Among the many extraordinary measures taken by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the issuance of blanket waivers of certain provisions of the federal self-referral prohibition commonly known as the Stark Law. The waivers loosen significant restrictions on physician financial relationships in an effort to provide health care providers with greater flexibility to meet the challenges of the pandemic ...
Among the many extraordinary measures taken by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the issuance of blanket waivers of certain provisions of the federal self-referral prohibition commonly known as the Stark Law. The waivers loosen significant restrictions on physician financial relationships in an effort to provide health care providers with greater flexibility to meet the challenges of the pandemic ...
In addition to proceeds from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (“SBA”) Payment Protection Program and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (“CMS”) Accelerated and Advance Payment Program, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”) recently deposited $80 billion into health care providers’ bank accounts as part of its Provider Relief Fund ...
Marijuana’s legal status has flummoxed industry observers for more than a decade. Several current proposals could provide clarity at the federal level. And Alabama appeared to be on the brink of implementing a medical marijuana regime just before the COVID-19 pandemic ground the legislative process to a halt ...
COVID-19 has brought about new economic uncertainty that is disrupting supply chains, from farmers and ranchers to cooperatives, from processors to grocery stores, and all of the way down to consumers. Even solvent purchasers of agricultural products may begin to request extensions of payment terms from agricultural producers, impacting growers’ cash flow and balance sheets ...
Key Points Cupertino Vallco Mall Project clears major hurdle thanks to California court's denial of writ of mandate petition from anti-housing group. Another favorable SB 35 ruling may embolden further use of the procedure for streamlining housing development in California ...
Key Points Facilities will have until the week ending June 7, 2020 to report specific COVID-19 data to the CDC or face the assessment of deficiencies and CMPs. Facilities are now required to notify residents, their representatives, and families when the facility has a confirmed COVID-19 infection or 3 instances of new onset respiratory symptoms within 72 hours ...
On 30 April 2020, the European Commission adopted three implementing regulations allowing temporary derogations from the strict cartel prohibition provided for by EU competition law in three specific agricultural sectors: dairy, potato and live plants and flowers. The latter sector is said to broadly cover “live trees and other plants, bulbs, roots and the like, cut flowers and ornamental foliage” ...
To limit the spread of Covid-19, all indoor and outdoor private and public cultural, festive, recreational, leisure and sport activities /events are prohibited until at least 10 May 2020 (included). Sport activities without physical contact and with a maximum of three persons are already allowed from 4 May 2020. Museums might be allowed to re-open from 18 May 2020 under strict conditions ...
On April 28, 2020, the Employee Benefits Security Administration, the Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of the Treasury (the “Agencies”) signed a joint notification of relief, which was published in the Federal Register on May 4, 2020 (the “Notice”) ...
The landmark CARES Act provides many Alabama employers with several options to increase liquidity and cash flow during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. And only nine days before that legislation was enacted, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) also created two other payroll tax-related incentives for certain employers, and self-employed individuals ...
At its Voting Meeting today the Commission adopted a new standard offer contract available to any Qualifying Facility (QF) of 20 megawatts or less seeking to sell electricity to a Commission-jurisdictional utility pursuant to the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). Under PURPA, Commission-jurisdictional utilities must provide QFs the option of executing any existing PURPA contract for which they qualify ...
To contain the spread of COVID-19, the Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas (“the Competent Authority”) has extended the state of public emergency to the 31st May, 2020. New regulations have been introduced to minimize spread of the virus while allowing for a phased re-opening of the economy. This update summarizes those measures to date ...
During this turbulent period, now is the time to evaluate your facility's admission procedures and paperwork, especially your arbitration agreement. You want to make sure that in the event of litigation they will withstand strict scrutiny by the court. Failure to do so may have dire consequences that will leave your facility vulnerable. If your admission procedures and paperwork are not sufficiently robust, a court will not enforce your facility's arbitration agreement ...
On referral from Justice Alito to the full court, the Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday denied an application to halt the enforcement of Pennsylvania Governor Wolf’s shutdown order ...
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) is delaying data collection for their annual EEO-1 Report filing. The EEO-1 Employer Information Report, is a survey that is required annually for larger employers and government contractors. The survey collects employment data organized by race, ethnicity, gender, and job category ...
The COVID-19 pandemic is indisputably the most serious public health emergency of our times, and at the same time, a shock to the global economy. Being a field of law largely influenced by economics, it would seem inevitable that the application of competition law would not be affected by the current economic realities brought about by the coronavirus pandemic ...
In the context of the Covid-19 legislative process, entities representing the social economy or what is often known as the third sector have already benefited from some consideration by the legislature. Certain legal arrangements have been drawn up to identify the needs and protect against the weaknesses of this charitable / socially supportive economic cluster ...
On 5 March, the CMVM published Regulation 2/2020 on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, to provide the regulations under Law 83/2017 of 18 August. The CMVM did this as the sector regulator responsible for supervising financial entities including investment companies, investment fund management companies, venturecapital companies, and securitisation companies ...
On 29 April 2020, the Hong Kong Competition Tribunal (Tribunal) handed down its first ever judgment on pecuniary penalties against ten decoration contractors (Penalty Judgment) who were found to have violated the First Conduct Rule under the Competition Ordinance (Ordinance), which prohibits undertakings from entering into an agreement or engaging in a concerted practice that has the object or effect of harming competition in Hong Kong ...
COVID-19 has caused a swift and unprecedented change to many social institutions in the United States (and worldwide). As a result, lawyers have been compelled to adopt new practices and policies to face the challenges of this time. No discipline has been changed quite as much, however, as that of the litigator. COVID-19, for example, has changed the way depositions will look for the immediate future ...
The Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on April 28, 2020 signed a Notice of Extended Waiver for certain deadlines associated with patent-related filings, if the missed deadline resulted from situations relating to COVID-19. Due dates between March 27 and May 31, 2020 are extended until June 1, 2020 ...
On May 5, 2020, the Small Business Administration extended the time in which certain borrowers of Paycheck Protection Program loans may take advantage of the certification safe harbor SBA announced on April 24, 2020. The SBA also issued guidance on applying the affiliation rules to businesses with U.S. and foreign affiliates ...
The Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) is intended to provide nearly $700 billion of economic relief to small businesses adversely affected by COVID-19 ...
On Monday, for the first time in history, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments via teleconference and live-streamed the conference call to the public. And, if that was not exciting enough, to kick off a planned two-week session of tele-arguments, the Court chose a case whose subject is relatable to the general public – domain names ...
