On May 26, 2011, in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al. v. Michael B. Whiting et al., 131 S.Ct. 1968 (2011), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld states’ rights to mandate use of the employment verification program (E-Verify) organized by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) ...
Employers, imagine that your employees’ use of Facebook and Twitter is akin to being at the controls of a forklift. Consider the employee who is angry because he has not been adequately trained and is tired of having to be on call 24/7, or the employee who is upset because she believes overtime is being unfairly distributed among company personnel ...
On May 15, 2012, a federal district court judge for the District of Columbia struck down recent changes to the National Labor Relations Board’s representation election procedures, which were intended to streamline the Board’s representation election process. In response, the Board has halted implementation of these changes, which took effect on April 30, 2012 ...
The Securities and Futures (Amendment) Ordinance 2012 ("Amendment Ordinance"), except Part 2 of which in relation to disclosure of inside information, comes into operation as it is published in Gazette on 4 May 2012. The Amendment Ordinance has introduced several regulatory initiatives which will be discussed in brief details below ...
The Minister of Manpower and Transmigration (MOM) recently issued Regulation No. 40 of 2012 on Certain Positions which are Closed to Foreign Manpower (“MOMR 40/2012”). MOMR 40/2012 lists 19 different positions, most related to human resources, which are closed to foreigners. However, MOMR 40/2012 applies to wholly owned local companies only and does not apply to foreign-owned companies (ie foreign investment companies/PMAs) ...
The Constitutional Court in Decision No. 27/PUU-IX/2011 (“Decision”) declared articles 65(7) and 66(2)(b) of Law No. 13 of 2003 (“Manpower Law“) conditionally unconstitutional where fixed-term employment contracts used in outsourcing arrangements do not provide a clause protecting the rights of existing workers when the principal company (work provider) switches outsourcing company or labour provider but the same work continues ...
Bill 33,1 whose very title announced the elimination of Union Placement of employees to improve the operations of the construction industry, was assented to on December 2, 2011, and it has raised a lot of comments. The media has made a great deal of the changes proposed in this bill regarding union placement of employees in the construction industry ...
The Government of Guangdong Province has recently put forward and is currently seeking public opinions on a series of draft labour law related regulations, namely, the Provisions of the Implementation of the Labour Contract Law of the People's Republic of China in Guangdong Province ( 《广东省实施 〈中华人民共和国劳动合同法〉若干规定》)
On April 17, 2012, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a decision enjoining the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) from implementing a controversial rule requiring employers to post a notice informing employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The rule’s effective date was slated for April 30, 2012. In response to the D.C ...
Over the past decade, arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act1 (“FAA”) has been the subject of much debate and discussion among courts across the United States, including both the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals (“the WVSCA”) and the Supreme Court of the United States (“the Supreme Court”). Historically, the Supreme Court has ardently favored the resolution of disputes through arbitration,2 while the WVSCA has been more cautious to embrace arbitration in the place of litigation ...
THE FACTS In January 2001, Synertech established two individual pension plans for two of its executives, that is the individual pension plan for Mr. François Bérard (the “Bérard Plan”) and the individual pension plan for Mr. Michael Pons (the “Pons Plan”). In November 2008, Synertech amended these two pension plans, effective as of January 1, 2001 ...
The U. S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act Tuesday, March 27, after receiving it from the Senate. The President signed the bill April 5, 2012. The JOBS Act is best known for its crowdfunding provisions, which I will address shortly, but it also is a boon to many community banks. Community banks often are formed with many investors ...
On April 5, 2012, President Obama signed into law the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the “JOBS Act”) ...
Bankers confront the bankruptcy world regularly. It can be a world of somewhat unfamiliar, if not confusing, concepts and terms. Unfortunately, it can also be a world fraught with risk associated with taking actions (or not taking actions) that run afoul of the rules or jeopardize the bank’s rights against the borrower. Here are a few of the “truths” that bankers need to keep in mind in the bankruptcy world. 1. The automatic stay is, well, automatic ...
A creation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Pub. Law 111-203 (“Dodd-Frank Act”), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) is charged with regulating consumer lending activities of financial institutions and, in partnership with state attorneys general, enforcing numerous federal consumer protection laws ...
E-DISTRIBUTION OF INSURANCE PRODUCTS: THE AMF WANTS YOUR INPUT!On February 24, 2012, the Autorité des marchés financiers (the “AMF”) published, on its website, a notice of consultation entitled Notice and Request and Comment on Internet Insurance Offerings in Québec (the “Notice”). This process follows the AMF’s analysis, initiated a few years ago, on the issues relating to e-distribution of insurance products ...
On December 20, 2011, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, and Army General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, welcomed home the final group of United States troops from Iraq. After more than twenty years and two wars with Iraq, this long-awaited homecoming symbolized the end of an era for many ...
On 6 January 2012, Bank Indonesia issued Regulation No. 14/2/PBI/2012 on the Amendment to Bank Indonesia Regulation No. 11/11/PBI/2009 on Card-Based Payment Instrument Activities (“New Regulation”). The New Regulation is aimed at re-evaluating the role of credit cards as a means of payment and to promote consumer protection when using credit and debit cards as a method of payment. The New Regulation is also aimed at limiting the provision of loans through credit cards ...
On 17 November 2011, the Minister of Manpower and Transmigration (“MOM”) issued Regulation No. PER.16/MEN/XI/2011 on the Preparation and Legalization of Company Regulations and the Preparation and Registration of Collective Labour Agreements (“PER 16”). In principle, the provisions on the preparation and legalization of CR are not different from previous regulations ...
Bank Indonesia has issued Regulation No. 13/25/PBI/2011 regarding The Precautionary Principle to Delegate Some Commercial Bank Work to Third Parties (“Regulation”). Under the Regulation, banks should be more selective in selecting outsourcing companies in order to maintain the level of service provided to customers ...
On March 2, 2012, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. upheld the National Labor Relations Board’s authority to adopt a proposed regulation requiring employers to post a notice informing employees of their federal labor law rights ...
Among other matters, this law establishes the use limitation principle in the treatment of personal data. This law will supplement our legislation on this matter, in particular Law 19,628 on Data Protection. This law specifically focuses on the collection and treatment of personal data of an economic, financial, banking or commercial nature by data banks, distributors of personal records or personal data banks ...
This year promises to bring even more headlines than 2011 regarding workplace safety and the agency empowered to regulate it - OSHA. Given the increased scrutiny that regulators feel with election-year politics, the agency will have to pick its battles carefully when pursuing changes through new or updated regulations ...
The anti-retaliation provision in Section 215(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) makes it unlawful for an employer to “discharge or in any manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted any proceeding under or related to this chapter, or has testified or is about to testify in any such proceeding.” On March 22, 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kasten v ...
Home Care Service providers may need to review how they pay many of their employees as a long-standing overtime exemption is slated to be eliminated by the Department of Labor (“DOL”). The DOL has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to revise the regulations pertaining to companionship and live-in domestic workers, with a 60-day public comment period set to close in the near future ...