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Hanson Bridgett LLP | May 2018

The California Legislature is considering legislation that would, if enacted, prohibit public agencies that form a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) from contracting out of liability for the JPA's pension obligations. Backed by CalPERS, AB 1912 was introduced early this year partly in response to drastic CalPERS pension cuts for former employees of LA Works, a dissolved job-training JPA ...

Afridi & Angell | May 2018

The political dispute between Qatar and its neighbors escalated with the announcement by Qatar that it would impose a ban on goods from the four boycotting countries, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt. As we reported earlier, these four countries imposed a trade embargo on Qatar. The measures that were introduced prohibited the direct shipment of goods and the direct transport of passengers to or from Qatar and closed the land border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia ...

Hanson Bridgett LLP | May 2018

With Administrator Scott Pruitt at its helm, cooperative federalism is the frequently recited principle underlying recent EPA enforcement efforts. As the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory oversight in areas like the Clean Water Act is delegated to the states, the agency is relying more upon state and local authorities to enforce the laws. There are shortcomings associated with this approach, which were raised in the recent U.S ...

A common question we receive from school systems relates to whether certain employees (both service personnel and professional personnel) recapture their seniority if there has been a break in their employment with the school system but they later return to employment.  Often a break in employment is the result of a voluntary break or unfortunately a reduction in force ...

Heuking | May 2018

Many companies use so-called tracking tools on their website to analyze the use of the website by their visitors, and possibly also to carry out advertising activities on the basis of user profiles created with the tracking tools. These tracking tools mainly use cookies, i.e. small files that can identify a user of a website and that are deposited on the respective user's computer ...

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Theresa May said the government wanted to, “secure broad energy cooperation with the EU”, including by, “exploring options for the UK’s continued participation in the EU’s internal energy market” ...

On April 24, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”) announced its first enforcement action against a public company for failing to disclose a data breach. In a settled cease-and-desist order, the SEC imposed a $35 million civil penalty against Altaba Inc., formerly known as Yahoo! Inc ...

The Philippine National Privacy Commission (NPC), which administers the country’s Data Privacy Act (DPA), has recently made available to the public copies of its advisory opinions. These opinions had been issued in response to various queries regarding the proper application and interpretation of the provisions of the DPA and its implementing rules and regulations. Issue of consent Advisory Opinion No ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | April 2018

The Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision in United States ex rel. Hunt v. Cochise Consultancy, Inc., has further complicated the answer to what should be a simple question:  What is the statute of limitations in qui tam action when the government declines to intervene?  There are currently three different answers to that seemingly simple question depending on the forum in which a case is filed ...

Haynes and Boone, LLP | April 2018

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) released a Risk Alert covering the most frequent advisory fee and expense compliance issues identified in over 1,500 deficiency letters sent to registered investment advisers during the past two years. The alert highlighted six categories of compliance risks frequently observed by the OCIE ...

Afridi & Angell | April 2018

Over the past 1-2 years, a great deal of information concerning the revolutionary technology that is “blockchain” has been published on many business, legal and technology news sources, and innumerable self-proclaimed authorities on the subject have emerged to contribute articles and presentations (ourselves among them) ...

Karanovic & Partners | April 2018

Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group's annual employment law conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its' impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as "law" or "justice" ...

Simonsen Vogt Wiig AS | April 2018

An increased number of corporate transactions and mergers have been observed in the oil and gas sector on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in recent years. Several oil majors and traditional utilities and downstream companies have reduced their presence and, to some extent, been replaced by smaller companies, including start-ups backed by private equity ...

Alta QIL+4 ABOGADOS | April 2018

Guatemalan respected Judge Erika Aifan issues a historical ruling in a criminal case brought against construction companies. A plea bargain was reached under an abreviated process allowed under Guatemala´s Criminal Law where senior executives for the companies accepted making facilitation payments to the ex-Minister of Construction in order to accelerate backed payments owed for previous construction deals ...

A&L Goodbody LLP | April 2018

Increase in merger and acquisition deals notified in Ireland In recent months there has been 27 merger deals notified to Ireland's Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ("CCPC") which is up 42% from the 19 notifications as of the same date last year.This increase is following a pattern of sustained increases, for example, there had been 72 notifications across the whole of 2017 which was an increase on 2016's total of 67 ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | April 2018

As with every year, the 2018 legislative session will impact education in West Virginia in a variety of ways. Today, we want to bring to your attention two bills that will make minor – but important – changes in the way schools operate, both of which were signed by the governor last week. The first is Senate Bill 244, related to possession of deadly weapons on school grounds or at school activities ...

Karanovic & Partners | March 2018

As of recently, state aid control is a part of theMontenegrin Competition Agency's (the "Agency") scope of authority ...

Haynes and Boone, LLP | March 2018

By one account, “the cost of global ransomware attacks will exceed $11.5 billion annually by 2019, up from $5 billion last year and $325 million in 2015” – a 35X increase in just four years.1Relative to other cyber crime, ransomware is an equal opportunity enterprise—striking individuals as well as businesses of all kinds ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | March 2018

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission expanded the reach of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in several respects.   Petitioners appealed Declaratory Ruling 15-72 challenging four findings that turned TCPA law on its head.  On March 16, 2018, the DC Circuit issued a decision on that petition in ACA International v. FCC, et. al, setting aside two major FCC rulings and upholding two others ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | March 2018

This article provides a brief review of MSHA enforcement data and a look at MSHA’s regulatory agenda. MSHA Enforcement Data (data from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017) MSHA issued 104,412 enforcement actions to mine operators in 2017, an increase of approximately 11,793 or 11.3 percent from 2016. Of these, 58,083 (or 55.63 percent) were issued to metal/nonmetal operators while 46,329 (or 44.37 percent) were issued to coal operators ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | March 2018

On March 1, 2018, at the American Bar Association’s National Institute on White Collar Crime, top Department of Justice (DOJ) officials signaled expansion of DOJ’s self-disclosure policy to non-Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | March 2018

Last week, United States Attorney General Sessions announced the creation of the Department of Justice Prescription Interdiction & Litigation (PIL) Task Force to combat the prescription opioid crisis.  According to the Department of Justice (Justice), the PIL Task Force will rely on “all available criminal and civil enforcement tools” to hold those at “at every level of the [opioid] distribution system” accountable for unlawful conduct ...

Dinsmore & Shohl LLP | March 2018

In West Virginia, we are approaching another Personnel Season (for Personnel Season deadlines for the 2017-2018 school year, click here). We are often asked about the listing of individual employee names on county board of education agendas ...

A&L Goodbody LLP | February 2018

Earlier this year the European Commission published a draft Withdrawal Brexit Agreement. It is a draft treaty to embody the key principles from the Joint Report of the Commission and the UK on the first three elements of the Brexit negotiations (i.e., People, Ireland and Money - the "PIM" Phase). The draft Agreement sets out a roadmap for the EU's vision of the withdrawal process.This is a negotiating move by the EU - it is not an agreed draft. It is a move by the EU in the Brexit chess match ...

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