Three recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) enforcement actions underscore the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) focus on prosecuting companies and individuals for improper gifts, meals, travel, and entertainment provided to foreign officials. Avon Products, Inc ...
as published in the Fall 2021 issue of West Virginia Banker magazine As the world (hopefully) comes out of the COVID-19 pandemic later this year, the way we conduct business is changing. The banking industry, described by one commentator as “the most old-school of the old-school professions,” is criticized as being resistant to change. As one article described it, “the fundamental ways that financial institutions function have not changed with the times ...
Medical Cannabis approvals in the City have been the subject of intense negotiations, hearings, and appeals in the last two months. First, our law firm assisted the Apothecarium - Sunset (an additional location in the Sunset District for the medical cannabis dispensary called The Apothecarium currently near the Castro), in obtaining an approval at the Planning Commission ...
Individuals who participated in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (“CMS”) Quality Payment Program Merit-based Incentive Payment System (“MIPS”) in 2019 may request a Targeted Review of their performance feedback, including their MIPS final score and payment adjustment factor at the Quality Payment Program website. In July, CMS released the MIPS Performance Feedback and scores for eligible providers ...
Lauren Bowkett is a fraud and financial crime expert in the Business Crime and Compliance Team at Shoosmiths. She is an expert in confiscation proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (‘POCA’) and has successfully intervened in numerous POCA cases to assert her clients third party interest rights ...
Most employers know that they have a legal obligation to protect employees from harassment at work and to prevent it from recurring. Many employers assume that this obligation relates to harassment by employees and managers; however, it actually extends to harassment by third parties, including customers or vendors. Several recent cases brought by the U.S ...
An important, and often overlooked, arrow in the quiver of any company defending itself against potentially devastating class litigation is the implicit requirement of “ascertainability.” Before a class can be certified, a plaintiff must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the members of the class are currently and readily identifiable based on objective criteria ...
On Thursday, September 12, the Third Circuit decided United States ex rel. Chang v. Children’s Advocacy Center of Delaware, No. 18-2311. In a precedential decision, the panel held that when a relator has not requested a hearing on a government motion to dismiss a federal False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam action, the court is not required to hold an in-person hearing before dismissing the action ...
Most commentary around AI looks at the big picture or the future of work, but in this article we look at some practical data protection implications for businesses that are considering implementing AI systems. 1. Automated Decision-Making There are specific rules in both the EU and UK GDPR (in this article we will refer to both together) covering individuals’ rights when processing involves solely automated decision-making, including profiling ...
The past two years have seen significant growth in the number of mergers and acquisitions nationwide with many agriculture and farming business owners choosing to liquefy their assets and move on. At the same time, employers have had to cope with numerous challenges that have made the task of hiring and preparing I-9s for new employees more difficult. Some employers (unlawfully) stopped preparing I-9s for new hires altogether ...
As the COVID-19 pandemic has evolved, and as we noted in our prior blog post regardingvirtual annual meetings, both ISS and Glass Lewis have issued guidance on virtual meetings and annual meeting best practices in response to COVID-19. Pivoting from its focus on annual meetings, Glass Lewis has issued anew releasethat highlights certain key governance areas that they will be paying close attention to in the coming months ...
Decree-Law 30-A/2022was published on 18 April to approve the exceptional measures intended to ensure the simplification of the procedures for producing energy from renewable sources. These measures came into force on 19 April and will be in force for a period of 2 years. These exceptional measures have been published by the Government in the current macroeconomic and geopolitical situation ...
Luc Thibaudeau Lavery keeps a close eye on developments in consumer law. Its leading-edge expertise in the retail trade and class action has been pointed out many times by people involved in the field. Lavery is committed to keeping the business community informed about the issue by regularly publishing bulletins dealing with case law and legislative developments that could affect, influence and even change business practices ...
Legal Notice 201 of 2022 has been published on the 13th July 2022 and will come into force on the 2nd August 2022. These regulations were enacted with the aim of transposing the EU Work-Life Balance Directive which was introduced and became part of EU law in August 2019. The main provisions of this legal notice are the following: 1 ...
What happened? Two directors of VTL, a Jersey company, devised a fraudulent scheme. They purported to provide investors with a mechanism to decrease income tax exposure. As it turned out, the scheme was a fraud on the customers. It was also a fraud on VTL: instead of turning over around £4.55 million in proceeds from the scheme to VTL, the directors kept these funds for themselves ...
On March 28, 2020, the Act on Measures in Corporate, Cooperative, Association, Foundation, and Home Ownership Law to Combat the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic (COVID-19 Act) entered into effect. Among other things, the COVID-19 Act provides for substantial facilitations for stock corporations to hold general meetings. The most important innovation for use in practice is the possibility of holding general meetings entirely virtually, i.e ...
Looking back on 2022, what were some of the major events/trends that impacted the work you did as an offshore law firm? Do you see these impacts being felt going into 2023? Anthony McKenzie (AM): 2021 was a blockbuster year for many offshore law firms in Asia. Booming deal flow saw revenues and profits surge. In order to service their clients, law firms increased their headcount. Fast forward to 2022 and beyond and the economic outlook is very different ...
The Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents (Amendment) Act 2017 “Amendment Act”. The Act amended the Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents Act 1981 “Principal Act”. The Amendment Act Prior to coming into force of the Amendment Act, only a registered valuer, appraiser or estate agent duly authorized by the Board of Valuers, Appraisers and Estate Agents (as it was then known) was permitted to undertake property management ...
By Weiss Hamid Continuing the growing trend, Utah has become the fourth state to enact a comprehensive state privacy law, entitled the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (“UCPA”). Utah’s Senate passed the UCPA unanimously on February 25, 2022, and was followed by a unanimous vote by Utah’s House on March 2. On March 22, Governor Spencer Cox signed the UCPA, officially making it the law of the land ...
The USPTO has provided twoavenuesfor relief to trademark owners impacted by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: Applicants and registrants can claim the benefit of a30-day grace periodon many types of filings with deadlines between March 27, 2020 and April 30, 2020.1The requesting party must make the case that COVID-19 hasmaterially interferedwith meeting the deadline or paying the requisite fee. This alert mostly will elaborate on this grace period measure ...
by Oleh I. Furmanchuk, Associate with AstersAccording to the 2008 Yearly Report of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (the "AMCU"), 658 cases regarding anticompetitive actions of bodies of power were investigated by the AMCU and its bodies in 2004-2008. In 2008, the AMCU investigated 215 such cases, demonstrating a 17.5% increase compared to the previous year (there were 183 cases in 2007) ...
Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group's annual employment law conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its' impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as "law" or "justice" ...
Many companies have a keen interest in recycling and upcycling old products for resale, both for environmental and promotional purposes. But when those products contain third-party intellectual property, there can be trademark and copyright concerns. Dinsmore intellectual property partner Karen Gaunt wrote about this topic for Best Lawyers' Women in Law issue, out this month. Gaunt herself has been named a Best Lawyer multiple times since 2013. An excerpt of the article is below ...
Tackling base erosion and profit shifting remains a priority for the National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service (“SARS”). It was recently reported that in the 2021 fiscal year, SARS dealt with 345 cases of transfer pricing, base erosion and profit shifting to the value of almost ZAR12-billion. Yet, only three South African courts have dealt with transfer pricing ...
