The U.S. EPA proposed a new rule under the Clean Water Act reversing the Trump Administration’s rule for water quality certifications under section 401 of the Act. Section 401 provides states and tribes with authority to protect waters within their jurisdiction from pollutant discharges originating from federally-licensed or -permitted projects ...
Many companies have a keen interest in recycling and upcycling old products for resale, both for environmental and promotional purposes. But when those products contain third-party intellectual property, there can be trademark and copyright concerns. Dinsmore intellectual property partner Karen Gaunt wrote about this topic for Best Lawyers' Women in Law issue, out this month. Gaunt herself has been named a Best Lawyer multiple times since 2013. An excerpt of the article is below ...
June 6, 2022 By: Joshua Robbins and Alexander Carroll On May 4, 2022, New Jersey federal district judge Kevin McNulty unsealed a decision ordering Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. to produce two of its former executives unredacted versions of memoranda and notes from its outside counsel’s internal investigation into foreign bribery at the company ...
Pavo Solutions LLC v. Kingston Technology Company, Inc., Appeal No. 2021-1834 (Fed. Cir. June 3, 2022) In our Case of the Week, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a $7M compensatory damages award and, in doing so, dealt with questions of when a district court can correct errors in patent claims, whether a defendant can willfully infringe a patent that has been judicially corrected, when to exclude expert testimony, and when an issue has been preserved for appeal ...
I've spent half my career helping business and real estate owners solve their problems - or at least that is what I thought I was doing as a commercial litigator. I've grown increasingly convinced, though, that most commercial cases do not belong in court. Courts are public, slow, and generally not equipped to deal with business, real estate, or land use questions. Courts don't care about fluctuations in market prices, construction seasons, or building cycles ...
With inflation in the United States ballooning 8.2% since April of 2022, government contractors with firm fixed price (FFP) contracts are looking for relief. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense (DoD) recently issued a memorandum indicating that requests for equitable adjustments will not mitigate inflation’s impact to existing FFP contracts. On May 25, 2022, DoD issued a memorandum providing “Guidance on Inflation and Economic Price Adjustments ...
Florida’s construction lien laws require a contractor to serve a contractor’s final payment affidavit “at least five days” before filing a lawsuit to enforce the lien. A general contractor recently had its lien rights reinstated when a court clarified how the number of days between the service of the affidavit and the filing of the lawsuit should be calculated and reversed a dismissal of the contractor’s lawsuit ...
The Unified Patent Court (the “UPC”), which will have jurisdiction over most European patents, is due to commence operations at some point between the final quarter of 2022 and early 2023. It has been a long time coming and is part of the ‘Unitary Patent Package’. The aim of this package is to establish unitary patent protection within Europe, and to make it cheaper and easier for patentees to obtain and enforce patents ...
Last year, the UK Government published its green paper and consultation on Transforming Public Procurement. The government response to the consultation was published in December 2021 and on 11 May the draft Procurement Bill (the “Bill”) was published. You can download a copy of the Bill here ...
Captive power generation in the Indian solar sector is, literally, a hotbed of policy and regulatory contradiction. While the Electricity Act, 2003 (“Act”) incentivises captive power generation, losing lucrative industrial and commercial customers to captive power consumption is a deeply unpopular outcome for our financially beleaguered state power distribution and transmission companies which rely on high industrial tariffs paid by such customers ...
Using evidence given at the UK COVID-19 Inquiry in later criminal or other proceedings The Chair of the UK COVID-19 Inquiry, the Rt Hon Baroness Heather Hallett DBE ...
Oklahoma joins Florida in passing its own version of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) called the “Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022.” The legislation is set to take effect on Nov. 1, 2022. The Telephone Solicitation Act (TSA) applies to telemarketing calls using an “automated system for the selection or dialing of telephone numbers or the playing of a recorded message when a connection is completed to a number called ...
JOINT NOTIFICATION 0837 ISSUED BY THE MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND THE MINISTRY OF POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS, dated 1 April 2022 On 1 April 2022, the Ministry of Commerce (“MOC”) and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications issued Joint Notification 0837 setting out requirements for locally registered companies to use a level 2 national domain name “.com.kh” and e-mail address with level 2 national domain name “.com.kh” ...
A key feature of Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (“UCITS” fund) is the Key Investor Information Document (“KIID”), which provides the retail investor with simplified information from the prospectus. UCITS also qualify as Packaged Retail Investment and Insurance Products (“PRIIPS”) ...
After months spent collaborating on a loan application and waiting for HUD’s underwriters to judge its merits, the lender and borrower are thrilled to receive the HUD firm commitment, a major milestone on the path to closing. The parties lock the interest rate, draft loan documents, fine-tune title and survey, and assemble the pre-closing submission to HUD ...
Recent reports indicate that mental health and well-being have dropped back down the business agenda, despite levels of workplace stress remaining high in the wake of the pandemic. A recent report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that many employers are failing to keep mental health and well-being at the forefront of their business agenda despite the lingering impact of the pandemic ...
On May 24, 2022, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an expansion of premium processing service to two additional categories of Form I-140 immigrant petitions. This is part of a broader push by USCIS to reduce backlogs, increase efficiency, and speed up decisions on certain previously filed Form I-140 immigrant petitions ...
Governor Mike DeWine signed Ohio House Bill 81 on June 16, 2021, codifying a significant change regarding eligibility for temporary total disability benefits (TTD) under Ohio Revised Code §4123.56(F). By enacting R.C. §4123.56(F), the legislature intended to leave behind decades of case law concerning the doctrine of voluntary abandonment ...
One of the objectives of Product Oversight and Governance requirements is for manufacturers and distributors of an insurance or investment product to take into consideration the interests of customers when designing and /or distributing the relevant product ...
On May 16, 2022, the Colorado Supreme Court issued an opinion that serves as a cautionary tale for health care providers hoping to bill patients at chargemaster rates. The court’s decision in French v. Centura Health turned on the meaning of the phrase “all charges of the Hospital,” as set forth in the hospital service agreement (HSA) signed by Ms. French. Centura argued that the phrase “unambiguously refers to a hospital’s chargemaster rates.” Ms ...
Bradley attorneys Heather Howell Wright, Elizabeth R. Brusa and Andrew Tuggle authored chapter 12 of A Practical Guide to Cyber Insurance for Businesses. This book is a practical guide for insurance brokers, underwriters, risk managers and businesses as each of these constituencies work with each other to choose the right cyber insurance product for commercial businesses ...
Aaron Harlow and Ian Hardman examine the tough new measures that are being taken to force the real estate industry to pay to remove cladding - protecting leaseholders from costs. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has requested that residential property developers fund and undertake all necessary remediation of buildings over 11m that they have had a role in developing. This includes buildings both 11-18m and 18m+ ...
Charles Arrand considers the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, with a focus on both the potential business and human costs of failing to discharge obligations under the Order. Fire safety is regulated by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (the Order), which applies to almost all buildings, places and structures other than individual private homes ...