On January 6, 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a final rule on the use of Coronavirus State & Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF) provided to state, local, and tribal governments pursuant to the American Rescue Plan (ARP). While the final rule largely includes the eligible uses of SLFRF funds described in the interim rule issued in May of 2021, the Treasury expanded and provided more detail on eligible uses ...
On March 31, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is supporting the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in administering the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and SBA issued preliminary guidance on the program and made available the form of application ...
Like many other governments, the Government of Quebec decided to invest in infrastructure to help mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and stimulate Quebec’s economy. A significant number of investments will be made in the transportation sector, and the government wants to accelerate the realisation of several previously announced transportation infrastructure projects in the greater Montréal area ...
For the enactment of Resolution 058, the CREG considered the norms provided by Article 3 of Legislative Decree 517 of 2020 and CREG Resolution 012 of 2020. The following is a brief description of these regulations’ content: (i) Article 3 of Legislative Decree 517 of 2020 provides for the possibility of CREG to adopt special temporary schemes to defer payment of invoices issued ...
How will the UK become a Net Zero-aligned Financial Centre? Last month, the UK Government announced that the UK was to be the world’s first Net Zero-aligned Financial Centre. The Institute for Government defines “net zero” as “a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere” ...
In common with the GDPR, The Data Protection (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law, 2017 (the “Law”) places restrictions on the extent to which personal data may be transferred to recipients outside the Bailiwick of Guernsey (“Guernsey”). Under the GDPR, transfers of personal data are permitted without restriction to countries that the European Commission (the “EC”) has assessed as providing an “adequate” standard of protection for personal data ...
On August 26, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that a Virginia School Board’s restroom policy constituted sex-based discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, and transgender people constitute a quasi-suspect class, entitling them to greater constitutional protections. Moreover, the court also held that the restroom policy violated Title IX, because it discriminated on the basis of sex in a public school setting ...
Last year, the UK Government published its green paper and consultation on Transforming Public Procurement. The government response to the consultation was published in December 2021 and on 11 May the draft Procurement Bill (the “Bill”) was published. You can download a copy of the Bill here ...
An increased number of corporate transactions and mergers have been observed in the oil and gas sector on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in recent years. Several oil majors and traditional utilities and downstream companies have reduced their presence and, to some extent, been replaced by smaller companies, including start-ups backed by private equity ...
Recent months have seen a flurry of developments globally towards the regulation of Artificial Intelligence. Government bodies in the US, UK and EU have released proposals and updates around regulating AI, with each approach showing important distinctions ...
Traditional knowledge (TK), for example folklore, is a controversial issue and we’ve written about it before. The government feels that TK should be legally protected, and that this should be achieved through amendments to the intellectual property (IP) statutes. The IP community has no issue with TK being protected, but it’s not very comfortable with this being done through IP legislation ...
On April 9 last, the Superior Court of Québec issued its judgement1 on a motion for a declaratory judgment pertaining to trademarks in the English language on public signs and posters. The applicants, Magasin Best Buy Ltée, Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd, Gap (Canada) Inc., Old Navy (Canada) Inc., Corporation Guess? Canada, la Compagnie Wal Mart du Canada, Toys “R” Us Canada Ltée and Curves International Inc ...
In the decision Beijing Judian Restaurant Co. Ltd. v. Wei Meng, 2022 FC 743, rendered by the Honourable Angela Furlanetto on May 18, 2022, the Federal Court clarified what constitutes bad faith in trademark law. Prior to the decision, the concept of bad faith in relation to trademarks was interpreted rather cautiously in Canadian jurisprudence. Background Beijing Judian Restaurant Co. Ltd ...
Consider this scenario: you worked hard for many years and spent thousands of dollars building your brand. You even took the proper precautions and registered your trademark with the U.S. Trademark Office. Thanks to all that effort, when consumers see or hear your brand’s name, they instantly think of your goods and services. Now, imagine someone starts selling a digital representation of a comparable product using a similar “artistic” name in the metaverse ...
The issue of Adwords has become increasingly important in trade mark law. When you buy a word from Google as an Adword, this has the effect that whenever anyone enters that word as a search term, your pop-up advert will appear on the screen together with the so-called ‘natural results’. You can buy generic words as Adwords, but you can also buy words that happen to be trade marks ...
Introduction A. Changes Since September 11. The events of September 11 have brought about an unprecedented surge of change in laws and regulations related to international trade and other aspects of global business. Companies would be well-advised to update and upgrade their trade compliance, internal monitoring and management systems to accommodate the changes that have already occurred and those yet to come. The U.S ...
In the Loop: With the Hanson Bridgett Government Group COVID-19 has changed the way California public agencies conduct their Brown Act meetings, creating new challenges and opportunities. Utilizing their experience serving as general counsel to a number of public agencies, Hanson Bridgett attorneys Claire Collins and Allison Schutte created their Top 10 list of recommendations on how to conduct virtual "Brown Act" Board Meetings to guide any public agency. 1 ...
COVID-19 has sent many employers into a workforce management tailspin. Laws, regulations, and recommendations change daily, and as the pandemic continues to affect the workplace, the risk of legal complacency increases. The list below identifies the top 10 mistakes for employers to avoid during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mistake 1: Failing To Prepare and Update a COVID-19 Response Plan ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears all U.S. patent infringement appeals, issued an order on April 26, 2010 requesting briefs from the parties in Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson, and Co. (appeal no. 2008-1511) to consider en banc the standards by which courts should find “inequitable conduct ...
