By a vote of seven justices, with three inhibiting, one absent, and four dissenting, the Supreme Court – in a decision penned by J. Perez and promulgated last June 25, 2013 – dismissed this petition for certiorari assailing the earlier Resolutions of public respondent COMELEC which ordered the cancellation of petitioner’s Certificate of Candidacy (CoC) for the position of Representative of the lone district of Marinduque ...
In Vance, the Supreme Court announced a narrow standard for determining which employees constitute "supervisors" for purposes of establishing vicarious liability under Title VII. In a 5-4 decision, the Court decided that a supervisor is a person authorized to take "tangible employment actions," such as hiring, firing, promoting, demoting or reassigning employees to significantly different responsibilities ...
IntroductionGovernment contractors often use teaming agreements to combine the services of two or more contractors to offer the most persuasive bid for a government contract. The prime contractor typically agrees with the other team members that if the prime wins the bid, it will allocate some of the contractual work to the other member(s) ...
I OVERVIEWChile continues to offer an attractive business environment. Chile was the first Latin American economy to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and is party to dozens of free trade agreements (including with the United States, the European Union, Mexico, South Korea and Brazil) ...
At the end of May, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida sentenced a Florida import company president to 22 months in federal prison for violating consumer product safety and other laws. His wife, an executive of a related company, was sentenced to a year of probation. The case is significant because it involves a criminal prosecution of importers of unsafe children’s products ...
Many employers are wary of hiring applicants with criminal records because they fear exposing themselves to potential negligent hiring or negligent supervision claims, but they also have concerns imposed by the EEOC’s aggressive interpretation of Title VII that a blanket rule against hiring persons with criminal convictions is a violation of the law ...
The various plans and the range of measures included in them that have been described have produced practical results, particularly an increase in the applications for registration of patents, trademarks and protection by copyright, specifically for property such as software. In terms of applications for patents registered in 2011, China came in first place above the USA and Japan ...
The Court of Justice of the European Union recently issued a judgment in Case C-1/12, following a reference for a preliminary ruling submitted by the Lisbon Court of Appeals, in the dispute between the Order of Chartered Accountants (OTOC) and the Portuguese Competition Authority ...
On Friday June 14, 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada released its eagerly-awaited decision, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, Local 30 v. Irving Pulp & Paper, Ltd., 2013 SCC 34, a case concerning random alcohol testing at a paper mill operation in Saint John, New Brunswick ...
Purchases of shares or assets of the target companyPurchases of shares are relatively free of restrictions unless the target company is a public corporation (namely, a company that has its shares registered with the Chilean securities and insurance regulator, the SVS), one of the parties to the transaction participates in a regulated industry or the entity resulting from a business combination raises competition issues ...
The Libyan Trade Mark Office (“LTMO”) has resumed the process of trade mark searching since April 2013 and will reportedly be accepting new applications for the registration of trade marks in May 2013. This after the LTMO had ceased its operations in January 2011 due to civil unrest in the country. There has, however, been some uncertainty with regard to the LTMO’s acceptance of new trade mark applications ...
The Comoro Islands, situated off the south-east coast of Africa, has ratified the Bangui Agreement, thereby becoming one of the 17 member countries of The African Intellectual Property Organisation (OAPI). The Bangui Agreement, once consented to, requires that the member states accede to the international treaties and conventions listed in the Agreement ...
In 2012, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) set the business community atwitter when an administrative law judge in American Red Cross decided that an at-will disclaimer in an employee handbook violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by being overly broad ...
America’s high school and college students will soon be finishing another school year, and employers across the country are gearing up to welcome many of these young adults as interns for the summer. Interns are staples in many organizations and often provide valuable benefit to a business. As employers strive to keep costs down, including that of labor, many use unpaid summer help where possible ...
On February 25, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its final rule (the Final Rule) setting forth standards for health insurance issuers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Affordable Care Act). Specifically, the Final Rule outlines exchange and issuer standards related to coverage of essential health benefits, minimum value and actuarial value ...
Last month, the United States Supreme Court (Supreme Court) provided an unexpected gift to entities facing collective actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by holding that defendants may moot such a case by making an offer of judgment pursuant to Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This ruling could have application to the more common vehicle for multiple plaintiff claims, class actions under Rule 23, but that has yet to be tested ...
Because of recently-enacted changes to the West Virginia Wage Payment and Collection Act, West Virginia employers will have more time to pay final wages to discharged employees. Prior to this change, the Wage Payment and Collection Act required that employers pay discharged employees within 72 hours of termination ...
1. OverviewIn accordance with theWorld Football Association’s, FIFA’s requirements, (consistent) time periodsfor the transfer of players have been established within the Union of EuropeanFootball Associations (UEFA). These time periods exist to ensure that the transferwindows of individual Football Associations coincide with each other and inturn to guarantee equal opportunities for each individual club ...
On April 24, 2013, WorkSafeBC announced the approval of new Occupational Health and Safety Workplace Bullying and Harassment Policies, which come into effect on November 1, 2013 ...
Battered women who fear for their safety, mothers unable to support their children, dysfunctional families in need. A reality for many women is the presence of domestic violence in their lives. This situation, although occurring in all social and economic levels, is much more obvious and has more serious consequences in low-income communities ...
Increase in the Registration of Patents, Trademarks and Property Protected by Copyright - The various plans and the range of measures included in them that have been described have produced practical results, particularly an increase in the applications for registration of patents, trademarks and protection by copyright, specifically for property such as software. In terms of applications for patents registered in 2011, China came in first place above the USA and Japan ...
If your company utilizes temporary workers supplied by a staffing agency, you may be a target of OSHA. On April 29, 2013, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of OSHA, Richard Fairfax, issued a memorandum to its Regional Administrators, entitled “Protecting the Safety and Health of Temporary Workers.” Mr ...
On April 8, 2013, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (“OSHRC” or the “Review Commission”) reversed an administrative law judge’s (“ALJ’s”) decision vacating a lockout/tagout (“LOTO”) citation issued to Otis Elevator Company (“Otis”). See Secretary of Labor v. Otis Elevator Company, OSHRC No. 09-1278 (Apr. 8, 2013) ...
The Office of the Civil Registrar General of the National Statistics Office promulgated Administrative Order No. 1 series of 2012 (AO 1) on October 24, 2012. The AO implements the provisions of Republic Act 10172, the amendatory law to Republic Act 9048, and supplements Administrative Order 1 series of 2001, which, in turn, implements RA 9048. Both statutes provide a means of correcting erroneous entries in the civil registry without need of judicial action ...
