Today, the Ninth Circuit upheld California’s new law (AB 51) barring arbitration provisions in employment contracts.The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other organizations challenged the law in federal court. The district court enjoined the law, ruling that it conflicts with the Federal Arbitration Act. A divided Ninth Circuit panel reversed. Judge Lucero, a Tenth Circuit judge sitting by designation, wrote the majority opinion (joined by Judge Fletcher). Judge Ikuta dissented ...
Royal Court of Jersey (MacRae, Deputy Bailiff, and Jurats Crill and Dulake) The judgment concerned an application by a Trustee of two Jersey law trusts for the blessing of its decision to give effect to an agreement between beneficiaries regarding division of the trust assets. A key aspect of the agreement was the addition of the late settlor’s widow to the beneficial class of one of the trusts in order for her to receive benefit under it ...
The green light was recently given for two substantive changes in family law practice. First, on 15 February 2022, the Mainland Judgments in Matrimonial and Family Cases (Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement) Ordinance (Cap. 639) (Ordinance) and Rules will come into operation. Secondly, there is a new Guidance Noteon Case Management and Time Tabling in Children and Ancillary Relief Proceedings issued by the Judiciary under Practice Direction SL10.4 ...
Key Points Opponents of the proposed Oakland A's stadium at Howard Terminal argued that the Governor missed a deadline to certify the project for an expedited environmental review pursuant to Assembly Bill (AB) 734, a special purpose bill. AB 734 contained no explicit deadline for certification, but it incorporated guidelines from AB 900, as amended, which did include a certification deadline ...
In re: MaxPower Semiconductor, Inc., Appeal No. 2021-146 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 8, 2021) In its only precedential patent case this week, the Federal Circuit denied a mandamus petition relating to the PTAB’s institution of inter partes reviews of MaxPower’s patents. The case touches on, but does not completely resolve, whether the PTAB can institute inter partes reviews where the parties have agreed to arbitrate those disputes ...
In July 2021, new private law cases received by Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service) fell by over 16%. According to the latest figures published by Cafcass this week, they received a total of 3,774 new private law cases in July 2021, 740 cases (16.4%) fewer than in July 2020. Private law cases generally consist of applications made to the family court by a parent or carer of a child following a divorce or separation ...
On 7 July 2021 we hosted the second event in our webinar series on International Arbitration, Regional Perspectives and focused on arbitration in Asia ...
The effect of a successful application for a Certificate of Lawful Use is to regularise an historic, unlawful change of use of land without having to obtain planning permission ...
Belcher Pharmaceuticals, LLC v. Hospira, Inc., Appeal No. 2020-1799 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 1, 2021) In an appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding that Belcher Pharmaceuticals, LLC (“Belcher”) engaged in inequitable conduct by withholding prior art from the Patent and Trademark Office (the “PTO”) during the prosecution of Belcher’s patent ...
The real estate market in Dubai has been making significant improvements in 2021 after the successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic by the UAE. March 2021 had the highest number of transactions in 16 months as well as the highest number of secondary/ready properties transacted for foreigners in a single month since June 2015. This boom in sales resulted in record increases (23 per cent annual increase between April to June for luxury villas) ...
Corporate/M&A Amendments to the Main Market Listing Requirements following Enhanced IPO Framework On 11 August 2021, Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad (“Bursa Securities”) reviewed the Main Market Listing Requirements (“MMLR”) to ensure parity of regulation with the Securities Commission Malaysia’s (“SC”) introduction of an enhanced initial public offering (“IPO”) framework which took effect on 1 January 2021 ...
Surfside Collapse – what we know so far: On Thursday, June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:25 a.m., Champlain Towers South, a twelve-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed. The collapse was reported as the third deadliest structural engineering failure in United States history. Ninety-eight people were confirmed dead, only four people were rescued from the rubble ...
Regulation 603/2021 was approved by the Governing Board of the Institute of Public Markets, Real Estate and Construction I.P. (“IMPIC”) and came into force on 5 July 2021. The aim of this regulation (“Regulation”) is to establish and regulate the procedures to be adopted in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing in the real estate sector ...
[!<CDATA[ Effective September 1, 2021: HB 1578 closes the loophole of the previous version of Chapter 38 of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code so that parties will be able to recover attorneys’ fees from LLCs, LLPs, LPs, or other organizations in lawsuits for breach of contract. Generally, Texas law provides that each party to a lawsuit is responsible for her attorneys’ fees ...
[!<CDATA[ In one of its recent opinions, Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. Sec’y of the Army, the Federal Circuit issued new guidance on what contractors must show to prove the reasonableness of costs incurred following an (alleged) government-caused delay. The U.S. Army (the “Army”) and Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. (“KBR”) contracted for KBR to deliver thousands of trailers to Iraq by an agreed-upon deadline ...
[!<CDATA[ Multi-building condominium projects often raise unique legal issues as they do not squarely fall within the definitions used in state statutes. The Minnesota Supreme Court recently addressed the unique nature of multi-building condominium projects in Village Lofts at St. Anthony Falls Association v. Housing Partners III-Lofts ...
[!<CDATA[ This term the Supreme Court is set to resolve a circuit split over the extent of a federal district court’s power to order a person “who resides in or is found” in its district “to give testimony or statement or to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal” pursuant to 28 U.S.C Section 1782(a) ...
[!<CDATA[ In May of this year, the Supreme Court of Wyoming held that a subsidiary of Sinclair Oil could invoke statutory bad faith damages after prevailing in a coverage dispute with its insurer, Infrassure. The court rejected the district court’s analysis that accepted the insurer’s narrow interpretation of Wyoming’s insurance code ...
MLC Intellectual Property, LLC v. Micron Technology, Inc., Appeal No. 2020-1413 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 26, 2021) For those interested in an important Section 112 written description case, we recommend reading the Juno Therapeutics decision below, one of many significant precedential opinions issued this week. We choose as our Case of the Week another important decision issued this week, on the issue of damages, discovery, and expert disclosures ...
It will be news to few that the construction industry is experiencing a serious shortage of key materials. The Construction Leadership Council first warned of shortages (in timber, steel, pitched roofing, plastics, paints/coatings, some electronic components and cement – among other materials) early this year, and has reiterated its concerns since ...
On August 11, 2021, the California Court of Appeals for the Second District extended the Pebley v. Santa Clara Organics (“Pebley”) Court’s analysis as applied to the admissibility of unpaid medical liens. Based on the Court’s reading of Howell v. Hamilton Meats[1] (“Howell”) and its progeny, the Court in Malak Melvin Abdul Qaadir v. Ubaldo Gurrola Figueroa et al ...
In Apple Inc. v. Fintiv, Inc., (IPR2020-00019, Fintiv), the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) elegantly laid out six different factors that the Board currently considers in discretionarily denying institution of an Inter Partes Review (IPR) that has a parallel district court proceeding ...
