On May 21, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, No. 16-285; Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris, No. 16-300; and NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., No. 16-307 holding that an employer may require its employees to sign a dispute resolution arbitration agreement that includes an employee’s waiving the right to bring a claim on a class or collective action basis ...
In a much anticipated opinion, the Supreme Court on Monday held that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Court stated that “Congress has instructed in the Arbitration Act that arbitration agreements providing for individualized proceedings must be enforced, and neither the Arbitration Act’s saving clause nor the NLRA suggests otherwise ...
In Praxair Distrib., Inc. v. Mallinckrodt Hosp. Prods. IP Ltd., 2016-2616, -2656, in a decision authored by Judge Lourie, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the printed matter doctrine is properly applied during claim construction and can include not just printed matter, but also mental steps ...
Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its report on the direct spending and revenue effect of H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA), as passed by the House of Representatives. CBO made this estimate in conjunction with the Joint Committee on Taxation ...
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 ...
“The framework agreement is an agreement whereby the contracting parties define and establish the main rules and conditions that will govern future agreements that will be concluded between them and that are called agreements “for the application” or “for the enforcement” of the framework agreement.” (High Court of Cassation and Justice Decision n0 ...
In the decision in Rustenburg Platinum Mine and SAEWA obo Meyer Bester and Others, the Constitutional Court dealt with the question of whether an employee referring to a colleague as a “swart man” (“black man”), within the facts set out below, constituted misconduct justifying dismissal.The adjacent large 4x4 vehiclesThe employee in this matter, Mr Bester, was employed by the Rustenburg Platinum Mine (the “employer”) ...
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 ...
This article will focus on the experience in practice and the evolution of privatizations of state and socially owned companies in Serbia in the period of transition and will assess the boundaries of arbitrability of disputes that arise out of the termination of privatization agreements. The term arbitrability will be analysed from a broader perspective, as opposed to the traditional and commonly used meaning of this term - whether a certain dispute is suitable for arbitration ...
Last week I attended a student expulsion hearing and it reminded me that now might be a good time to provide some tips to county boards of education on these hearings. As we all know,W. Va. Code 18A-5-1a andState Policy 4373 require that a student be afforded a hearing before the county board of education prior to being expelled. Specifically,W. Va ...
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court recently addressed the standard to determine whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee in wage and hour disputes under California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage orders. In Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v ...
On June 1, 2018, the Los Angeles County Superior Court granted a Defendant’s Motion to Compel Individual Arbitrations of the two Plaintiffs’ wage claims, dismissed the class claims and stayed the action with regard to the remaining Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) claim. The Court, in Navarrete v. Louis Vuitton, Case No ...
On June 1, 2018, the Los Angeles County Superior Court granted a Defendant’s Motion to Compel Individual Arbitrations of the two Plaintiffs’ wage claims, dismissed the class claims and stayed the action with regard to the remaining Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) claim. The Court, in Navarrete v. Louis Vuitton, Case No ...
In the Loop: With the Hanson Bridgett Government Group Many of us have had to request reimbursement from our company for an expense, which can be a pretty complicated process. For members of a legislative body, these rules can be even more specific. We'll think about Buddy, who sits on city council. Not long ago, the City gave Buddy a city-owned tablet to allow him to do his job remotely ...
Despite its coming into force in 2001, the courts have frequently avoided commenting on the application and interpretation of the Act to Establish a Legal Framework for Information Technologies1 (hereafter the “LFIT Act”), preferring instead to rely on the provisions in the Civil Code of Québec2. In the decision of Benisty v. Kloda3, judge Jacques J ...
After a sustained legislative marketing activity that started earlier this year, Government Emergency Ordinance 45/2018 amending and supplementing certain regulatory acts with impact on public procurement was published in the Official Gazette no. 459 ...
The rule in the case of Royal British Bank v Turquand 1 is commonly known as Turquand’s Rule or the indoor management rule. It stipulates that an “outsider” dealing with a company in good faith is entitled to assume that there has been compliance with the Articles of Association. You can also assume compliance with the by laws of the company and that the “outsider” need not question the formalities of the internal proceedings of a company ...
InLagos v. United States, 584 U.S. ___ (2018), the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that limits the ability of corporate victims of fraud to seek reimbursement of legal fees for internal investigations. The case began when GE Capital discovered that Sergio Lagos falsified numerous invoices for his company, which he used as collateral to obtain tens of millions of dollars in loans from GE Capital ...
On June 21, in its much-anticipated decision inLucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the SEC’s Administrative Law Judges (“ALJs”) are officers under the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The decision requires that, moving forward, SEC ALJs be constitutionally appointed rather than hired like other employees ...
Ferdose al-Taie, Dallas-based senior counsel in Dykema’s Commercial Litigation group, authored the article “Anonymous Whistleblowers Make Millions for Reporting Their Own Companies to Federal Regulators,” forFOCUS, the quarterly newsletter of the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) South Central Texas Chapter. In the article, al-Taie shines a light on the ins and outs of Dodd-Frank Whistleblower awards and who is eligible for consideration ...
Employers may continue to rely on rounding systems that are neutral in policy and in practice. On June 25, 2018, the California Court of Appeal issued its decision in AHMC Healthcare, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (Letona), finding legal an employer's use of a payroll system that automatically rounds employee time up or down to the nearest quarter hour ...
In a significant decision for all public agencies, yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the First Amendment prohibits public employees from being compelled to pay what are known as “agency fees” when they choose not to join their union. Janus v. AFSCME, No. 16-1466 (June 27, 2018). In so holding, the Court overruled its 1977 decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, 431 U.S. 209 (1977) ...
As rapid technological changes in the 21st century continue to expand the types and volume of private electronic information, the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections are evolving. Originally, “Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was tied to common-law trespass” and provided protections against searches of property. See, United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 405 (2012) ...
In a recent judgement the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concluded that an administrator of a Facebook fan page has independent obligations under European data protection law, and will be considered joint controller with Facebook for some processing activities ...
