On Monday December 19, 2011, the Department of Justice announced year-end results for False Claims Act (“FCA”) cases in fiscal year 2011. The results, summarized below, demonstrate a dramatic increase in FCA cases brought by the government and private whistleblowers. The pharmaceutical industry is the prime target at the moment, but companies with defense contracts, federal subsidies and loans, and government contracts more generally are on the enforcement radar ...
The role, and especially the liability, of corporate directors have evolved considerably over the last few decades. Obviously, the financial scandals of the 1990s are largely responsible for this change that began in the United Stated with the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 200, prompting Canadian authorities to follow suit with the adoption of more stringent securities regulations ...
TO REMEMBER •The establishment of good governance practices is useful if not essential for SMEs, their directors, shareholders and managers. •Good governance practices can protect directors against their risks of liability.•Governance must be adapted to the realities of SMEs* This adaptation is achieved by a combination of informal measures and a few formal measures ...
As promised, Part 2 of our NLRB Roundup 1 takes a step back from the case law summarized in Part 1 to address other issues surrounding the current Board and its effect on the labor law landscape, including: (i) proposed comprehensive rules altering election procedures; (ii) the NLRB’s final rules requiring employers to post notices informing employees of their rights under the NLRA; (iii) developments on the prosecutorial front relating to social media; (iv) reconsiderat
You have an unproductive employee. You suspect she isn’t getting her work done because she’s spending far too much time surfing the web and sending personal emails from her work computer during office hours. This will not do. So, you log on to her computer after hours to check her inbox and browser history. Sure enough, your suspicions are correct: she’s spending more time on Facebook than doing her job. Armed with this evidence, you call her into your office and dismiss her ...
TO REMEMBER - The establishment of good governance practices is useful if not essential for SMEs, their directors, shareholders and managers. Good governance practices can protect directors against their risks of liability. Governance must be adapted to the realities of SMEs. This adaptation is achieved by a combination of informal measures and a few formal measures ...
The Regulations on Contracting the Provision of Foreign Technical Assistance and Management Services, as provided for in Presidential Decree 273/11 of 27 October (the “Decree”), were published recently. This legislation has great relevance, on the one hand, because it aims to cover contracts for the provision of services made with non-resident entities and, on the other hand, because it introduces a number of new obligations for the parties involved in these contracts ...
You are the general counsel of a public company and your company is entering into a transaction to be acquired by another company. Your board and your stockholders want you to make sure the transaction is consummated but they also want you to make sure the company gets the best deal for its stockholders. The acquiror is also going to demand a certain level of deal security ...
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently held that a complaint does not need to meet the heightened pleading standards for fraud claims in order to satisfy the first-to-file rule under the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The first-to-file rule provides that, once a private plaintiff brings suit under the FCA, no one other than the government may intervene or bring a related suit “based on the facts underlying the pending action.” 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5) ...
We all know that the employment relationship can involve some give and take. Employees today are better educated and more aware of their rights, and accordingly more willing to voice concerns about management ...
A bill to amend the Workers Compensation Act was given 1st reading on November 3, 2011. One of the proposed amendments could significantly expand the circumstances where a worker may be entitled to compensation for work-related mental stress. Where the present section 5 ...
In a Bulletin released in March of 2011, we outlined important amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (“IRPR”) concerning temporary foreign workers ...
On October 28, 2011, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued an opinion in the Chapter 15 case of Qimonda AG (“Qimonda”).1 The bankruptcy court held that the application of § 365(n) to executory licenses to U.S. patents was required to sufficiently protect the interests of U.S ...
Haynes and Boone, LLP’s Immigration Practice Group reminds employers with a need for H-1B petitions that are subject to the annual numerical limit (“Cap-Subject”) that the annual cap for Financial Year 2012 is almost exhausted. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has announced that 49,200 H-1B petitions have been received as of October 28, 2011, fast approaching the 65,000 cap. Further, the separate U.S ...
Rejection of a contract in bankruptcy may not always accomplish a debtor’s goal to shed ongoing contractual obligations and liabilities, especially when dealing with employee benefit plans. On October 13, 2011, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals highlighted this issue in its opinion in Evans v. Sterling Chemicals, Inc ...
After a public consultation phase initiated at the end of 2010, the Portuguese Competition Authority (“PCA”) made available, at the end of July 2011, the final version of its “Guidelines on the Adoption of Remedies in the Control of Concentrations” (“Guidelines”). As clarified by the PCA, the Guidelines are “a set of de indications pertaining to the selection, design, execution and monitoring of remedies, within the procedure of previous control of concentrations between undertakings” ...
You’re the general counsel of a public company and you find out that one of your company’s stockholders intends to wage a proxy contest. Your board of directors and CEO are going to want some answers right away. How prepared are you and how do you respond? The average annual number of proxy contests has nearly doubled from 60 in 2001-2005 to 112 in 2006-2010. In 2009, activist shareholders were able to successfully gain board seats approximately 43 percent of the time ...
Although the currently effective Hungarian Civil Code does not name a call option as security, it does not prohibit the use of a call option as security either. The first question this raises, therefore, is whether Hungarian law permits the use of a call option as security? Naturally, this then creates more questions ...
The Republic of Panama, using Law No. 35 of May 10, 1996 as a basis, continues making its best efforts to provide the highest possible protection to Intellectual Property, both in the territory of the Republic of Panama as well as also cooperating with the owners of intellectual property rights ...
On September 14, 2011, the Court of Appeal of Quebec rendered a significant decision in the context of the labour dispute which occurred at the Journal de Québec (the “Journal”) in 2007-2008. This decision sheds some light on the scope of the “anti strikebreaker” provisions of the Labour Code (Quebec)1 ...
While employers oftentimes wish to monitor the behavior of their employees, which generally is a rightful intention, it is also the employees' rightful expectation for the employer to respect their privacy and personal data. In this article, we provide a brief overview of the most important rules employers must observe when monitoring their employees.Under the Hungarian Labour Code, an employer may inspect the work of its employees ...
Since our last summary, the Obama Board has taken significant steps to further outgoing Chairman Liebman’s stated goal of bringing the Board “back to life after a long period of dormancy ...
Six months on from the Davies report, Women on Board’, how much progress has been made towards the diversity at the top of UK plcs? Women are under-represented on the boards of UK companies. In 2010, only 12.5% of members of FTSE 100 companies' corporate boards were female ...
As part of the implementation or reorganization of a business structure, the integration of a trust as a shareholder of an incorporated family business can prove to be an interesting tax and estate-planning tool. This holding vehicle is being used more and more in Quebec.INTEGRATING A TRUST AS A SHAREHOLDER OF YOUR FAMILY BUSINESSDIANA DARILUS ddarilus@lavery ...
