A new rule promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) governing the disposal of coal combustion residuals, also known as CCR or coal ash, raises the risk for civil claims and the need for insurance to cover them.1 The rule, which takes effect Aug. 29, 2018, revises regulations issued in 2015 and has the stated intent of providing utilities and states “more flexibility in how CCR is managed ...
In case C-323/17 People Over Wind and Peter Sweetman v Coillte, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that mitigation measures could not be taken into account at the screening stage of an appropriate assessment. Facts This case focused on proposed works that were necessary to lay a cable connecting a wind farm to the electricity grid and the potential effects that this would have on two special areas of conservation ...
Employers must develop in-house policies laying down the right of employees to disconnect from work, with special emphasis on remote working using digital tools. Recent legislation — Organic Law 3/2018, of December 5, 2018 — not only brings Spanish law on the protection of personal data up-to-date, but also includes a section regulating the protection of citizens’ digital rights ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Massachusetts Bay Insurance Company v. Christian Funeral Directors, Inc., No. 18-5267 (6th Cir. Dec. 26, 2018), recently upheld a district court’s declination of jurisdiction over an insurer’s declaratory judgment action on coverage ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Massachusetts Bay Insurance Company v. Christian Funeral Directors, Inc., No. 18-5267 (6th Cir. Dec. 26, 2018), recently upheld a district court’s declination of jurisdiction over an insurer’s declaratory judgment action on coverage ...
Why is April 1, 2019 Important? April 1, 2019 is the first day U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may accept H-1B specialty worker petitions for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2019 ...
Minority shareholders – often forced to silently accept the rule of the majority – should be given a voice. In May last year, Jerry Low, a minority investor in Asiatic Group (Holdings), wrote an open letter to the management highlighting concerns regarding the SGX-listed company’s poor performance, juxtaposing this against the high remuneration enjoyed by its senior management team ...
The Act on Posting of Employees for Performance of Services of 10 June 2016, implementing the Posting of Workers Directive (96/71/EC) and the Enforcement Directive (2014/67/EU), imposes anumber of obligations on foreign employers posting their employees to Poland which may prove difficult to implement in practice ...
On December 19th, 2018, the Ministry of Labor published Ordinance No. 1,085/2018, for the purpose of amending Regulation No. 22 ("NR-22"), which regulates aspects related to the mining sector occupational safety and health. The reformed NR-22 therefore brings changes to the sections regarding the Disposal of Tailings, Wastes and Products and the Emergency Response Plan, within the framework of the National Policy on Dams Safety ("PNSB") ...
Under its Article 88(1), the GDPR allows Member States to draw up their own rules for the area of employee data protection. Germany has taken advantage of this option with Section 26 of the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG). The first sentence of Section 26(1) already applies while the decision to establish an employment relationship is made and hence it needs to be taken into account early in the application process ...
Beginning January 1, 2019, employers in Illinois will have new requirements for reimbursing employee expenses. An amendment to the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (IWPCA) is the first Illinois law regulating employer reimbursement for employees’ business-related expenditures. Previously, the IWPCA did not address employee reimbursement, so employers were free to implement their own rules and procedures for reimbursing employees for business expenses ...
In the latest development in an eventful year, Federal Decree-Law 24 of 2018 introduces amendments to the Federal Penal Code, originally enacted as Federal Law 3 of 1987. The amendments are designed to make the Penal Code consistent with other recent federal legislation and current federal enforcement policies. Only ten provisions of the statute have been affected, out of the more than 400 total articles contained in the statute ...
“Arbitration agreement” is defined under section 19 of the Arbitration Ordinance (Cap 609) as an agreement by the parties to submit to arbitration all or certain disputes which have arisen or which may arise between them in respect of a defined legal relationship, whether contractual or not. Disputes submitted to arbitration may involve contractual claims and non-contractual claims, such as tortious claims ...
On December 4, 2018, the Michigan Legislature pared back the minimum wage and paid sick leave laws it passed last September in an effort to preclude those issues from being on the November ballot. Had the Legislature not adopted the language of the ballot initiatives legislation, the measures would have been on the November ballot and it would have needed a vote of three-fourths of each house to amend the law if adopted by the voters ...
"What are the 'waters of the United States'? As it turns out, defining that statutory phrase—a central component of the Clean Water Act—is a contentious and difficult task." This observation, recently made by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, understates the difficulty in answering what should otherwise be an anodyne question: Does my project require a Clean Water Act permit? At this moment, answers to this question may be far from certain ...
Increased federal oversight may be on the horizon for skilled nursing facility involuntary transfers and discharges. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) included in its 2019 Work Plan reviewing SNFs’ involuntary transfers and discharges, focusing on reviewing whether State agencies have effectively investigated and enforced proper transfer and discharge procedures ...
Often, board of education members believe what happens in executive session, stays in executive session. However, you and your board’s members, both new and old, are well-served to remember that many issues, including those involving personnel, discussed in executive session are communications that may be subject to discovery in a deposition or other legal proceeding by an affected employee ...
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on December 4, 2018, inHelsinn Healthcare SA v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.as to whether the “on-sale” bar under the America Invents Act (“AIA”) renders an inventor’s private sale to a third party as prior art for purposes of determining patentability. 35 U.S.C ...
As in previous years, the California legislature kept busy in 2018. As a result, a number of new and noteworthy employment laws will go into effect on January 1, 2019, and beyond. Much of the legislation stems from the #MeToo movement by strengthening harassment and discrimination protection, imposing broader anti-harassment training obligations, updating lactation accommodations and mandating female presence on boards of public companies ...
New State Minimum Wage Effective January 1, 2019, the State minimum wage increases to $12.00 per hour for employers with 26 or more employees, and $11.50 per hour for employers with 25 or fewer employees. New Local Minimum Wages Additionally, several California cities and counties have passed their own minimum wage ordinances with a more aggressive schedule of minimum wage increases ...
View a PDF of the November 2018 Edition of the Haynes and Boone Media, Entertainment and First Amendment Newsletter. Must Websites Comply With the ADA? Website ADA compliance litigation is all the rage, manifesting itself as an epidemic of “website drive-by lawsuits.” Beyond the litigation controversy, the issue is whether websites must be accessible to the visually-impaired via screen reader software to comply with the ADA. Circuit Courts are split ...
In light of the new EU data protection scheme, shaped by the GDPR, Serbia has enacted a new Data Protection Law earlier this year, with its' applicability postponed for 21 August 2019. The new law was long-awaited: it has been 10 years since the existing law was passed, which was even at that moment already outdated (e.g. it recognized only consent in the written form and almost completely restricted data transfers to non-European countries) ...
