In 2016, West Virginia had the highest death rate in the country from drug overdoses—primarily caused by opioids—at 52.0 for every 100,000 people.[1] The state was on track to exceed that number in 2017.[2] Seeking to enact policies that not only curb but reverse this upward trend, the West Virginia Legislature introduced a number of bills during the 2018 Regular Legislative Session that sought to address this disturbing epidemic. One of these, S.B ...
A New Development on the Subject (Update as of June 15th) Click Here to Read » A flurry of rulings during the last two weeks of May has generated enormous confusion regarding the status of California's two-year-old End of Life Option Act ("EOLOA"), the law that allows a terminally ill adult with a six-month prognosis to obtain aid-in-dying drugs from a physician, subject to numerous safeguards ...
The California Legislature is considering legislation that would, if enacted, prohibit public agencies that form a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) from contracting out of liability for the JPA's pension obligations. Backed by CalPERS, AB 1912 was introduced early this year partly in response to drastic CalPERS pension cuts for former employees of LA Works, a dissolved job-training JPA ...
The political dispute between Qatar and its neighbors escalated with the announcement by Qatar that it would impose a ban on goods from the four boycotting countries, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt. As we reported earlier, these four countries imposed a trade embargo on Qatar. The measures that were introduced prohibited the direct shipment of goods and the direct transport of passengers to or from Qatar and closed the land border between Qatar and Saudi Arabia ...
With Administrator Scott Pruitt at its helm, cooperative federalism is the frequently recited principle underlying recent EPA enforcement efforts. As the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory oversight in areas like the Clean Water Act is delegated to the states, the agency is relying more upon state and local authorities to enforce the laws. There are shortcomings associated with this approach, which were raised in the recent U.S ...
Healthcare Hazards Involving Medical Records During Bankruptcy Companies in the healthcare industry face many unique challenges when undergoing a bankruptcy, including challenges arising due to the federal and state law framework governing the use and disclosure of medical information. In February 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that it had reached a settlement with the receiver appointed to liquidate the assets of Filefax, Inc ...
A common question we receive from school systems relates to whether certain employees (both service personnel and professional personnel) recapture their seniority if there has been a break in their employment with the school system but they later return to employment. Often a break in employment is the result of a voluntary break or unfortunately a reduction in force ...
On April 24, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”) announced its first enforcement action against a public company for failing to disclose a data breach. In a settled cease-and-desist order, the SEC imposed a $35 million civil penalty against Altaba Inc., formerly known as Yahoo! Inc ...
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Theresa May said the government wanted to, “secure broad energy cooperation with the EU”, including by, “exploring options for the UK’s continued participation in the EU’s internal energy market” ...
The Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision in United States ex rel. Hunt v. Cochise Consultancy, Inc., has further complicated the answer to what should be a simple question: What is the statute of limitations in qui tam action when the government declines to intervene? There are currently three different answers to that seemingly simple question depending on the forum in which a case is filed ...
Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) released a Risk Alert covering the most frequent advisory fee and expense compliance issues identified in over 1,500 deficiency letters sent to registered investment advisers during the past two years. The alert highlighted six categories of compliance risks frequently observed by the OCIE ...
The manufacturer of a product generally has a duty to warn the end-consumer of any serious risks associated with that product. In the context of prescription drugs and medical devices, however, the “learned intermediary” doctrine holds that the manufacturer need not warn the end-consumer (i.e., patient). Instead, the manufacturer discharges its obligations by warning the prescribing physician ...
An increased number of corporate transactions and mergers have been observed in the oil and gas sector on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in recent years. Several oil majors and traditional utilities and downstream companies have reduced their presence and, to some extent, been replaced by smaller companies, including start-ups backed by private equity ...
Guatemalan respected Judge Erika Aifan issues a historical ruling in a criminal case brought against construction companies. A plea bargain was reached under an abreviated process allowed under Guatemala´s Criminal Law where senior executives for the companies accepted making facilitation payments to the ex-Minister of Construction in order to accelerate backed payments owed for previous construction deals ...
Increase in merger and acquisition deals notified in Ireland In recent months there has been 27 merger deals notified to Ireland's Competition and Consumer Protection Commission ("CCPC") which is up 42% from the 19 notifications as of the same date last year.This increase is following a pattern of sustained increases, for example, there had been 72 notifications across the whole of 2017 which was an increase on 2016's total of 67 ...
As with every year, the 2018 legislative session will impact education in West Virginia in a variety of ways. Today, we want to bring to your attention two bills that will make minor – but important – changes in the way schools operate, both of which were signed by the governor last week. The first is Senate Bill 244, related to possession of deadly weapons on school grounds or at school activities ...
As of recently, state aid control is a part of theMontenegrin Competition Agency's (the "Agency") scope of authority ...
This article provides a brief review of MSHA enforcement data and a look at MSHA’s regulatory agenda. MSHA Enforcement Data (data from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017) MSHA issued 104,412 enforcement actions to mine operators in 2017, an increase of approximately 11,793 or 11.3 percent from 2016. Of these, 58,083 (or 55.63 percent) were issued to metal/nonmetal operators while 46,329 (or 44.37 percent) were issued to coal operators ...
More than two and a half years after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it was re-evaluating its regulatory framework for homeopathic products, the FDA released its Draft Guidance on Drug Products Labeled as Homeopathic. The Draft Guidance summarizes the FDA’s current enforcement perspective on homeopathic products and provides a list of the FDA’s enforcement priorities ...
New rules will apply to disability benefit claims and appeals under certain plans that are subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), effective for claims made after April 1, 2018. According to the Department of Labor (DOL), the new rules are intended to provide greater protection to claimants, and are modeled on the enhanced claims and appeals procedures that apply to health benefit claims under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ...
On March 1, 2018, at the American Bar Association’s National Institute on White Collar Crime, top Department of Justice (DOJ) officials signaled expansion of DOJ’s self-disclosure policy to non-Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases ...
Last week, United States Attorney General Sessions announced the creation of the Department of Justice Prescription Interdiction & Litigation (PIL) Task Force to combat the prescription opioid crisis. According to the Department of Justice (Justice), the PIL Task Force will rely on “all available criminal and civil enforcement tools” to hold those at “at every level of the [opioid] distribution system” accountable for unlawful conduct ...
In West Virginia, we are approaching another Personnel Season (for Personnel Season deadlines for the 2017-2018 school year, click here). We are often asked about the listing of individual employee names on county board of education agendas ...
