On April 17, 2020, OFCCP released three new directives that aim to advance outgoing Director Craig Leen’s longstanding focus on increasing the agency’s transparency and efficiency....more
On April 11, 2020, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam signed the Virginia Values Act (“Act”), which significantly strengthens the Virginia Human Rights Act’s prohibition on employment discrimination....more
On March 31, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District Court of California entered partial summary judgment in Erhart v. BofI Holding, Inc., a prominent, long-running whistleblower lawsuit under the...more
The frank discussion during the roundtable highlighted contractors’ ongoing concerns regarding OFCCP’s approach to the evaluation of the compensation of small groups of specialized employees and smaller AAP groups....more
On February 21, 2020, OFCCP announced the launch of its new Contractor Compliance Institute as part of its ongoing efforts to provide guidance and training to aid federal government contractors in meeting their compliance...more
On December 30, 2019, OFCCP issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Nondiscrimination Obligations of Federal Contractors and Subcontractors: Procedures to Resolve Potential Employment Discrimination....more
1/2/2020
/ Comment Period ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Federal Contractors ,
NPRM ,
OFCCP ,
Proposed Regulation ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Reviewability Determinations ,
Rulemaking Process
Public company directors, who are under constant threat of claims, received welcome news earlier this month. On December 9, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that corporate directors...more
1/2/2020
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
CEOs ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Directors ,
Energy Projects ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Internal Reporting ,
Investment ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Investors ,
Liquidity ,
Personal Liability ,
Public Statements ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Renewable Energy ,
Renewable Energy Investments ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities Violations ,
Shareholder Litigation ,
Subsidiaries ,
SunEdison ,
Termination ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On November 8, 2019, OFCCP released another opinion letter clarifying the extent of its jurisdiction over government contractors. In the letter, OFCCP opined that participants in the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge...more
Maintaining its recent focus on compliance issues particular to educational institutions, OFCCP published a technical assistance guide for educational institutions on October 11, 2019. The guide follows a flurry of OFCCP...more
10/21/2019
/ Affirmative Action ,
Contractors ,
Disparate Treatment ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
New Guidance ,
OFCCP ,
Opinion Letter ,
Race Discrimination ,
Student Employees ,
Tenure ,
Town Hall Meetings ,
Wage and Hour
The OFCCP opened the month of October by announcing three multimillion dollar settlements with major government contractors. The agency entered into early resolution conciliation agreements with Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and...more
10/9/2019
/ Affirmative Action ,
Bank of America ,
Bias ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Conciliation ,
Dell ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FAAP ,
Federal Contractors ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Goldman Sachs ,
Hiring & Firing ,
OFCCP ,
Race Discrimination ,
Settlement ,
Statistical Analysis ,
Wage and Hour
On September 11, 2019, the Department of Labor announced that whistleblower retaliation complaints under the Taxpayer First Act (TFA) will be handled by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). ...more
9/24/2019
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
OSHA ,
Regulatory Authority ,
Retaliation ,
Tax Fraud ,
Taxpayer First Act of 2019 (TFA) ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
Following closely on its release of guidance for higher education institutions, and its promise of a forthcoming technical assistance guide for contractors in this field, OFCCP announced it will hold a town hall forum for...more
On September 10, 2019, the California Senate passed AB5, a sweeping bill to control the use of independent contractors in the nation’s largest state. With the California Assembly concurring in the Senate’s amendments to the...more
9/18/2019
/ ABC Test ,
Dynamex ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Regulations ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Misclassification ,
Non-Exempt Employees ,
Pending Legislation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Risk Assessment ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
After devoting its first opinion letter to addressing aspects of its jurisdiction over higher education institutions, OFCCP recently provided additional guidance about the AAP obligations of educational institutions....more
On August 15, 2019, the Office of Federal Compliance Contract Programs (OFCCP) proposed a new rule broadening the religious exemption that applies to its equal employment opportunity regulations. ...more
On July 31, 2019, OFCCP Director Craig Leen gave the opening remarks at the National Industry Liaison Group conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Director Leen described several new and renewed areas of focus for OFCCP and...more
8/5/2019
/ Compensation & Benefits ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Federal Contractors ,
Internal Audit Functions ,
OFCCP ,
Policy Statement ,
Protected Activity ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Transparency ,
Veterans ,
Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA)
On August 2, 2019, OFCCP published six new compliance guides on its website. The new guides include:
OFCCP At A Glance, which provides an overview of the functions performed by OFCCP...more
On July 11, 2018, New York State enacted a sweeping new law aimed at combatting sexual harassment in the employment context. A year later, on July 22, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled...more
7/29/2019
/ #MeToo ,
Arbitration ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Labor Regulations ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Preemption ,
Sexual Harassment ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws
In a welcome development for federal government contractors, OFCCP issued its second opinion letter on July 22, 2019. The opinion letter endorsed a process through which contractors can submit proposed pay analysis groups...more
On July 15, 2019, the EEOC opened its online filing system for the submission of EEO-1 Component 2 pay data. Employers that are required to file EEO-1 reports can now submit pay data broken down by job category, pay band,...more
7/19/2019
/ Data Collection ,
EEO-1 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Filing Requirements ,
Pay Data ,
Pay Discrimination ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Wage and Hour
On August 7, 2019, OFCCP and the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) will hold a joint town hall focused on VEVRAA and USERRA compliance issues. ...more
On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, broadening the protection from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for confidential information...more
6/26/2019
/ Appeals ,
Confidential Information ,
Congressional Intent ,
Exemptions ,
FOIA ,
Food Marketing Institute v Argus Leader Media ,
Motion to Compel ,
Private Commercial or Financial Information ,
Protected Disclosures ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
SNAP Program ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Substantial-Competitive-Harm Test ,
Trade Secrets ,
USDA
On May 23, 2019, the OFCCP -- without fanfare -- issued its first opinion letter since its announcement last year that it would begin issuing opinions to provide guidance to the contractor community.
...more
On May 22, 2019, the Trump administration released its Spring 2019 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. This agenda reports on the actions that administrative agencies plan to issue in both the near and...more
6/6/2019
/ Deregulation ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Federal Contractors ,
Health Care Providers ,
Moratorium ,
NPRM ,
OFCCP ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Religious Exemption ,
TRICARE ,
Trump Administration
On April 30, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in United State ex rel. Reed v. KeyPoint Government Solutions affirmed the dismissal of an employee’s False Claims Act (FCA) whistleblower retaliation claim....more
5/15/2019
/ Appeals ,
Background Checks ,
Chief Compliance Officers ,
Employment Litigation ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Fraud ,
Internal Controls ,
Internal Reporting ,
Protected Activity ,
Retaliation ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers