On November 12, 2020, the Washington Supreme Court extended corporate attorney-client privilege protection to appropriate ex parte communications between defendant hospitals and their non-employee agents. The court’s decision in Hermanson v. MultiCare Health Sys., Inc ...
On November 5, 2020, the Washington Supreme Court altered a 60-year provision of Washington’s Minimum Wage Statute when it issued its decision in Martinez-Cuevas v. DeRuyter Brothers Dairy. The court held that the agricultural overtime exemption at RCW 49.46.130(2)(g), which exempted agricultural employers from paying overtime at a rate of 1.5 times the regularly hourly rate, violated article I, section 12 of the Washington State Constitution as applied to dairy workers ...
May 13, 2022 By: Alexandra Shulman Effective June 9, 2022, Washington State’s Silenced No More Act (the “Act”) will prohibit nondisclosure and nondisparagement provisions regarding illegal acts of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour violations, and sexual assault in employment agreements ...
We previously provided an update regarding the enactment of a capital gains tax (the “Tax”) in the State of Washington (read about it here). In that article, we noted the Tax was subject to at least one lawsuit in Washington. That lawsuit resulted in the trial court striking down the Tax, which caused an appeal to the Washington State Supreme Court (the “Court”) ...
April 2, 2024 By: Leah Lively and Alexandra Shulman On June 6, 2024, new amendments to Washington State’s noncompetition statute (RCW 49.62) will go into effect, which place further limitations on the use of noncompetition agreements in Washington. Substitute Senate Bill 5935 introduces several modifications to RCW 49.62 that Washington employers (and employers with Washington employees) should be aware of: Broader definition of “noncompetition covenant ...
People hoping Washington would closely follow Oregon into the regulated use of psilocybin overseen by licensed practitioners faced a delay when a committee of the Washington legislature converted Senate Bill 5263 from legalizing psilocybin services to calling for more research. On March 7, 2023, the state senate passed the substitute version of SB 5263 with 41 votes for passage and 7 opposed ...
On January 27, 2022, Governor Jay Inslee signed two bills that delay implementation of the Washington Cares Act to July 1, 2023, including the 0.58% payroll tax, and provide additional exemptions from the program. The Act provides a long-term care benefit for Washington residents who pay into a long-term care fund as employees in the state via the payroll tax ...
Over the weekend, the Washington State Legislature passed a bill that would enact a tax on gains from the sale or exchange of certain capital assets ...
Over the weekend, the Washington State Legislature passed a bill that would enact a tax on gains from the sale or exchange of certain capital assets ...
There were a lot of good green measures in the Budget and the government deserves credit for recognising the vital role that net zero transition will play in determining our future prosperity. Not just building back stronger but building back greener, with reference clearly made to the role the headline announcement of Freeports will have in supporting the delivery of the UK’s clean energy revolution ...
According to the recent insurance broker's Transactional Risk Insurance Claims Study1, the number of W&I claims have increased by 293% between 2016 and 2018 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (the EMEA-region). One explanation is of course the triple increase W&I policies issued over the same period. The W&I market have become more mature than what it was just some few years back ...
This article considers whether a notice is valid when served on a party who is specified in the Contract, but no longer holds office and lacks authority to act ...
You have the right to remain silent and to an attorney, and what you say can be used against you in a court of law. From Sergeant Joe Friday on “Dragnet” to Lennie Briscoe on “Law & Order,” millions of television viewers have been Mirandized by these all-too-familiar warnings such that they have become as much a part of police work as handcuffs and a badge ...
Stuttgart Labor Court, April 30, 2019 – 4 BV 251/18 Warnings by which employers are reprimanding the exercise of office by works council members and threatening sanctions in accordance with Section 23 Works Constitution Act (warnings under works constitution law) may not be entered in the personnel files of works council members irrespective of their lawfulness ...
A summary of the decision in Allay (UK) Limited v S Gehlen and a reminder to employers to keep equal opportunities training up to date to be able to rely on the all reasonable steps defence under s 109 (4) of the Equality Act 2010. It is common for employers to provide employees with equal opportunities training, to underpin workplace culture as well as to prevent discrimination from taking place. A recent case, however, provides a salutary reminder to keep such training up to date ...
As seen in the National Law Review: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has caused chaos in the marijuana industry and is forcing those who have made efforts to create legalized businesses in compliance with state laws to ponder whether their anticipated profits will go up in smoke. In a memo to all U.S. attorneys, Sessions rescinded Obama-era decrees that restrained prosecutors from enforcing federal drug laws in states that acted to legalize marijuana under their own laws ...
For far too long, Africa has been plagued by the demon of conflict minerals, which have played a key role in fuelling conflict and extensive human rights violations. The terrible scenes in Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remain vivid in the mind. In the history of conflict minerals, diamonds occupy the highest spot. They are valuable, portable and easily tradeable ...
When crafting a liquidation or “pass-through” agreement for a subcontractor claim against the government, the key provision from the prime contractor’s perspective is a release from any liability for the subcontractor’s claim with the exception of amounts recovered from the government related to that claim ...
When crafting a liquidation or “pass-through” agreement for a subcontractor claim against the government, the key provision from the prime contractor’s perspective is a release from liability for the subcontractor’s claim with the exception of amounts recovered from the government related to that claim. If the release language is too broad, however, the agreement may provide the government a legal defense to the pass-through claim known as the Severin doctrine ...
All eyes are on the U.S. Federal Reserve as it attempts what many are calling a tightrope walk: raising interest rates just enough to slow the economy without triggering a recession in the hope of achieving an economic soft landing. With the Fed doing everything in its power to make borrowing costlier, factors are facing a similar balancing act ...
This Article was originally published in Issue 7.5 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. Companies around the globe are having to make urgent decisions to keep their employees safe and ensure business continuity in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. In order to fulfil these goals, companies need to find the right balance between providing a safe working environment and respecting their employees’ privacy, which can prove to be quite difficult in practice ...
Recent enforcement actions initiated by the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (“BIS”) Office of Antiboycott Compliance (“OAC”) serve as a warning to U.S. persons (including U.S. companies) with business interests in and around the Middle East. It is easy for the complacent to run afoul of OAC’s Antiboycott Regulations when evaluating and responding to otherwise routine documents such as a letters of credit, shipping certificates, or purchase orders ...
According to Panamanian law, all employees must have an employment contract with some mandatory content which cannot be replaced by a job offer. Salary and working hours, must be agreed in this employment contract. The salary could be paid by month, fortnight, week, day or hour, but the practice is to negotiate a monthly salary, which must be at least equal to the minimum wage established by law ...
Employers nationwide are grappling with the new normal to balance how, where, and when their employees will work with the interests of employee health and safety and ever-tightening government mandates to self-quarantine. Below are some FLSA reminders and typical issues we are fielding from clients across many industries. Some of my employees are self-quarantined and working from home ...
