The emergence of COVID-19 has changed the workplace as we once knew it. California employers need to be prepared for unprecedented compliance challenges in recent legislation related to the ongoing pandemic, expanding leave protections, wage and hour compliance risks, and much more. Employers will need to review and adapt their policies and procedures in order to keep up in the coming year with California’s ever-changing employment laws ...
On December 10, 2020, the Minister of Finance, Éric Girard, introduced and tabled Bill 82 entitled An Act respecting mainly the implementation of certain provisions of the Budget Speech of 10 March 2020 (hereinafter the " Bill" ) before the National Assembly. The Bill opens the door to possible limitations on the duty to defend with respect to certain categories of liability insurance contracts to be determined by regulation ...
Ever since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the promise of an effective vaccine has been held out as a key component to a return to normality. Now, with the Pfizer vaccine approved, and the Moderna vaccine on the path to approval shortly, employers have begun struggling to determine what their legal obligations are towards employees who refuse to be vaccinated. While we have addressed these issues recently in a Dec ...
On Dec. 16, 2020, the United Stated Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released much-anticipated guidance regarding employers’ ability to enact mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies. The new guidance addresses many questions regarding the interaction between mandatory vaccination policies and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1963 (Title VII), and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (Act) ...
All eyes were on health care in 2020, as the industry faced unprecedented challenges presented by the global coronavirus pandemic. Stories and images of overburdened frontline health care workers dominated the news cycle for most of the year, and the rapid development of one or more seemingly effective vaccines has engendered a cautious optimism for a return to normalcy in 2021 ...
Non-surgical extended duration therapeutic services (NSEDTS) are services which have a significant monitoring component that can: extend for a lengthy period of time, are not surgical, and typically have a low risk of complications after the assessment at the beginning of the service ...
On December 8th, 2020, The President of the Russian Federation signed the Federal Law, introducing the new rules for remote work (hereinafter the “Law”). This Law will come into force from January 1st 2021. Here is a brief summary of new rules: i. New types of temporary remote work In accordance with current labour legislation, an employee and employer can conclude a remote employment contract only on a permanent basis ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed Canadian workplaces. For many organizations, the pandemic and its containment measures have fast-tracked the shift to teleworking. In this context, the Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) and the Agence du Revenu du Québec (the“ARQ”) have published administrative positions regarding deductible expenses for employees working from home as well as for their employers ...
The Industrial Court in Malaysia is an important institution that is established under the Industrial Relations Act 1967 to hear and decide on disputes in relation to the terms and conditions of employment in a collective agreement. In a collective agreement dispute, salary adjustments, increments and bonuses are usually the hotly contested articles. The Industrial Courts are usually guided by a set of principles in deciding on such financial-related articles ...
On November 24, 2020, British Columbia issued a Public Health Order requiring the use of masks in all public indoor spaces in the province (the “Order”). In this blog post, we answer some frequently asked questions posed by business owners and employers about the Order. Mandatory Masking in Public Indoor Spaces Masks are now mandatory in all “indoor public spaces” in B.C ...
I Banking and Finance The Government of Latvia has approved a business support program that provides for financial measures ensured in cooperation with state development agency Altum. The program is planned to continue until mid-2021. Depending on individual needs, companies, regardless of industry, can use six crisis alleviation programs: Working capital loan – a liquidity support for companies, whose activities have been affected by Covid-19 ...
On Nov. 20, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued two final rules, which implement changes to the Physician Self-Referral Law (Stark Law) and the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) regulations (respectively the CMS Final Rule and the OIG Final Rule, collectively the Final Rules) ...
Introduction Covid-19 has disrupted our lives and businesses at many unprecedented levels never seen before in the history of mankind. The recent announcements by numerous pharmaceutical companies of newly developed Covid-19 vaccines have been positively received by the world at large and many now have high hopes that our lives will now finally return to normal as we knew it1 ...
Back to 2020 - Forward to 2021 2020 was a busy year – and a uniquely challenging one to say the least. Legal and regulatory changes, many of them linked to the COVID-19 crisis, have impacted your business and will continue to impact it in the new year. That is why we are pleased to provide you with an overview of the major recent legal and regulatory developments that have taken place under Luxembourg and EU law ...
Cal/OSHA has promulgated emergency regulations for preventing COVID-19 transmission in the workplace (the “Emergency Standard,” or the “Standard”). The Emergency Standard became effective immediately upon approval by the Office of Administrative Law on November 30, 2020, and will remain in effect for six months. It may be extended or converted to permanent regulations by Cal/OSHA. The Emergency Standard, now codified in Title 8, sections 3205; 3205 ...
Key Points Cal/OSHA's COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) became effective Nov. 30, 2020. Cal/OSHA clarified Section 3205's Aerosol Transmissible Diseases (ATD) Standard exemption applies to employees with occupational exposure to ATDs, not to all employees of an employer subject to the ATD Standard. Cal/OSHA issued a model COVID-19 Prevention Plan to assist employers ...
Regional Insights [VIDEO] Salary Arrangements & Restructuring in the Time of COVID-19: Market Views & Legal Implementation Watch our latest video to gain a clearer view on the salary arrangement options available to human resources departments in light of the disruption caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic ...
On November 12, 2020, the Washington Supreme Court extended corporate attorney-client privilege protection to appropriate ex parte communications between defendant hospitals and their non-employee agents. The court’s decision in Hermanson v. MultiCare Health Sys., Inc ...
With many medical practices and healthcare practitioners moving to telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic, questions abound on legal requirements, privacy, and the future of healthcare. Schwabe’s Healthcare team has taken a closer look at the legal issues surrounding the rise of telemedicine during the pandemic and the implications for our healthcare future in the four articles below ...
This Client Alert is a monthly update on insurance recovery developments as posted on the Hunton Insurance Recovery Blog. If you would like to receive email alerts when new posts are published, please visit our blog and enter your email address in the subscribe field ...
By resolution adopted on October 7, 2020, the state of emergency has been extended until January 31, 2021 ...
On November 18, 2020, the IRS released Revenue Ruling 2020-27 stating that a taxpayer who received a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan cannot deduct eligible business expenses (i.e., payroll costs, mortgage loan interest, rent payments and utility payments) paid or incurred in 2020 during the covered period (as defined below) if the taxpayer reasonably expects that the PPP loan will be forgiven in the future ...
The retail sector has been one of the sectors most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and as a result employers therein might be considering dismissing employees for economic or technical reasons. Employers must be aware that most joint committees in the retail sector have entered into collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) obliging employers to first take measures to avoid dismissals and, if dismissals cannot be avoided, to comply with a specific procedure ...
