Agricultural and rural settings present significant health and safety risks, which must be carefully managed and mitigated by employers and landowners operating in the sector. This was brought into sharp focus after two fatalities led to prosecutions following investigations by The Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Prosecution one In February, a farmer was prosecuted after a tragic fatal incident on farmland in Leeds ...
Key Points The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the City of Salinas's challenged zoning ordinance did not violate the "substantial burden" provision of the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ("RLUIPA") but that it did violate the "equal terms" provision ...
Economic sanctions The sanctions imposed by the UK, European Union and US following the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia target the Russian economy. Whilst Russia is the largest country in the world, in terms of the global economy it only made up 3.11% of Global GDP in 2020. The sanctions imposed however will still have wide ranging impacts on all areas of the global market, and can already be seen in dramatically rising energy prices ...
[!<CDATA[ Most state and federal courts have expressed a strong preference for parties to resolve their legal disputes via binding arbitration when there is an arbitration clause applicable to the dispute, there are instances where courts will deny such a request – even when the parties have expressly agreed to this particular forum in their construction contract ...
[!<CDATA[ A recent opinion from the Court of Appeals of Texas provides clarification regarding a contractor’s right to payment where the adequacy of the work performed is challenged and an owner attempts to rely on a satisfaction clause to withhold payment. It also sheds light, in the context of complex construction contracts, on the common contract requirement that the contractor must “strictly comply” with the Contract requirements. In Turner v ...
[!<CDATA[ As of September 1, 2021, in a change to Texas caselaw that had been in place for over a century, Texas contractors now have protection in certain circumstances from liability for defective plans and specifications provided to the contractor by someone else. In the 1907 Texas Supreme Court case Lonergan v ...
[!<CDATA[ Generally, the government has immunity from being sued with some exceptions grounded in statute or case law. Having a contract with the federal government is one such exception, and an interrelated exception falls under the Severin doctrine ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends,The issue of whether an employee is transferred or seconded can sometimes prove rather contentious. In a transfer, the employment relationship to transferred to the new employer (i.e. the original company is no longer the employer), whereas in a secondment situation, the employee remains under the employment of the original company but may perform work for the secondee company ...
During the US President’s visit to Brussels, President Biden and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stated on Friday 25 March that the parties have agreed on the main principles of a new agreement on the protection of personal data transferred to the United States. While a concrete agreement text has not yet been published, the US White House has published a Fact Sheet explaining the key principles to be expected in the final framework ...
Over the years, the Quebec courts have repeatedly stated that dismissed employees have a duty to mitigate the damages they suffer as a result of a dismissal. This obligation, which is now codified in the Civil Code of Québec,1 has been adapted to the circumstances of the cases over which the courts have presided. The question, then, is whether the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to have an impact on a dismissed employee?s obligation to mitigate damages ...
On March 15, 2022, President Biden signed an omnibus spending package for the upcoming fiscal year. Included in its nearly 3,000 pages is a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). As reauthorized, VAWA includes numerous safeguards to protect women and other victims of gender violence nationwide ...
The new Register of Persons Holding a Controlled interest in Land (RCI) will come into force in Scotland on 1 April 2022. The purpose of this article is to highlight the key points of the regulations behind the RCI1 and how they may affect landowners and tenants of registrable leases (being those longer than 20 years) in Scotland ...
Working remotely combined with “The Great Resignation” has raised questions about how employers can best protect their business interests in this new world of work. Rewind a few years and most employees were physically attending the workplace every day, which in turn made it easier for employers to monitor the work being carried out by their employees and ensure that confidential files were locked away safely ...
The joint employer rule has been a hot topic in the last several years, mostly in the context of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Recall the drama of the Trump administration's narrower definition of a joint employer for wage purposes, followed by the Biden administration's almost immediate rescission of that rule. Gig economy workers have battled about overtime and their entitlement to it under the FLSA's definitions ...
When it comes to continuing disclosure, two of the more common “material events” to occur are rating changes and the incurrence of a “financial obligation.” As a general matter, these are reportable events that should be posted to Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA). However, as a practical matter, these material events are frequently overlooked ...
On March 15, 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022, which was passed by Congress on March 8, 2022 (CAA). The CAA temporarily extends meaningful changes for reimbursement of Medicare services delivered via telehealth. All CAA provisions regarding telehealth amendments will last for 151 days following the expiration of the Public Health Emergency (PHE), which is currently set for April 16, 2022 ...
March 24, 2022 By: John Epperson and Peter McGaw UPDATE: At the time Buchalter published its client alert regarding the new ASTM Standard for Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (Phase I ESAs), we noted that the new ASTM Standard would not be considered “All Appropriate Inquires” for purposes of establishing defenses under CERCLA until the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) amended its regulations to incorporate the new Standard ...
A new regime The UK has introduced a new regime which, from 4 January 2022, requires purchasers to obtain prior approval for transactions in certain specified sectors ...
Oral Argument Scheduled for April 8 on Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate Injunction Scheduled for April 8, 2022, with each side being afforded 15 minutes for argument. It appears that oral argument may be livestreamed by the 11th Circuit. Injunction Against Federal Contractor Vaccine Mandate Oral argument held on the United States’ appeal of a federal district court judge’s December 7, 2021, decision in Georgia v. Biden, Case No ...
On 10 March 2022, the Cabinet Office published the long-awaited draft Terms of Reference for the UK COVID-19 Inquiry.1 In this article we consider the implications for businesses impacted by the pandemic and how they may wish to get involved in the Terms’ finalisation. Terms of Reference are critical to a public inquiry as they define its scope and purpose ...
The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act received Royal Assent on 15 March 2022. Its effects will be felt far and wide across the UK real estate industry. We explained in our article Economic Crime Bill – what it means for real estate, that the aim of the new Act is to crack down on foreign criminals using UK property to launder money ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends,With effect from 1 April 2022, Malaysia will enter the “Transition to Endemic” phase ...
The Ohio House of Representatives passed HB 447 in February, 2022 and the bill is now pending approval by the Ohio Senate. If passed, this bill could expand the definition of a work injury to include some injuries sustained in the employee’s own home, provided certain criteria are met. Certainly, the precipitating reason for this proposed bill is the recent increase in remote and telework arrangements as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions ...
This article was first published in AmCham Thailand T-AB Magazine (March 2022 Issue): https://www.amchamthailand.com/t-ab-magazine/ After nearly two decades in the making, the Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2561 (“PDPA“) was published on May 27, 2019. Ostensibly inspired by the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the PDPA was slated to go fully effective in June 2022 following a two-year delay due to COVID-19 outbreak ...
