The Fourth Circuit recently held that selling contaminated drugs in violation of FDA regulations does not give rise to False Claims Act liability where compliance with the regulations is not a condition of federal reimbursement. See United States ex rel. Barry Rostholder v. Omnicare, Inc., No. 12-2431 (4th Cir. Feb. 21, 2014) ...
On May 7, the Fourth Circuit held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders, 131 S. Ct. 2296 (2011), did not apply in the context of a criminal prosecution for a violation of Rule 10b-5. See Prousalis v. Moore, No. 13-6814, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 8584 (May 7, 2014) ...
In a defendant-friendly opinion, a split panel held that conduct based on an “objectively reasonable” reading of an ambiguous statute, absent contrary circuit court precedent or agency guidance, cannot constitute “knowing” misconduct under the False Claims Act. In United States ex rel. Sheldon v ...
On March 26th, 2024, the President of the Republic enacted the Framework Law on Cybersecurity and Critical Information Infrastructure (the "Law"), after having been generally approved by the Chamber of Deputies, and the preventive control of constitutionality carried out by the Constitutional Court was concluded ...
Benchmarking is a vital tool in the development and improvement of a franchise network, and will benefit franchisees and franchisors alike. A good benchmark, whether financial and/or operational requires the communication of accurate and relevant documents and information between the franchisee and the franchisor, which is best organised in a clear and detailed manner in the franchise agreement ...
How has the use of digital technology, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributed to the rise in fraud? As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses experienced a rapid and significant increase in the use of digital technology. Bearing in mind health concerns, as well as business continuity, many businesses began to shift to widespread remote working environments ...
Embezzlement and fraud within nonprofit organizations has reached epidemic proportions. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiner’s (2020) Global Study which contains an analysis of 2,504 cases of occupational fraud that were investigated between January 2018 and September 2019, 70 percent of frauds occurred in nonprofit organizations ...
The designation of eight new Freeports within England made headlines in the Budget and now the winning bidders have to put into effect their successful proposals. What will this mean in practice for those areas affected and what are the likely issues that Freeport authorities will face? We have pulled together some questions we are asked frequently on Freeports, together with the responses we have been providing to our clients ...
British Virgin Islands entities and structures are frequently used to hold assets located onshore, outside the BVI. Sometimes these assets represent the proceeds of wrong-doing including breach of fiduciary duty, breach of express trust, or pure fraud. The vast majority of the 400,000 active BVI companies on the register tend to be holding companies, holding real property, investments, or shares in other companies including shares in trading companies ...
The French State guarantee of 300 billion euros scheme to secure loans granted by banks to companies affected by the Coronavirus pandemic. This was set up by Amendment to the French budget law for 2020 dated 23 March 2020[1] (completed by two arretés dated 23 March 2020 and 17 April 2020 and modified by the second amendment to the budget law dated 25 April 2020[2]) is already a success ...
The world will be increasingly marked by change and at ever faster speeds. Future leaders will need new skills. The three years from 2020 to 2023 will be remembered as a turning point for humanity. 2020’s opening act was the explosion of the Covid-19 pandemic which left indelible changes on how mankind organises their home, works and sets life priorities ...
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development ("DCED"), Pennsylvania businesses have until 5 p.m. on Friday, April 3, 2020 to seek an exemption to Governor Wolf's order requiring "non-life sustaining businesses" to close physical locations. Businesses that do not file their exemption by the deadline may lose the opportunity entirely. The application can be found on the DCED’s website ...
We don’t often discuss Korean trade mark cases, but a recent registry decision is worth a look because it shines a spotlight on a particularly interesting aspect of trade mark law: character merchandising.Kakao Corp is Korea’s largest mobile service provider. One of its offerings is KakaoTalk, a mobile messaging service that’s apparently used by some 154-million people around the globe ...
From chatbots to ChatGPT, AI is transforming the way that businesses interact with consumers. Businesses should be mindful of the risks surrounding the use of AI when interacting with consumers. In this article, we offer practical guidance for businesses seeking to utilise this fast-emerging technology. AI and consumer law: the pros and the cons AI and consumer protection is not a one-sided story ...
In commercial real estate transactions, time is money, execution is everything and projects generally do not move forward without a mortgage loan. Lenders and their counsel should view a project as if the lender is the eventual buyer, owner and seller. For developers, considering the transaction from a lender’s point of view can save them considerable time and money and expedite loan closing ...
Various media outlets have recently been reporting on the economic relationship between Turkey and the Balkan countries, as well as the growing interest of Turkish companies to do business in this region through acquiring or cooperating with local companies – many of which are state-owned and in the process of being put up for sale by their respective governments. If we look closer into specific examples, the numbers are supportive of this positive trend, i.e ...
Since 2010, foreign investors are allowed to sell their own goods and products through direct online distribution in China, while direct online distribution of goods of third parties is still subject to approval. Other value-added telecommunications services ("VATS") are still limited to foreign investment and subject to approval ...
Rising interest rates, inflation, and a global economic slowdown create the perfect storm, pushing some companies into financial distress. These conditions can also create opportunities for investors to make strategic acquisitions of distressed assets ...
Introductory signals, according to The Bluebook, help legal writers “organiz[e] authorities and show how authorities support or relate to a proposition given in the text.” In a perfect world, The Bluebook would be easy to follow, all lawyers would use it uniformly, and there would always be a case on point. But the practice of law is rarely perfect. Consider The Bluebook ...
Led by legal director of immigration, Rachel Harvey and employment associate, Amy Leech, this webinar provided guidance on options available for frontier workers following the end of free movement between the EU and the UK. Free movement of individuals between EU countries and the UK ended on 31 December 2020, following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union ...
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is seeking views on potential approaches to precautionary allergen labelling for prepacked and non-prepacked foods. This consultation follows new rules that came into force in relation to allergen labelling on prepacked for direct sale foods last year (see our article about Natasha’s Law here) and will consider how precautionary allergen labelling can be communicated more clearly and consistently to consumers ...
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has launched a campaign highlighting the risks of food labelled as vegan to people with allergies. Research from the FSA has shown that 62% of consumers with an animal-based allergy were confident that products labelled as ‘vegan’ were safe to eat. The FSA says this confidence is incorrect and is putting people at risk ...
The Mauritian Government announced in its 2018-2019 budget speech major changes to be brought to the Mauritian Financial Services sector which were then confirmed within the enactment of the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 2018 on 9 August 2018. This was the result of intense pressure in recent years for Mauritius to align itself with global norms and transparency standards ...
This year, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) and the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) have been modifying antitrust guidance related to healthcare, and recently enacted three notable changes. First, the FTC and DOJ jointly issued updated Draft Merger Guidelines (the “Draft Guidelines”) to address the way the agencies evaluate a merger to determine its effect on competition ...
