Employee Benefits Newsletter March 31, 2020 Authored by: Alexis Blair, Cathy Currie, Kirsten Garcia, Jesse Gelsomini, Brian Giovannini, Tyler Hubert, Chris Kang, Charles Plenge, Scott Thompson, Tiffany Walker, and Susan Wetzel EMPLOYEE BENEFIT/EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION CHANGES MADE BY THE CARES ACT On March 27, 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”) ...
President Donald Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”), which will become effective on April 1, 2020 and expire on December 31, 2020. It includes guidance on which employees of private companies qualify for paid sick leave and Emergency FMLA Expansion to care for themselves and/or loved ones during the COVID-19 Pandemic. To discern if your employees qualify, please consult the flow chart below ...
On March 25, 2020, Governor Jim Justice signed into law House Bill 4497, which shall be known as The Alex Miller Law. The Alex Miller Law will take effect June 5, 2020, but the mandated requirements do not take effect until the 2021-2022 school year. Alex Miller, was a Roane County football player who collapsed and died during a high school football game. The Alex Miller Law (W. Va. Code 18-5-25c) requires defibrillators (AED devices) at certain events by the 2021-2022 school year ...
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 ...
In an effort to streamline the provision of COVID-19 patients’ Protected Health Information (PHI) to public health authorities, the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) recently published practical guidance explaining the methods by which Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Covered Entities may disclose COVID-19 patient PHI to law enforcement, first responders, and public health authorities ...
In the wake of COVID-19, cities, counties and states across the nation are issuing shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders to curb nonessential movement of residents. States and local authorities are invoking powers to evacuate residents through statutes that have historically been used for natural disaster evacuations. While the ability to order and enforce such evacuations is not in dispute, the orders in this context raise many questions ...
President Trump signed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA” or “the Act”) into law on March 18. The Act requires employers with fewer than 500 employees to provide their employees with paid sick leave and expanded Family and Medical Leave Act rights, subject to exceptions for certain healthcare providers, emergency responders, and businesses with fewer than 50 employees if compliance would jeopardize the business as a going concern ...
Unique challenges confront those businesses impacted by COVID-19 that are also in the process of implementing operational changes to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). The California Attorney General begins enforcement on July 1, 2020, and recently declined to extend that date due to COVID-19. We take a look at those challenges here and propose some best practices to avoid legal liability under the CCPA ...
The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of the Russian Federation published, on its website, Recommendations (and Additions to them) for employees and employers, in connection with the decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 25.03.2020 No. 206 “On declaring non-working days in the Russian Federation” ...
Tourism and event industries are suffering and it is expected that manufacturing enterprises will soon be affected as well. Short-time work can provide a remedy and reduce the economic consequences of the coronavirus for employers and employees ...
Due to the increasing spread of the coronavirus, numerous companies in Switzerland have already ordered home office work for their employees. This article addresses, inter alia, the question of whether employers can unilaterally order home office work in the current situation and what consequences this might have. Read the entire article below ...
On March 27, 2020 California Governor, Gavin Newsom, issued Executive Order N-37-20 (“Order”), temporarily restricting the ability of landlords to evict residential tenants for nonpayment of rent if the failure to pay rent is due to the impacts of the COVID-19 Coronavirus (“COVID-19”) ...
As a growing number of the workforce is being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are raising several benefit related questions, particularly with respect to financial assistance available to employees. The Employee Benefits Group at Hanson Bridgett will be providing updated information on possible issues arising in the benefits area through Benefits Alerts and postings on Hanson Bridgett's Online COVID-19 Resource Center ...
Last week, President Trump signed two Legislative Acts – the Families First Coronavirus Response Act ("FFCRA") and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES). Effective April 1, 2020, the FFCRA requires employers with more than 50 but fewer than 500 employees to provide emergency paid sick leave and expanded Family Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") leave to employees ...
As a growing number of the workforce is being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are raising several benefit related questions, particularly with respect to group health plans. The Employee Benefits Group at Hanson Bridgett will be providing updated information on possible issues arising in the benefits area through Benefits Alerts and postings on Hanson Bridgett's Online COVID-19 Resource Center ...
Updated April 2, 2020 The recently enacted Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides payroll tax relief to certain businesses facing the COVID-19 crisis. The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) provides for payroll tax credits for small and mid-size private sector employers (500 or fewer employees) required to provide paid sick and expanded family and medical leave related to qualified payments made between April 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 ...
The spread of the highly contagious coronavirus has reach pandemic status. Over 550,000 cases have been confirmed across more than 175 countries, and the United States now has over 86,000 confirmed cases across all 50 states and four territories. In other countries, the threat of coronavirus has already impacted prison operations — lockdowns have been implemented in Italy and thousands of prisoners were released in Iran ...
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced a period for public comment on excluding medical goods from Section 301 China tariffs if they are needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The USTR notice was published in the Federal Register on March 25, 2020. The USTR previously granted approximately 200 exclusions from Section 301 tariffs for medical goods because they are needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S ...
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) is designed to help employees and employers by providing paid sick and family leave reimbursed through a refundable tax credit for private employers, in addition to other relief. The FFCRA provides two types of paid leave to covered employees: paid sick leave under the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA) and expanded family and medical leave under the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (EFMLA) ...
With the onset of COVID-19, certain areas of academic and government-fueled research are exploding. However, universities and governments at all levels are also scaling down nonessential research tasks and limiting the enrollment of essential new human subjects or new animal experiments.[1] Similarly, private companies may be suspending or cancelling their research projects in an attempt to conserve financial resources and accommodate researchers working from home ...
Considering the state of emergency declared in the Republic of Latvia as a result of the spread of the Covid-19 infection, we have summarized the most important matters to be considered by employers at this time ...
Q&A procedures before the Public Health Institute (ISP) May I file for sanitary registrations? Requests for sanitary registrations for pharmaceutical products, cosmetics and others regulated, as well as for their modifications, may be filed for through the GICONA portal, and official tariffs shall be paid only through electronic transfer of funds ...
In the context of the current sanitary alert, several bills of law have been filed with Congress, seeking to regulate certain aspects associated to states of emergency and sanitary crises in particular.To such ends, the bills that stand out are:I. Bill prohibiting and penalizing price increases in the face of epidemics or pandemics:On Tuesday 17 March 2020, a bill was filed with the Lower Chamber (Newsletter 13 ...
To prevent abuses arising from employers´ coercion to force employees to accept unpaid leaves in the context of the Economic, Social and Ecological Emergency derived from Covid-19, the Ministry of Work recalls the content of judgment C-930 of 2009 ...
