The Michigan Economic Development Corporation has announced the Tech Startup Stabilization Fund—a $3 million fund that will provide capital and support for Michigan tech startups impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. ID Ventures is administering the fund and accepting applications from tech startups across the state at TSSFund.com ...
On March 27, 2020, President Donald Trump signed into law a $2 trillion emergency relief bill to ease the economic impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) and support response efforts. The CARES Act[1] included an allocation of $80 million in funding to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to continue its COVID-19 response efforts. The additional agency funding will be used, in part, for the development of medical countermeasures and vaccines ...
Section 3513, one of the many provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”), addresses the handling of most federal student loans. The CARES Act suspends all loan payments through September 30, 2020, for certain types of student loans made or held by the United States Department of Education: Federal Direct Stafford Loans, Federal Direct Parent PLUS Loans, Federal Direct Grad PLUS Loans, and Federal Direct Consolidation Loans ...
Amidst the rising number of mortgage loan forbearances due to COVID-19, Ginnie Mae has stepped in to limit the damage to issuers with its PTAP/C19 program. The CARES Act provides borrowers with temporary protections in light of the economic distress caused by COVID-19. The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, includes a series of protections for borrowers whose financial security has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic ...
While the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the adoption of certain piecemeal consumer protection policies and/or guidances by individual states and the federal government, there have yet to be any sweeping changes to existing federal consumer debt collection laws or regulations in the wake of the pandemic. There has been a push, though, for the enactment of comprehensive consumer protection provisions ...
On April 17, a bill was introduced in the United States House of Representatives seeking to create the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act of 2020. The primary feature of the bill is it would suspend all rent and mortgage payments due during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning on April 1, 2020 and ending 30 days after the termination of the pandemic by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The tenants and mortgagees would have no responsibility to ever make those payments ...
Through data analysis, hospitals can track denials, improve appeals success rates and recoup revenue losses that threaten their very survival. Early last year, when Modern Healthcare reported that a deluge of reimbursement claim denials had driven U.S. hospitals toward a “crisis point,” it highlighted an alarming market imbalance between payers and providers ...
Cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and fintech companies are well experienced in dealing with legal and regulatory issues that are unique, unprecedented and global. While usually creative and oriented to solving problems, even the most flexible of teams are stretched with the onslaught of issues unfolding in the wake of COVID-19 ...
In an earlier post, we started discussing the IRS’ “John Doe” summons to Coinbase, a virtual currency exchange, to obtain information about every Coinbase user, who, at any time during the period of January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2015, conducted transactions in a convertible virtual currency as defined in IRS Notice 2014-21. One such user filed a motion to intervene in the proceeding and to quash the IRS’ summons ...
While the Trump administration looks to pass legislation aimed at Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), a lawsuit involving the extent of the CFPB’s authority and whether it can impose a $109 million penalty on a group of companies is continuing to be fought in a D.C. courtroom. In June 2015, PHH Corporation and a group of other companies asked the D.C ...
Florida legislature passes bill to add virtual currencies to money laundering statute in response to last year’s court ruling that bitcoin can’t be the basis for money laundering charges Last year, a Miami judge dismissed criminal charges against a Florida-based bitcoin seller who had been caught in a sting in which undercover law enforcement officers engaged him to convert cash into bitcoin. They told him they intended to use the bitcoin to buy stolen credit card numbers ...
If you haven’t been paying any attention for the last two weeks, you may have missed that on February 3, 2017 President Trump signed an Executive Order setting forth his administration’s core principles for regulating the United States’ financial system. The order seems to be the first step in fulfilling his campaign promise to change Dodd-Frank, the Obama-era financial law that was enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. The order contains three sections. 1 ...
On February 24, 2017, President Trump issued another executive order designed to further his administration’s agenda to reduce regulations. Entitled “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda,” the executive order continues to make clear that “[i]t is the policy of the United States to alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens placed on the American people ...
Late this afternoon, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia issued its decision in State v. AFL-CIO and upheld the constitutionality of West Virginia's “Right-Work-Act” (the Workplace Freedom Act). Justice Jenkins delivered the opinion in which our high court reversed the Circuit Court of Kanawha County and remanded the matter back to that lower court with instructions to enter Summary Judgment in favor of the State ...
If you spend any time reading about the virtual currency space, you’ve picked up that blockchain technology is creeping into hundreds of industries and countries worldwide as more and more people create ways to use the public electronic ledger to better our lives in the not-too-distant future. Money transfers, trade settlements, property and health records, and just about any other part of the human endeavor are being tweaked, changed, and disrupted by this new technology ...
In light of the declaration of a national state of disaster as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it is now likely that schools and further learning institutions in South Africa will remain closed for the foreseeable future (even after the national lockdown period) and online teaching will be inevitable. However, privacy, data protection and security are critical when teachers and learners are working remotely due to the higher risk of personal data breaches ...
The Crypto Assets Regulatory Working Group (“CAR WG”) of the Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group (“IFWG”) has released its long-anticipated position paper on crypto assets. The position paper proposes that a clear regulatory policy for crypto assets be adopted in South Africa. However, it is still recommend that crypto assets not be regarded as legal tender or public money ...
Every healthcare provider in the country is under significant operational and financial strain. Those on the front lines of emergency care are working frantically to either increase surge capacity or deal with the surge that has already come. Others are suffering financially from the stoppage of non-emergency procedures and patient visits. In the midst of this unprecedented public health crisis, there is a modicum of good news from a source that is not known for spreading joy ...
GERMAN GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO INCREASE HURDLES FOR ACQUIRING GERMAN COMPANIES IN STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT BUSINESS SECTORS On April 8, 2020, the German government adopted the draft bill of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs to amend the Foreign Trade and Payments Act (Außenwirtschaftsgesetz, AWG) ...
After the federal government’s initial rollout of its COVID-19 Economic Response Plan to provide economic measures to stabilize the economy (previously described in our blog post here), a number of voices from Canada’s business community have warned of program eligibility gaps and, in particular, that early and growth stage technology and innovation businesses have fallen through the cracks ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a burst of COVID-19-related guidance documents to facilitate expanded availability of medical products during the current public health emergency created by COVID-19. FDA-regulated products under these temporary policies include: PPE, diagnostic tests, hand sanitizers, disinfectant devices, remote monitoring devices, ventilators, and electronic thermometers for clinical use ...
The digital signature in Bolivia was created by the General Law on Telecommunications, Information and Communication Technologies No. 164, published on August 8, 2011, granting full legal and evidentiary validity to the legal act or business carried out using this technological tool. Supreme Decree No ...
The Plurinational State of Bolivia, within the framework of its governmental powers and in accordance with the Declaration of Sanitary Emergency and Quarantine established in recent days, has determined to strengthen the latest measures. The government has conviniently declared that the total quarantine, extends until April 30, 2020, maintaining the suspension of public and private activities ...
