Pet owners do not get damages at law for the wrongful death of their pets, even when caused by fraudulent and unscrupulous profiteers. Should they? For many affluent “parents” of “furkids”, it is a familiar routine come Christmas or any other holiday season: stopping by at an expensive boarding facility on the way to the airport to drop off their precious pets, rather than leaving the cute critters home alone ...
On January 25, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) returned to the common-law agency test for determining whether workers qualified as independent contractors. SuperShuttle DFW, Inc., 367 NLRB No. 75 (2019) The decision expressly overrules the Board’s decision in FedEx Home Delivery, 361 NLRB 610 (2014), enf. denied 849 F.3d 1123 (D.C. Cir. 2017) ...
Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act Overview On October 24, 2018, Congress enacted the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA) as part of the SUPPORT Act, which is a comprehensive attempt to combat the opioid epidemic. EKRA established an all-payer anti-kickback prohibition that extends to arrangements with recovery homes, clinical treatment facilities, and laboratories. Unlike the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) under 42 U.S ...
Generally, mediation and its process are foreign to most litigants. With the possible exception of the parties’ lawyers and insurance adjusters, often even the most sophisticated business clients have never been in mediation and do not fully understand the process or know what to expect. Frequently, as the mediator, in the early stages of the day I hear: “It is not my fault ...
Generally, mediation and its process are foreign to most litigants. With the possible exception of the parties’ lawyers and insurance adjusters, often even the most sophisticated business clients have never been in mediation and do not fully understand the process or know what to expect. Frequently, as the mediator, in the early stages of the day I hear: “It is not my fault ...
To raise the Reynolds privilege established in the landmark English House of Lords decision in Reynolds v Times Newspaper Ltd[1] in a defamation claim, a defendant is required to establish that the matter was one of public interest and that the defendant practised “responsible journalism” in publishing the impugned words ...
On January 21, 2019, Google was fined nearly $57 million (approximately 50 million euros) by France’s Data Protection Authority, CNIL, for an alleged violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).[1] CNIL found Google violated the GDPR based on a lack of transparency, inadequate information, and lack of valid consent regarding ad personalization. This fine is the largest imposed under the GDPR since it went into effect in May 2018 and the first to be imposed on a U.S ...
The dispute between ride sharing companies Uber and 99 is increasingly fierce. Now the main stage is Rio de Janeiro. In May 2018, Uber filed a lawsuit against 99 in the city, claiming misleading advertising. Less than two months ago, 99 began an aggressive discount campaign in the city to promote the 99Pop service in Rio, competing directly with Uber ...
Haynes and Boone CDG is proud to continue to feature a chapter in Global Arbitration Review’s (GAR)Guide to Energy Arbitrations, the Third Edition of which has just been published. TheGuide to Energy Arbitrationsis a widely regarded reference tool for energy companies, their advisers and arbitrators ...
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 ...
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 ...
In a recent opinion out of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph Contreras held that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) exceeded its authority when it substantially reduced the amount Medicare pays for 340B-acquired medications ...
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 ...
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 ...
Should States Embrace Telehealth Parity? Parity in telehealth is the notion that health services provided via telehealth technology should be treated equally as health services provided face-to-face. This is consistent with coverage parity, which requires payors to provide the same level of insurance coverage for patient encounters and services, while payment parity (a.k.a ...
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 ...
In two decisions on Friday, the Federal Circuit clarified the law of obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) and provided certainty to biopharma patent owners. In Novartis AG v. Ezra Ventures LLC, the court held that ODP does not invalidate an otherwise valid patent term extension (PTE) granted under 35 U.S.C. § 156 (extending the term of a pharmaceutical patent to compensate for regulatory delays). And in Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. v. Breckenridge Pharmaceutical Inc ...
On December 11, 2018, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene A. Depasquale released a long-awaited report discussing the role of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in Pennsylvania’s health care system ...
Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (“ISS”) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (“Glass Lewis”) recently released their 2019 proxy voting policy updates. ISS and Glass Lewis are two of the leading proxy advisory services worldwide, and each evaluates and updates their proxy voting policies annually. The key ISS and Glass Lewis updates for the 2019 proxy season are summarized below. ISS ISS published its 2019 Proxy Voting Guidelines Updates on November 19, 2018 ...
The end is near. 2018 is fast coming to a close, and it is that time of year when corporate lawyers are counting—not the number of shopping days left until Christmas, but the number weeks, days and hours left before the end of the fiscal year. Admittedly, in the scramble to close deals, insurance requirements and indemnity provisions may not be at the top of the list of critical deal points for clients and counsel ...
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 ...
