Employers and employees in B.C. will soon benefit from a long-awaited and wide-ranging overhaul to the Pensions Benefits Standards Act (PBSA). Significant changes to how pensions are structured and administered in B.C. have followed the passing of Bill 38 on May 31, 2012. The Bill repeals and replaces the PBSA, which has remained largely unchanged since it was first introduced in 1993 ...
In a recent decision, Jean C. Omegachem Inc.1. The Court of Appeal answered that question by ruling that an employee's refusal to sign a non-competition agreement during employment, which had been discussed when the employee was hired but presented to him three years after commencement of employment, is not a just and sufficient cause for dismissal ...
On Monday, June 11, 2012, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds v. Amgen Inc., 660 F.3d 1170 (9th Cir. 2011) to clarify the standards for certifying a class in a securities fraud suit under the fraud-on-the-market theory. The Court’s decision to revisit class certification in securities fraud suits only a year after deciding Erica P. John Fund, Inc. v. Halliburton Co., 563 U.S ...
Employers preparing for the phasing in of the new pensions auto-enrolment regime should not overlook their data protection obligationsBackground: the new pension regimeFrom October 2012 a new pensions regime will start to be phased in which will eventually require all employers in the UK to automatically enrol eligible staff into some sort of pension scheme and, importantly, for the first time, to pay minimum contributions ...
The European Convention on Human Rights applies also to legal entities.As a result, businesses and organisations can address the European Court of Human Rights if they consider that their human rights, guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights, have been violated. Although not rare in Europe, this option is still new and not widely used by companies in the Baltics ...
Section 631 of the Corporations Act provides that, once a bidder publicly announces a takeover proposal, offers under a takeover bid must be made by that bidder within two months unless ASIC grants relief ...
Luc Thibaudeau Lavery keeps a close eye on developments in consumer law. Its leading-edge expertise in the retail trade and class action has been pointed out many times by people involved in the field. Lavery is committed to keeping the business community informed about the issue by regularly publishing bulletins dealing with case law and legislative developments that could affect, influence and even change business practices ...
On February 29, 2012, the Quebec Court of Appeal reversed the judgment of the Quebec Superior Court that had dismissed the motion to authorize the bringing of A Class Action filed by Mr. Michel Dell'Aniello ("Dell'Aniello") in connection with changes made unilaterally by Vivendi Canada Inc. ("Vivendi") to the extended medical insurance benefits plan for retirees. THE FACTS In 1977, The Seagram Company Ltd ...
Agreements to compel the resolution of most employment related disputes are enforceable under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The courts, including the United States Supreme Court, have mandated the enforcement of arbitration agreements in employment cases under the FAA provided the agreements are fair, provide due process, and enable employees to preserve all the rights and remedies that they would have been entitled to in a court of law. See Circuit City Stores Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S ...
A religious organization has a constitutional right to make decisions about the hiring and firing of its “ministers” under the First Amendment. In a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Church and School v. E.E.O.C., 132 S.Ct. 694, 2012 WL 75047 (2012), the Supreme Court ruled that religious organizations can assert the “ministerial exception” under the First Amended to bar employment discrimination suits by those who can be considered “ministers” of the organization ...
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has long contended that when employers use criminal histories to make employment decisions, they run the risk of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by basing their decision on information that has an unfair impact on minorities. The EEOC recently stepped up its enforcement efforts and publicly settled with Pepsi for $3.13 million over the beverage company’s use of a blanket exclusion policy of people with criminal records ...
On May 26, 2011, in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al. v. Michael B. Whiting et al., 131 S.Ct. 1968 (2011), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld states’ rights to mandate use of the employment verification program (E-Verify) organized by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) ...
In recent months, two high-profile cases involving Hulu and Netflix have raised questions regarding the scope and application of the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”), a federal privacy law that has been the focus of increasing attention over the past few years. In the Hulu case, Hulu users claimed that the subscription-based video streaming service disclosed their viewing history to third parties ...
Lithuania's substantive competition law is similar to EU competition law; the main differences stem from enforcement rules and priorities. This update considers recent trends in this area. Competition law in Lithuania is enforced only in administrative proceedings. Unlike neighbouring Latvia, Lithuania allows for the imposition of penalties against individuals (eg, managers of a company in breach of competition law) ...
In what it described as “an easy decision,” the U.S. Supreme Court issued its eagerly anticipated decision in RadLAX Gateway Hotel, LLC et al. v. Amalgamated Bank 1 on May 29, 2012 ...
The notion of insurable interest is funa mental to insurance law as it is at the very heart of the validity of this contract. The lack of insurable interest leads to the nillity of the insurance policy and justifies the insurer's refusal to indemnify its insured1. In a decision rendered on March 2, 2012, the Court of Appeal upheld a judgment of the Superior Court2, where an insurer refused to indemnify the insured, raising its lack of interest in the property3 ...
Two recent antitrust matters serve as reminders that exchanging sensitive information with business competitors can pose significant antitrust risks – particularly when companies stray from the “safety zones” established by the federal antitrust enforcement authorities. From an antitrust perspective, agreements to exchange information present significant risks ...
On May 18, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held in Reed v. Florida Metropolitan University, Inc. that class actions are available in arbitration proceedings only if there is a contractual basis for finding that the parties agreed to class arbitration ...
You are the general counsel of a public company. You realize that stockholders (possibly hostile) have been acquiring larger positions in your company ...
On May 15, 2012, a federal district court judge for the District of Columbia struck down recent changes to the National Labor Relations Board’s representation election procedures, which were intended to streamline the Board’s representation election process. In response, the Board has halted implementation of these changes, which took effect on April 30, 2012 ...
Employers, imagine that your employees’ use of Facebook and Twitter is akin to being at the controls of a forklift. Consider the employee who is angry because he has not been adequately trained and is tired of having to be on call 24/7, or the employee who is upset because she believes overtime is being unfairly distributed among company personnel ...
The pendulum has swung again in the TOUSA, Inc. case, as the Eleventh Circuit recently overturned the decision of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida and affirmed the 2009 bankruptcy court opinion ordering the disgorgement of $403 million plus interest from lenders to the TOUSA parent, on the theory that such transfers were fraudulent as to certain TOUSA subsidiaries (the “Conveying Subsidiaries”) ...
The Minister of Manpower and Transmigration (MOM) recently issued Regulation No. 40 of 2012 on Certain Positions which are Closed to Foreign Manpower (“MOMR 40/2012”). MOMR 40/2012 lists 19 different positions, most related to human resources, which are closed to foreigners. However, MOMR 40/2012 applies to wholly owned local companies only and does not apply to foreign-owned companies (ie foreign investment companies/PMAs) ...
The Constitutional Court in Decision No. 27/PUU-IX/2011 (“Decision”) declared articles 65(7) and 66(2)(b) of Law No. 13 of 2003 (“Manpower Law“) conditionally unconstitutional where fixed-term employment contracts used in outsourcing arrangements do not provide a clause protecting the rights of existing workers when the principal company (work provider) switches outsourcing company or labour provider but the same work continues ...
Bill 33,1 whose very title announced the elimination of Union Placement of employees to improve the operations of the construction industry, was assented to on December 2, 2011, and it has raised a lot of comments. The media has made a great deal of the changes proposed in this bill regarding union placement of employees in the construction industry ...
