On Dec. 21, 2021, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a Health & Human Services (HHS) OIG Data Brief on genetic tests provided under Medicare Part B. The goal of the OIG in reviewing this data was “to analyze nationwide trends in genetic tests provided and payments made under Medicare Part B.”[1] As a result of this analysis, the OIG determined that there is a significant risk of overuse and misuse of genetic testing ...
There are numerous reasons why your pension might be in England and Wales while you are not. Perhaps you lived and worked in England or Wales then moved abroad, or you live overseas and did a stint of employment here. Whatever the situation, the majority of English and Welsh pension administrators neither recognise nor implement pension orders made in foreign courts following divorce ...
With Scotland’s population growth stalling and with labour shortages in the UK at a record high, the demand for migrant workers at all skill levels is ever-increasing. Part 1 of this insight focuses on some of the current immigration routes for consideration by Scottish employers. Scotland is more reliant on migration than the rest of the UK to maintain population and help alleviate skills shortages ...
On December 7, 2021, in Georgia v. Biden, No. 1:21-cv-163, a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate that applies to all federal contractors and subcontractors in covered contracts in any state or territory of the United States ...
A recent opinion from the Court of Appeals of Georgia illustrates that contracts entered into with an unlicensed contractor, which are often unenforceable by an unlicensed contractor under many states’ laws, likely will not defeat the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) deference to arbitration as the forum for determining whether a contract is valid and enforceable. In Jhun v. Imagine Castle, LLC, the Jhuns hired defendant Imagine Castle to perform remodeling work at their home ...
A pair of recent rulings involving the economic loss doctrine from North Carolina serve as a timely reminder to carefully consider the extent of contractual remedies in negotiation of construction agreements – lest a later breach of contract remedy prove insufficient, and further recovery barred by the economic loss doctrine ...
In November 2021, OSHA issued an Emergency Temporary Standard that applied to employers with 100 or more employees (the “ETS”). The ETS required those employers to either adopt a policy requiring their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or adopt a masking and weekly testing regime that included removing employees who tested positive for COVID-19 from the workplace ...
On Dec. 17, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ended the injunction preventing enforcement of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). The ETS requires that large employers must implement a COVID-19 vaccine mandate or testing protocol ...
Late Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an Order and Opinion lifting the stay that previously had been entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit which had prevented the OSHA COVID-19 emergency technical standard (the “ETS”) that applied to employers with 100 or more employees from going into effect ...
The case concerned the use of competitor’s brands in key word advertising on Google. Ikano Bank and two banks in the consumer loan market demanded that Bank Norwegian’s advertising on the Internet using the banks’ characteristics as paid keywords should be prohibited pursuant to the general clause of the Marketing Act. The principle character of the case was demonstrated by the support from Virke, The Federation of Norwegian Enterprise, in favor of the three claimants ...
We have been involved in several noteworthy trademark and unfair competition disputes throughout 2021. In particular, we prevailed before the Supreme Court in a highly cited unfair competition and trademark dispute between Bank Norwegian AS and the three competing banks Komplett Bank, Ikano Bank, and BRA-bank in the «Google Ads» matter ...
The court of appeal’s decision has been referred to by several law firms as an important clarification that such internal notes are indeed encompassed by privilege and not disclosable. We do of course agree that maintaining trust in the attorney-client privilege is important, but in this context, it was hardly a point that needed clarification ...
On Jan. 25, President Biden signed Executive Order 14005 (the “Executive Order on Ensuring the Future Is Made in All of America by All of America’s Workers”), which modified the Buy American Act (BAA) to require the use of more American-made components on government projects ...
With just seven days left until Christmas Day, there’s no denying we are well in the midst of the festive build up. But, for those holding out for a special ‘I Do’ surprise this year, Christmas might just come a bit earlier than expected. Predictions made previously by Bridebook [1] show that the weekend before Christmas is when most intending spouses do, in fact, pop the question ...
It may seem logical that personal injury damages awarded for someone’s on-going medical needs following a serious injury would be ring-fenced on a divorce. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. The leading authority on this point is Wagstaff v Wagstaff from 1992 in which, when referencing an attempt to ring-fence damages on divorce, it was stated that “the capital is not sacrosanct nor any part of it secured against the application of the other spouse” ...
Ahead of the 2021 holiday season, as children dream about the toys that Santa Claus will bring them, let?s take a look back at a landmark decision that reviews what is copyrightable under the Copyright Act ...
As promised, this is a more detailed discussion of the new Labour Law, which takes effect on 2 February 2022. For an initial snapshot, see myInBrief Dated 21 November 2021. In that earlier inBrief, I discussed what I thought were the most significant departures from previous law, including the new rules on termination of contracts with notice, on end-of-service gratuity, on overtime, and on non-compete clauses. Some of those earlier remarks are further developed below ...
The pandemic alongside a renewed focus on climate change following COP26 and the growing interest in ESG credentials are all contributing to a changing world of work ...
The decision in R. (on the application of Palmer) v Northern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court has confirmed that an administrator can be prosecuted and potentially incur personal liability for a failure to notify the Insolvency Service of proposed collective redundancies ...
This article reports on a judgment of the High Court in relation to a dispute between a Saudi-based company, Selevision Saudi Co (SSC), and a Qatari-based company, Bein Media Group LLC (BMG), both of which operate in the broadcasting sector. This judgment clarified the effect of Civil Procedure Rule (CPR) 62.18 and the extent to which it imported the provisions of CPR 8 into an action to enforce an arbitral award made in a foreign jurisdiction ...
AstraZeneca AB v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Appeal No. 2021-1729 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 8, 2021) Our Case of the Week again focuses on numerical values in claims. Last week we addressed a case involving whether there was written description support for a number in a claim, and we addressed a similar issue the week before. This week, our case focuses on the meaning and scope of a number in a claim ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends, Our Arbitration and Mediation partners Rabindra S. Nathan, Rodney Gomez and K. Shanti Mogan have co-authored the Malaysian chapter of The Legal 500 Country Comparative Guides: International Arbitration 2021. The Arbitration Act 2005 (“AA 2005”) applies to arbitration in Malaysia ...
