March 8, 2022 By: Jarrett S. Osborne-Revis and Robert S. McWhorter On March 7, 2022, the California Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Sheen v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., holding that a lender does not owe a borrower a tort duty of care in considering a loan-modification request.[1] Sheen, like many other loan-modification cases resulting from the 2008 recession, arose from a dispute between the plaintiff Kwang K ...
DBN Holding, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, Appeal No. 2020-2342 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 1, 2022) The Federal Circuit issued only one precedential decision this week relating to a patent case. On this appeal—the fourth in the case—the issues were far removed from issues concerning patent law, and instead related to modifications of consent orders. Thus, we cover the case only in abbreviated form ...
In December, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal reversed a judgment in favor of a landlord holding that a contractor’s lien could not attach to the real property being improvement by a tenant of the landlord. The reversal allowed the contractor’s lien enforcement claim to proceed. K.D. Construction of Florida, Inc. v. MDM Retail Ltd, arose from improvements made to a movie theater by a contractor ...
Creating a family using surrogacy is a popular option for male same-sex couples. Surrogacy is when a woman carries and gives birth to a baby for a couple, or another person. Altruistic surrogacy is available in the UK and preliminary considerations are likely to include, which of the couple will be biologically linked to the child and what type of surrogacy will be used ...
Investors were awarded compensation under a bilateral investment treaty, but under EU law, payment of the award constitutes unlawful State aid. This Catch-22 situation is at the heart of a long-running case across jurisdictions. In the latest development, the European Commission has decided to refer the United Kingdom to the European Court of Justice in relation to a judgement of the UK’s Supreme Court to lift the stay of enforcement of an ICSID arbitration award against Romania ...
[!<CDATA[ As costly class action retirement plan litigation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) proliferates, mandatory individual arbitration has become an increasingly appealing alternative for certain benefit plans. However, the benefits of arbitration can only be realized if it is enforceable ...
This article examines whether the UK competition authority's decision means a change in the analysis of mergers in the digital economy. On 30 November 2021 the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) concluded in its Report that its concerns can only be addressed by Facebook selling GIPHY in its entirety to an approved buyer ...
The Court of Appeal has considered the question of whether it is fair and appropriate for a Court of Protection Judge to visit the person who lacks mental capacity and about whom the Judge is being asked to make a best interest decision. Mr Justice Mostyn, sitting in the Family Court, has recently provided further guidance about determining whether a party to litigation has mental capacity to litigate ...
Dinsmore taxation associate Sierra Williams wrote an article for the American Bar Association's Journal of Affordable Housing titled "Power Couples: Twinning Opportunity Zones with Other Economic Tax Incentives." An excerpt is below. Since this country’s inception, federal economic development programs have been fundamental and innovative tools to incentivize both public and private sector investment in distressed areas ...
The scope of the insured’s liability (and thus, the insurance companies’ auxiliary liability) is affected not only by national law, but also by EU legislation and case law regarding “use of a motor vehicle.” After a recent Supreme Court resolution, a contradiction between the two has emerged. Motor insurance is one of the most economically significant types of insurance policies ...
The turbulent nature of recent years, not least the impact of the global pandemic, stock market volatility, the rising cost of living and rising inflation, has left no sector of the economy untouched, and so it is for wealth management ...
The Oregon legislature is currently considering, as part of its February 2022 session, three bills that form a comprehensive set of changes to the Oregon Forest Practices Act (Senate Bill 1501), create a small forestland owner tax credit (Senate Bill 1502), and update the forest harvest tax (House Bill 4055). The bills stem from negotiations between private forestry companies, small woodland owners, conservation groups, and fishing organizations ...
With the 2022 year well under way most enterprises in Cambodia are turning their attention to their annual compliance obligations. There have been some recent changes and updates with respect to the annual compliance obligations for most enterprises in Cambodia. We have included the recent changes in our summary below ...
HMRC publishes updated guidance on termination fees and compensation payments and confirms the VAT treatment of dilapidations. On 7 February 2022, HMRC published Revenue & Customs Brief 2 (2022) (the 2022 Brief), its long-awaited updated guidance on early termination fees and compensation payments ...
Adapt Pharma Operations Limited v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., Appeal No. 2020-2106 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 10, 2022) In our Case of the Week, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in both the majority opinion and dissent, provided an extended discussion of obviousness analyses. This discussion comes in the context of the Federal Circuit affirming the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey’s finding, namely, that U.S. Patent Nos ...
In Stadler v Currys, the High Court awarded summary judgment against a claimant who alleged distress following an inadvertent data breach. Here, Philip Tansley and Kathryn Williamson consider the court's reasoning and the implications of the decision. Introduction The High Court has last week handed down yet another useful judgment for defendants facing claims for breach of UK GDPR, misuse of private information, breach of confidence and negligence as a result of a data breach ...
On February 10, 2022, the Senate passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021,H.R. 4445. It is expected to be signed by President Biden shortly. The Act did the seemingly impossible by passing on lopsided, bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate, befitting its odd-couple Senate sponsors: Kirstin Gillibrand (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ...
February 10, 2022 By: Tracy A. Warren, Kathryn B. Fox, and Michelle K. Meek On Thursday, February 9, 2022, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would prohibit companies from compelling to arbitration cases where there are allegations of sexual assault or sexual harassment, even where an employee has signed an otherwise enforceable arbitration agreement. The bill, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, was previously passed by the U.S ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends,We are pleased to bring you the latest legal updates for January 2022.Corporate/M&AAmendments to the Main and ACE Market Listing Requirements in relation to Directors’ Appointment, Independence and Miscellaneous ChangeTax & RevenueExplanation in relation to the Definition of Factory for the Purpose of Reinvestment Allowance Claim under Schedule 7A, Income Tax Act 1967 (Practice Note No ...
2021 was a doozy for business litigators — and their clients — in Florida state court. In the span of about a year, the Florida Supreme Court introduced three sweeping changes to the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure: a fresh summary judgment standard, a new apex deponent rule and immediate review of early punitive damages decisions. While these changes touch all civil litigation, they've reverberated particularly powerfully throughout the Florida business litigation world ...
The Federal Circuit issued numerous precedential opinions last week, two of which answered long simmering questions about inter partes reviews (IPRs). Below we discuss a case addressing whether admissions of prior art in the patent itself can be considered as prior art in an IPR. Our Case of the Week reversed Federal Circuit precedent concerning the scope of IPR Estoppel ...
The General Department of Taxation (“GDT”) issued Instruction no. 1972 GDT on 31 January 2022 (“Instruction 1972”) which sets out obligations for taxpayers in Cambodia that carry out projects for public interest in connection with a grant or loan agreement (“Agreement”) or memorandum of understanding (“MoU”) between the Royal Government of Cambodia and another government or national development agency or partner international organisations ...
