Why is H-1B Filing Season Important? This is the only time of year (with minor exceptions indicated below) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) accepts H-1B specialty worker petitions for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2020 ...
On Jan. 8, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published an informational bulletin titled “Best Practices for Avoiding 340B Duplicate Discounts in Medicaid.”[1] The bulletin outlines seven regulatory strategies State Medicaid agencies may consider when developing policies for preventing the occurrence of duplicate discounts in Medicaid Fee-for-Services (FFS) and Medicaid Managed Care Organization (MCO) programs ...
The 2019 proxy season marked a year of continued changing voting behavior. Though patterns and trends of the past season do not seem to indicate changes beyond marginal impact, the 2019 season can serve to set expectations for the 2020 proxy season ...
New California laws could make it more difficult for employers to enforce employment arbitration agreements and now prohibit “no rehire” language in settlement agreements involving employment disputes. Arbitration Agreements The enforceability of employment arbitration agreements has long been under attack in California ...
With the New Year, California rings in a lot of legislative changes, including a new standard for evaluating independent contractor classifications. Here is what you need to know: Independent Contractors Effective Jan. 1, 2020, Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) became law in California by adding section 2750.3 to the Labor Code. AB-5 is the legislative response to the California Supreme Court decision in Dynamex v ...
The Minister of the Environment and Forestry (MOEF) has issued Regulation No. P.38/MENLHK/SETJEN/KUM.1/7/2019 on The Types of Planned Businesses and/or Activities Plans which Require an Environmental Impact Analysis (Reg 38/2019), which came into effect on 5 September 2019. Reg 38/2019 replaces Regulation No. 05 of 2012 on the same matter ...
On Nov. 20, 2019, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed the Risk Management Program Reconsideration Rule (Reconsideration Rule), which finalized changes to the 2017 Risk Management Program Amendments. The Reconsideration Rule reflects EPA’s reconsideration of its 2017 Amendments based on objections from three petitions and based on its own review. The Reconsideration Rule was effective on Dec ...
As part of Paraguay's commitment to the International Financial Action Task Force of Latin America (GAFILAT), in November 2019, the Executive Power enacted Law No. 6446 that creates a “General Directorate of People and Legal Structures and Final Beneficiaries ” Under the Ministry of Finance (hereinafter the Law), which will have the following functions: Acting as the authority of application, replacing the Treasury Law, of Law No ...
With a new year comes changes. And one change is a law tying business license applications to California's water quality laws. Beginning January 1, 2020, Senate Bill 205 will require that certain applicants for either a new business license or a renewal from cities or counties show that they are complying with the federal Clean Water Act and California's Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act ...
In November 2019, the Trump administration issued unified agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions. Within the United States Department of Labor, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (“MSHA”) issued six notices – two in the prerule stage, three in the proposed rule stage, and one in the final rule stage. All of these actions are discussed in further detail below ...
Following the discourse of the upcoming omnibus law, the government recently announced that it will submit omnibus draft bills on job creation (“Omnibus Law on Job Creation”) and taxation (“Omnibus Law on Taxation”) to the House of Representatives soon.Omnibus law has become an emerging issue ever since it was mentioned during the President’s inauguration speech on 20 October 2019 ...
According to the World Bank’s 2019 Doing Business index, Indonesia sits in 73rd position overall out of 190 countries in terms of ease of doing business. President Joko Widodo has set as a target increasing Indonesia’s ranking to 40th position. To boost investment and ease of doing business in Indonesia, in his inauguration speech on 20 October 2019, President Joko Widodo introduced the idea of enacting an Omnibus Law ...
On Dec. 3, 2019, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) in conjunction with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) issued a joint statement entitled “Providing Financial Services to Customers Engaged in Hemp-Related Businesses ...
In United States v. United States ex rel. Thrower, No. 18-16408, on November 14, a panel of the Ninth Circuit gave a skeptical reception to the Department of Justice (DOJ) argument that the district court’s denial of the government’s motion to dismiss a False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam complaint against Academy Mortgage Corporation (Academy) invaded the government’s “prosecutorial discretion ...
On 7 August 2019 the Federal Administrative Court annulled a Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) order that had limited the price increase of a medicinal product on the list of specialities to two years. The product manufacturer had requested a price increase under Article 67(2) of the Healthcare Insurance Ordinance (SR 832.102), having incurred higher costs following the loss of two suppliers ...
On November 5, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division announced the establishment of a Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF) to deter, detect, investigate, and prosecute criminal schemes that undermine the integrity of the government procurement process. One of the highlights of the PCSF is to reprioritize prosecutions of cartel conduct after a several-year decline ...
phttps://www.huntonak.com/en/insights/looking-beyond-the-fines-accountability-in-light-of-ftc-consent-orders-iapp-perspectives ...
Over the past years, the Minister of Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/ Head of the National Land Agency (“Minister”) has issued several regulations on location permits due to the progressive system established by the government for the efficiency of investments and licensing. After the Online Single Submission (“OSS”) system became applicable, the Minister issued Regulation No ...
On Oct. 31, 2019, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published its highly anticipated interim final rules, establishing the USDA Domestic Hemp Production Program to be administered by the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) ...
On November 6, 2019, the IRS announced in Notice 2019-59 cost of living adjustments to the qualified plan dollar limits for 2020. Below is a summary of the limits that are generally relevant for most retirement plans. Effective January 1, 2020: The elective deferral limit for 401(k), 403(b), and eligible 457(b) plans is increased from $19,000 to $19,500. The catch-up contribution limit for those age 50 or older is increased from $6,000 to $6,500 ...
Amid the noise, vitriol and spectacle, the real debate that we need to have about climate change has been drowned out. In the past few weeks, I have followed with much interest a Swedish child activist’s barely concealed yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Sadly, Greta Thunberg, famous for her tirades on climate change, did not win the award, despite her widely watched zero-emission Atlantic crossing in a hydro- and solar-powered yacht to address the UN General Assembly ...
By the enactment of Law No. 30 of 2002 on The Corruption Eradication Commission, which was later amended by Government Regulation in lieu of Law No. 1 of 2015 on Amendments to Law No. 30 of 2002 on The Corruption Eradication Commission (“KPK Law”), the KPK was formed in 2002 in order to reduce the corruption prevalent in Indonesia ...
