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Successfully navigating the Florida state court litigation system has become easier and less costly based on recent procedural and logistical developments. With more changes on the horizon, staying current on these developments…more
Coronavirus/COVID-19, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Florida, State and Local Government, State Courts
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Cybersecurity is a looming threat for most businesses. The impact of a major cyber event can resonate for weeks, months, and even years after the initial attack. To mitigate the risks to consumers, there have been several…more
Amended Rules, Compliance, Cybersecurity, Data Disposal Protocols, Data Retention
Alabama became the 36th state to allow cannabis for medical use when Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law the Darren Wesley ‘Ato’ Hall Compassion Act on May 17, 2021. The act establishes a process through which applicants will compete…more
Alabama, Cannabis Products, Legalization, Legislative Agendas, Licenses
As previously posted, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law in December 2017 (the “2017 Act”) made significant changes to the federal wealth transfer system with respect to gift and estate tax transfers during the calendar…more
Clawbacks, Estate Planning, Estate Tax, Estate-Tax Exemption, Generation-Skipping Transfer
On April 30, 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Criminal Division released a new guidance document intended to assist prosecutors in evaluating corporate compliance programs and guide corporations in creating them. The…more
Best Practices, Chief Compliance Officers, Compliance, Corporate Counsel, Corporate Culture
In an All Participants Memo dated April 10, 2020 (APM 20-03), Ginnie Mae announced that it revised and expanded its issuer assistance programs in Chapter 34 of the Mortgage Backed Securities Guide (MBS Guide) to include a…more
Bondholders, Contract Terms, Coronavirus/COVID-19, Ginnie Mae, Mortgage Lenders
In what appears to be a growing trend, state and federal regulators are launching investigations into the sales practices and administration of 403(b) retirement plans for school districts. Two weeks ago, on January 10, 2020,…more
403(b) Plans, Benefit Plan Sponsors, Broker-Dealer, Deferred Compensation, Educational Institutions
FDIC-insured depository institutions seeking CRA credit opportunities may be eligible to apply for funding to further impact the distressed communities they serve. On March 31, 2023, the Department of Treasury’s Community…more
Affordable Housing, BEA, CDFI Fund, Community Banks, FDIC
If your company is named in a new lawsuit or receives a EEOC charge, part of your review process should include checking to see if the filing complainant or plaintiff has a pending bankruptcy action. If so, the next step is to…more
Disclosure, EEOC, Employees, Employer Liability Issues, Employment Litigation
A CGL policy typically defines “your work” as the work performed by or on behalf of the insured and the materials, parts, or equipment furnished in connection with such work. “Product-completed operations” coverage usually…more
Construction Contracts, Construction Defects, Construction Industry, Construction Project, Contractors
How final is a final arbitration award? In Escapes! To the Shores Condominium Association, Inc., et al. v. Hoar Construction, LLC, and Architectural Surfaces, Inc., the plaintiff condo association argued that an arbitration…more
AL Supreme Court, Appeals, Arbitration, Arbitration Awards, Arbitrators
Most private businesses have bylaws, company agreements or partnership agreements that govern their operations, but these agreements are often silent, or not well thought out, regarding issues that may become critically…more
Business Partners, Buy-Sell Agreements, Corporate Governance, Minority Shareholders, Privately Held Corporations
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (DOL) issued a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that announced they are partnering for the purpose…more
Anti-Discrimination Policies, Department of Labor (DOL), EEOC, Enforcement, FLSA
Introduction: Lawyers as Stewards of a Noble Profession - In the final scenes of the movie “A Few Good Men” – one of the great classics of legal cinema – under dramatic, but extremely risky cross-examination by Lt. Daniel…more
Business Development, Due Process, Law Firm Associates, Law Firm Partners
Generally, an employer owns all rights in software code created by its employee in the scope of their employment. As outlined in the last edition of this series, this general rule typically applies to independent contractors so…more
Appeals, Artificial Intelligence, Authorship, Copyright, Employees
As discussed in prior posts and articles (here, here and here), in 2019 Congress passed the Small Business Reorganization Act creating new Subchapter V of Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. The purpose of Subchapter V was to…more
Bankruptcy Code, Chapter 11, Exceptions, Small Business, Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 (SBRA)
The Mississippi Supreme Court’s decision in Carrick v. Turner ex rel. Walley has the potential to expand arbitration in Mississippi. The case announces a standard for evaluating the validity of arbitration clauses that is more…more
Arbitration, Arbitration Agreements, Case Management, Discovery, Dispute Resolution
Litigating in Florida state court can be a slog. Cases move slowly, discovery can be a hassle, and scheduling is sometimes a headache. Yet judges aren’t to blame—Florida trial courts are overloaded and…more
Discovery, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, FL Supreme Court, Florida, Litigation Strategies
What promises to be the first of a litany of legal interpretations of the new Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act (MMCA), Attorney General Lynn Fitch released an official attorney general’s opinion on April 15, 2022, regarding the…more
