States released its long-awaited decision in American Hospital Association v. Becerra in which it unanimously held that the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overstepped its statutory authority by cutting 340B-related reimbursement to hospitals ...
In 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued five decisions worthy of particular note: Inserso Corp. v. U.S.[1] Teledyne Brown Engineering Inc.[2] Kiewit Infrastructure West Co. v. U.S.[3] LAX Electronics Inc. v. U.S.[4] Centerra Integrated Facilities Services LLC ...
You may have heard something about GDPR lately and thought "Why should I care? It probably won't affect me or my business.” In reality, the implications of GDPR are far-reaching. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a set of regulations strengthening data privacy and protection laws for residents of the EU. The regulations take effect in just two months: May 25, to be exact ...
On 14 October 2022, the Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, in terms of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, 2001 (“FICA”) made amendments to the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Control Regulations, 2002, which will come into force on 14 November 2022. In terms of these amendments, the prescribed amount for reporting cash transactions under section 28 of FICA to the Financial Intelligence Centre has increased from ZAR24 999 to ZAR49 999.99 ...
In United States v. United States ex rel. Thrower, No. 18-16408, on November 14, a panel of the Ninth Circuit gave a skeptical reception to the Department of Justice (DOJ) argument that the district court’s denial of the government’s motion to dismiss a False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam complaint against Academy Mortgage Corporation (Academy) invaded the government’s “prosecutorial discretion ...
What is litigation funding and why is it attractive? Also known as legal finance or litigation finance, third party funding – historically – was considered an improper or corrupting influence on litigation. These old offences of champerty and maintenance were first decriminalised in England in 1967 ...
When the 2019-2020 legislative session began, no one could have predicted what challenges Pennsylvania and the General Assembly would encounter with the outbreak of COVID-19. The rules changed to permit remote voting, and the plan for the session shifted to a focus on the response to COVID-19. The 12-month budget was replaced with a five-month budget to allow additional time to assess the financial damage ...
On September 14, 2022, the Cyberspace Administration of China (the "CAC") released an exposure draft of the Decision on Amending the Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft") ...
In February 2020, just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (Subchapter V) took effect.[1] Subchapter V amends Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code to allow certain individuals and businesses with debts of less than $2,725,625 to file a streamlined Chapter 11 case with the goal to make small business bankruptcies faster and cheaper ...
