May 15, 2023 By: Meghna Parikh The expiration of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (“PHE”) on May 11, 2023 could have created a “prescription cliff” leaving patients without access to controlled substances. During the PHE, telemedicine flexibilities allowed patients to have access to Schedule II and narcotic controlled substances via telemedicine without a prior in-person medical evaluation ...
By: Neusha Etemad and Anne Marie Ellis CDA Background Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was enacted in 1996 to provide websites with immunity from liability arising from posting third-party content. For a service provider to be immune, however, the information at issue must be “provided by another information content provider ...
May 1, 2023 By: Stephanie Shea As everyone knows, the remaining USD LIBOR tenors will expire on June 30, 2023. Also as everyone knows, the CFPB issued a final rule in December 2021, modifying Regulation Z to reflect the transition from LIBOR. For example, it revised Regulation Z’s commentary to the closed-end refinancing rules (that is, the commentary to Section 1026 ...
April 17, 2023 By: Meghna Parikh ALERT: Recent guidance from the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) clarifies a procedural issue for premarket submissions related to cybersecurity of medical devices and emphasizes the importance of collaboration between the FDA and medical device manufacturers. Providers using medical devices in their practice should pay attention to these rulings because they impacts the providers’ ability to educate and engage their patients ...
April 5, 2023 By: Julian Gurule Turmoil in the tech ecosystem and escalating sentiment that a recession in the U.S. might occur in the near-term, indicate that startups, their lenders, and investors may soon confront extreme financial challenges – and will force all stakeholders in a troubled venture to consider strategic options ...
April 5, 2023 By: Nora Sheriff and Samir Hafez In their Wildfire Mitigation Plans (WMPs), Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) indicate plans to spend roughly $18 billion and $5.8 billion respectively over the 2023-2025 WMP cycle. These total figures represent an approximately 26% increase over the utilities’ 2020-2022 WMP expenditures ...
March 31, 2023 By: Michael Flynn and Brett Voets On March 30, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued the long-awaited final version of its rules on Small Business Lending under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.[1] The new rule imposes significant burdens and risks on lenders, and will likely result in significant amounts of loan-related data being made public, as discussed below ...
By: Jeffrey M. Dennis Data privacy, sometime referred to as the protection of personal information, has developed into one of the most significant challenges facing the franchise industry. As the number of franchises in the United States continues to increase, franchisees and franchisors are becoming more reliant on customer information to grow and maintain their loyal customer bases ...
March 28, 2023 By: Meghna Parikh The Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative continues to raise the stakes for government contractors. This initiative uses the False Claims Act (“FCA”) to hold government contractors accountable for knowingly (1) failing to monitor and report cyber data breaches, (2) implementing inadequate cybersecurity measures or (3) misrepresenting their cybersecurity practices ...
March 28, 2023 By: Nicolette A. Cohen[1] On September 29, 2022, the California Court of Appeal First Appellate District, in Honchariw v. FJM Private Mortgage Fund, LLC, held a private lender’s imposition of late charges and default interest constituted an unlawful penalty in contravention of the public policy set forth in California Civil Code Section 1671, reversing the trial court’s finding ...
March 20, 2023 By: Manuel Fishman and Mary H. Rose What a week this has been since the closure of Silicon Valley Bank. As noted in our Client Alert of last week, California State regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday, March 10, 2023, and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) as receiver for the bank ...
March 13, 2023 By: Manuel Fishman While unexpected, the closure by California regulators of, and the appointment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) as receiver for, Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”) is an event that is contemplated by most leases. If you are holding a letter of credit issued by SVB, you are an unsecured creditor of the bank ...
March 9, 2023 By: Gwenneth O’Hara, Jonathan Kendrick, and Samir Hafez While reading this client update, the first thing you need to do is keep in mind the date of April 14, 2023. As explained below, that is the last date to submit an interconnection application with your utility provider to grandfather a new solar system into the current net energy metering (NEM) program called NEM 2.0 ...
February 27, 2023 By: Leah Lively and Jack Darrington All employers should be aware of the recent decision by the United States Supreme in Helix Energy Solutions Group Inc. v. Hewitt dealing with exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). The Hewitt court held that a well-compensated employee paid a daily rate, rather than a fixed weekly or monthly salary, was not exempt from the FLSA and its rules regarding overtime pay ...
February 17, 2023 By: Alexander Davis and Manuel Fishman Update This article is partly a republication of a Client Alert that was issued on December 6, 2022 titled “San Francisco’s Commercial Vacancy Tax.” Readers who have already read the original article can simply read ahead to the sections labeled “Update.” Commercial Vacancy Tax In March 2020, the voters of San Francisco approved Proposition D, also known as the Commercial Vacancy Tax ...
February 16, 2023 By: Kathryn B. Fox and Charles Whitman Once again, California employers can require workers to sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana and in a reversal of its own prior decision, a divided three-judge Ninth Circuit panel found that AB 51 is preempted by federal law. Chamber of Commerce of the U.S., et al. v. Bonta, et al., No. 20-15291 (9th Cir. Feb. 15, 2023) ...
February 13, 2023 By: Thomas M. O’Connell, Jennifer M. Misetich, and Kathryn B. Fox Each New Year in California comes with several new laws that impact the workplace, including those in the franchising industry. With each year that passes, the California Legislature reminds us that their intent is to provide employees across our state with vast worker protections and rights, placing a greater burden on employers to maintain legal compliance. This year is no different ...
February 13, 2023 By: Melissa Richards Superintendent of Financial Services Adrienne A. Harris announced on February 1, 2023 that the New York State Department of Financial Services has adopted a final regulation?relating to early disclosure requirements on commercial financing offers equal to or less than $2,500,000, pursuant to sections 801 to 811 of the New York Financial Services Law (the “Commercial Finance Disclosure Law” or “CFDL”) ...
February 9, 2023 By: Michael Flynn According to a Chicago federal district court, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act’s loan discrimination provisions to not extend to alleged discrimination against prospective applicants. Relying on the express language of the ECOA statute, this ruling rejected a decades-old Regulation B rule that stated that ECOA did apply to conduct toward prospective applicants ...
February 8, 2023 By: Michael Flynn On February 1, the CFPB issued a proposed rule to cut the “safe harbor” amount that banks and credit card companies can charge for late fees. If finalized, the proposed rule would reduce the maximum safe harbor limit for credit card late fees to $8. The current safe harbor limits are $30 for a first missed payment and $41 dollars for each additional missed payment, indexed to inflation. The $8 limit would not be indexed to inflation ...
February 2, 2023 By: Manuel Fishman In what may turn out to be a lesson on the limits of the application of equitable doctrines supporting rent relief in the face of good lease drafting, a California court of appeal panel in San Diego has taken a narrow view on the application of the doctrines of quiet enjoyment, frustration of purpose, impracticability and impossibility as a defense to the payment of rent under a lease following State and local closure orders issued in response to the COVID 1
Overview If you are thinking about outsourcing manufacturing but have no idea where to start, or if you are already sourcing your product overseas but running into complications, this book, So You Need To OutSource A Product?, will provide some helpful guidelines on navigating the process. You probably already know this, but it bears repeating: Manufacturing outsourcing raises profit margins, improves inventory management, and gets new products to market faster ...
January 10, 2023 By: Michael Flynn The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management and Budget has released the Fall 2022 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Agenda) reports on the actions administrative agencies plan to issue in the near and long term. Included is the CFPB’s regulatory agenda for 2023. The CFPB agenda may be found HERE ...
