Alerts

Addressing environmental justice (EJ) issues has been a primary concern for the Biden Administration. Recent developments — one in Chicago and one in Louisiana — show different ways local and state regulators have reacted to federal EJ efforts.

On May 26, 2023, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a Federal Register notice seeking public comments on anti-counterfeiting and antipiracy strategies to better address this enormous US challenge.

On May 30, 2023, Jennifer Abruzzo, General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), published a controversial enforcement memorandum.

Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries

There are major issues arising from the phaseout of the US Dollar London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR), which will soon become apparent in connection with LIBOR’s fast-approaching end date. This will dramatically impact many issuers, holders, and trustees of variable rate notes and bonds.

On May 31, 2023, the Coalition for Fair Trade in Shopping Bags filed antidumping duty (AD) petitions on certain paper shopping bags from Cambodia, China, Colombia, India, Malaysia, Portugal, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam.

In this podcast, Birgit Matthiesen speaks with Bob Kirke, the Executive Director of the Canadian Apparel Federation, who will share the very latest about Canada’s efforts to ban imports suspected of having been made with forced and child labor.

A panel of the DC Circuit ruled in a split decision that a provision that required a non-profit simply to “direct” certain executives not to disparage a former employee could be held liable for negative remarks made about the departed employee by the CEO.

Many major companies have announced a blueprint to minimize their carbon footprint. Some companies have gone so far as to proclaim that they will achieve “net zero” emissions in the near future. To accomplish their climate goals, many have turned to purchasing products called “carbon offset credits.

Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries

In a closely watched environmental Clean Water Act (CWA) case, the US Supreme Court adopted a far narrower construction of CWA’s definition of “waters of the United States,” functionally shifting significant authority over water-related issues from the federal government to the states.

The National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) longstanding policy strongly favored manual representation elections. With the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, the Board began permitting mail-ballot elections under the “extraordinary circumstances” exception to its manual ballot preference.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) applications in recent years has been accompanied by a surge in patent filings by AI developers. But like many other emerging technologies before it, AI inventions face patent eligibility challenges.

Federalism — the allocation between federal and state governments — is at the heart of American constitutional law.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued a resource outlining potential liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) for employers who utilize algorithmic decision-making technologies to make employment decisions.

On May 5, 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a landmark bill — the Crypto Regulation, Protection, Transparency, and Oversight (CRPTO) Act — that, if passed, would dramatically tighten regulation on digital assets issuers, brokers, advisors, and marketplaces operating in New York

On May 16, 2023, the Minnesota legislature passed a bill banning noncompetition agreements. The bill is expected to be signed shortly by Governor Tim Walz. The ban is set to take effect on July 1, 2023, and is not retroactive.

No company wants to be sued by its current or former employees, particularly for discrimination claims. Even if you prevail, litigating such claims inevitably exposes you to public stigma and internal discord.

In the year following the implementation of the arbitration process established under the federal No Surprises Act (NSA), more than 330,000 disputes have been submitted for resolution.

On May 18, 2023, the US Supreme Court affirmed the Second Circuit’s decision that artist Andy Warhol’s silkscreen portrait of Lynn Goldsmith’s photograph of musician Prince, used for a Vanity Fair cover, was not a fair use under US Copyright Law.

Crafting environmental regulations often takes time and substantive knowledge about complex technical and policy issues.

Headlines that Matter for Companies and Executives in Regulated Industries

Data protection assessments are required for high-risk processing activities in a rapidly growing set of federal, state, and international comprehensive privacy laws.

On May 11, the US Department of Health and Human Services ended its COVID-19 federal public health emergency declaration.

Once again, in the third such decision in fewer than two years, the US Court of Federal Claims (CFC) in January issued a decision granting a protest of, and thereby upending, a major Department of Defense (DoD) award decision.