Amended Regulation, Business Operations, Cannabis Act, Cannabis-Related Businesses (CRBs), Dispensaries
Under the Consolidated Appropriation Act of 2021 (CAA), group health plans and health insurance issuers are prohibited from entering into agreements with service providers restricting certain information that the plan may make…more
Attestation Deadlines, Benefit Plan Sponsors, Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA), Employee Benefits, Employer Group Health Plans
Can you still have noncompete agreements with your employees? What if you explicitly state that the agreement protects trade secrets or other proprietary information? There has been a lot of buzz about this issue, and recently…more
Confidentiality Agreements, Enforcement, FTC, NLRA, NLRB
The United States and China reached the first phase of a trade deal on October 11th, postponing the next round of tariffs that President Trump planned to impose on Chinese goods the following week. Under the trade deal, which is…more
Agricultural Sector, Banking Sector, China, Commercial Loans, Community Banks
Whether an arbitration agreement is enforceable is a frequently litigated matter in construction disputes. Federal policy strongly favors arbitration. Typically, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) will preempt any contrary state…more
Arbitration Agreements, Construction Contracts, Construction Industry, Federal Arbitration Act, General Contractors
The U.S. Government Accountability Office's recently issued annual bid protest report is noteworthy because it shows that 31% of bid protests were sustained — more than double the rate for prior years— and that protesters…more
Annual Reports, Bid Protests, Contract Disputes, Federal Contractors, Fiscal Year
For more than 100 years, companies and private landowners in the United States have drilled tens of millions of wells to extract oil and gas. When oil and gas wells reach the end of their productive lifespans, the owners and…more
Energy Sector, Environmental Policies, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Oil & Gas, Orphan Wells
In practice, it is not uncommon for bankruptcy debtors to file suit against creditors or debt collectors for stay and discharge injunction violations. Often, they will do so before making any meaningful attempt to communicate…more
Adversary Proceedings, Attorney's Fees, Bankruptcy Court, Chapter 13, Creditors
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) in-house enforcement proceedings violate the Constitution, teeing up a decision that could curtail securities law enforcement and broadly…more
Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), Administrative Proceedings, Civil Monetary Penalty, Constitutional Challenges, Enforcement Actions
On Thursday, September 16, the Mississippi Supreme Court reversed a $2.2 million jury verdict against Hyundai Motor Company and rendered a judgment for Hyundai, after finding that a significant number of jurors had been…more
Appeals, Compromise & Release, Daubert Standards, Jury Verdicts, MS Supreme Court
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) released an interim final rule on October 29, 2020, delaying the implementation of the information…more
21st Century Cures Act, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Civil Monetary Penalty, Compliance, Coronavirus/COVID-19
On December 27, 2022, the Second Circuit called into question the government’s theory of insider trading of confidential government agency information, potentially undercutting the DOJ’s enforcement of various white-collar…more
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Criminal Convictions, Department of Justice (DOJ), Enforcement Actions, Government Agencies
As we have repeatedly discussed this year in our Financial Services Perspectives blog, the current leadership of the CFPB has placed a significant emphasis upon fair lending. Seemingly once a month, or even more frequently at…more
Consumer Financial Products, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ECOA, Fair Lending, Financial Institutions
Last week, the California Supreme Court in T.H. v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., became the first state high court to recognize the doctrine of “innovator liability,” unanimously holding that brand-name prescription drug…more
CA Supreme Court, Generic Drugs, Innovator Liability, Life Sciences, Novartis
State securities regulators saw a busy 2021, and 2022 looks to continue in much the same fashion. Some of the more active topics for regulators have included protecting senior investors, stopping fraudulent investment schemes…more
Broker-Dealer, Cryptocurrency, Due Diligence, Investigations, Ponzi Scheme
The first Special Session of 2015 ended on Tuesday, August 11, without accomplishing the primary objective of passing a General Fund budget for the 2015-2016 fiscal year. The Governor’s “call” for the special session included…more
Business Taxes, Legislative Agendas, Legislative Process, Reciprocity Rules, Repeal
A question frequently encountered in the cannabis industry involves a cannabis user’s gun rights. This stems from the ever-present federal and state law tension overlaying marijuana in the United States — thanks to the Schedule…more
Cannabis Products, Controlled Substances, Controlled Substances Act, Firearms, Legislative Agendas
No one can escape the basic rules of contracting, even the federal government. If the contract is clear and unambiguous, then the four corners of the agreement set the rules for the project and the parties – and there’s not much…more
Ambiguous, Appeals, Bid Solicitation, Clean Water Act, Construction Contracts
In June, the South Carolina Supreme Court addressed waiver of the attorney-client privilege in bad faith refusal to provide coverage cases and found that, under South Carolina law, an insurer that asserts its subjective…more
Attorney Malpractice, Attorney-Client Privilege, Bad Faith, Commercial General Liability Policies, In Camera Review