As the White House and state and local governments begin to assess business re-opening measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers are evaluating how to transition employees back to the physical workplace. As a threshold matter, employers must assess applicable state and local governmental orders for restrictions, timing, and guidelines regarding business re-opening, as the lifting of shelter-in-place orders and re-opening measures will vary by region and industry ...
Amendments to the Operating License Framework Act and the General Administrative Procedure Act are approved Today, May 10, Legislative Decree No. 1497 has been published, a standard that approves measures to promote and facilitate regulatory conditions that contribute to reduce the impact on the economy due to the health emergency caused by COVID-19, for which the Operating License Framework Act and the General Administrative Procedure Act have been amended accordingly ...
Among the many extraordinary measures taken by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the issuance of blanket waivers of certain provisions of the federal self-referral prohibition commonly known as the Stark Law. The waivers loosen significant restrictions on physician financial relationships in an effort to provide health care providers with greater flexibility to meet the challenges of the pandemic ...
In addition to proceeds from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (“SBA”) Payment Protection Program and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (“CMS”) Accelerated and Advance Payment Program, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”) recently deposited $80 billion into health care providers’ bank accounts as part of its Provider Relief Fund ...
Marijuana’s legal status has flummoxed industry observers for more than a decade. Several current proposals could provide clarity at the federal level. And Alabama appeared to be on the brink of implementing a medical marijuana regime just before the COVID-19 pandemic ground the legislative process to a halt ...
Among the many extraordinary measures taken by the federal government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is the issuance of blanket waivers of certain provisions of the federal self-referral prohibition commonly known as the Stark Law. The waivers loosen significant restrictions on physician financial relationships in an effort to provide health care providers with greater flexibility to meet the challenges of the pandemic ...
Key Points Cupertino Vallco Mall Project clears major hurdle thanks to California court's denial of writ of mandate petition from anti-housing group. Another favorable SB 35 ruling may embolden further use of the procedure for streamlining housing development in California ...
Key Points Facilities will have until the week ending June 7, 2020 to report specific COVID-19 data to the CDC or face the assessment of deficiencies and CMPs. Facilities are now required to notify residents, their representatives, and families when the facility has a confirmed COVID-19 infection or 3 instances of new onset respiratory symptoms within 72 hours ...
On April 28, 2020, the Employee Benefits Security Administration, the Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of the Treasury (the “Agencies”) signed a joint notification of relief, which was published in the Federal Register on May 4, 2020 (the “Notice”) ...
On 30 April 2020, the European Commission adopted three implementing regulations allowing temporary derogations from the strict cartel prohibition provided for by EU competition law in three specific agricultural sectors: dairy, potato and live plants and flowers. The latter sector is said to broadly cover “live trees and other plants, bulbs, roots and the like, cut flowers and ornamental foliage” ...
To limit the spread of Covid-19, all indoor and outdoor private and public cultural, festive, recreational, leisure and sport activities /events are prohibited until at least 10 May 2020 (included). Sport activities without physical contact and with a maximum of three persons are already allowed from 4 May 2020. Museums might be allowed to re-open from 18 May 2020 under strict conditions ...
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) is delaying data collection for their annual EEO-1 Report filing. The EEO-1 Employer Information Report, is a survey that is required annually for larger employers and government contractors. The survey collects employment data organized by race, ethnicity, gender, and job category ...
During this turbulent period, now is the time to evaluate your facility's admission procedures and paperwork, especially your arbitration agreement. You want to make sure that in the event of litigation they will withstand strict scrutiny by the court. Failure to do so may have dire consequences that will leave your facility vulnerable. If your admission procedures and paperwork are not sufficiently robust, a court will not enforce your facility's arbitration agreement ...
On referral from Justice Alito to the full court, the Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday denied an application to halt the enforcement of Pennsylvania Governor Wolf’s shutdown order ...
The landmark CARES Act provides many Alabama employers with several options to increase liquidity and cash flow during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. And only nine days before that legislation was enacted, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) also created two other payroll tax-related incentives for certain employers, and self-employed individuals ...
At its Voting Meeting today the Commission adopted a new standard offer contract available to any Qualifying Facility (QF) of 20 megawatts or less seeking to sell electricity to a Commission-jurisdictional utility pursuant to the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). Under PURPA, Commission-jurisdictional utilities must provide QFs the option of executing any existing PURPA contract for which they qualify ...
To contain the spread of COVID-19, the Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas (“the Competent Authority”) has extended the state of public emergency to the 31st May, 2020. New regulations have been introduced to minimize spread of the virus while allowing for a phased re-opening of the economy. This update summarizes those measures to date ...
Through Executive Decree No. 145 of 1 May 2020 (the “Executive Decree”), enacted in Official Gazette 29,015 of the same date, the Panamanian Government established certain measures related to lease agreements and eviction procedures ...
In the context of the Covid-19 legislative process, entities representing the social economy or what is often known as the third sector have already benefited from some consideration by the legislature. Certain legal arrangements have been drawn up to identify the needs and protect against the weaknesses of this charitable / socially supportive economic cluster ...
On 5 March, the CMVM published Regulation 2/2020 on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, to provide the regulations under Law 83/2017 of 18 August. The CMVM did this as the sector regulator responsible for supervising financial entities including investment companies, investment fund management companies, venturecapital companies, and securitisation companies ...
The COVID-19 pandemic is indisputably the most serious public health emergency of our times, and at the same time, a shock to the global economy. Being a field of law largely influenced by economics, it would seem inevitable that the application of competition law would not be affected by the current economic realities brought about by the coronavirus pandemic ...
On 29 April 2020, the Hong Kong Competition Tribunal (Tribunal) handed down its first ever judgment on pecuniary penalties against ten decoration contractors (Penalty Judgment) who were found to have violated the First Conduct Rule under the Competition Ordinance (Ordinance), which prohibits undertakings from entering into an agreement or engaging in a concerted practice that has the object or effect of harming competition in Hong Kong ...
The Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) is intended to provide nearly $700 billion of economic relief to small businesses adversely affected by COVID-19 ...
On Monday, for the first time in history, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments via teleconference and live-streamed the conference call to the public. And, if that was not exciting enough, to kick off a planned two-week session of tele-arguments, the Court chose a case whose subject is relatable to the general public – domain names ...
In light of the restrictions on gatherings imposed in many states due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS has issued Revenue Procedure 2020-21, which will temporarily allow public hearings to be held by teleconference. For the purposes of IRS rules, teleconference hearings will be permitted in all jurisdictions, regardless of any state or local orders or guidance on public gatherings ...
