Civil forfeiture allows the government — typically police or other law enforcement — to seize and keep or sell property that is allegedly involved in a crime or illegal activity. While civil forfeiture law varies between...more
On January 29, 2024, in Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P. v. Ainslie, the Delaware Supreme Court reversed a Chancery Court holding that a forfeiture-for-competition provision in a limited partnership agreement was unenforceable as an...more
Equity and capital forfeiture for competition provisions given less scrutiny than other post-employment restrictive covenants - Companies subject to Delaware law were handed a welcome surprise in a recent Delaware Supreme...more
On January 29, 2024, the Delaware Supreme Court unanimously reversed a major Delaware Chancery Court decision that had analyzed the “forfeiture for competition” provisions in a limited partnership agreement using a...more
Delaware has long been favored by businesses for many reasons, including its courts’ deference to parties’ ability to contract. Recently, however, the Delaware Chancery Court was seemingly less deferential to restrictive...more
In a bombshell ruling last year that upended longstanding Delaware law, the Delaware Chancery Court ruled in Ainslie v. Cantor Fitzgerald, L.P., 2023 WL 106924 (Del. Ch. Jan. 4, 2023), that forfeiture-for-competition clauses,...more
The constitutionality of California’s felony forfeiture statute, as applied by the Board of Administration of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), survived yet another challenge in September 2023,...more
In 14 of our 50 states, a taxing authority which forecloses real estate for unpaid taxes is entitled to keep the full auction proceeds even beyond the owner’s debt obligation. Enabled by laws known as “surplus retention...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) obviousness decision after finding that the patent owner failed to explain how its cited extrinsic evidence supported its proposed...more
In this post we describe the parts of Bill C-19 that, if passed into law by Parliament, will introduce a property confiscation regime into the Special Economic Measures Act and the Sergei Magnitsky Law....more
As part of the United States governments effort to support Ukraine in its war against Russia, the Biden Administration sent to Congress a number of legislative proposals in addition to a supplemental request for an additional...more
This week, the Court confronted constitutional challenges to a California statute altering the test for determining whether workers are employees or independent contractors and an Arizona statute governing civil forfeitures. ...more
On September 23, 2020, the California Supreme Court issued orders in each of the four cases it had accepted for review but deferred pending its resolution of Alameda County Deputy Sheriff's Association, et al. v. Alameda...more
Ninth Circuit Determines City Did Not Have to Return guns to Wife Because Husband Posed Threat - A city’s ability to protect public safety by preventing dangerous individuals from accessing firearms was affirmed last week...more
Hogan Lovells recently represented the landlords in SHB Realisations Limited and GB Europe Management Services Limited v Cribbs Mall Nominee (1) Limited and Cribbs Mall Nominee (2) Limited, a case confirming that it is...more
On March 26, the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services is scheduled to mark up the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act of 2019. This Act aims to allow banks and financial institutions to engage in business...more
This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Timbs v. State of Indiana, one of the most anticipated cases this term. At issue is whether the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines applies to state...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced that the CEO of Indiana-based American Senior Communities (ASC) was sentenced to over 9 years in federal prison for his involvement in a “massive fraud, kickback, and money...more
The evolution of vested rights jurisprudence in California is far from over, with the Second District Court of Appeal (“DCA”) stepping into the fray with its June 19, 2018 decision, Hipsher v. Los Angeles County Employees...more
In United States v. Papas (17-cr-1591-cr), the Second Circuit remanded by summary order a $5 million forfeiture order entered in the Southern District of New York (Daniels, J.) after the defendant pleaded guilty to conspiracy...more
Health care fraud prosecutions in the Second Circuit and throughout the country have typically sought forfeiture money judgments against all defendants for the proceeds of the fraud obtained by all members of a health care...more
On June 5, 2017, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously reversed a forfeiture judgment under Section 303 of the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984, 21 U.S.C. § 853(a)(1) (“Section 853(a)”), holding that...more
On June 5, 2017, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Honeycutt v. United States (No. 16-142), holding that a criminal defendant can be held liable to forfeit only crime proceeds the defendant personally obtained,...more
On June 5th, the United States Supreme Court held in Honeycutt v. United States that a criminal defendant is not jointly and severally liable for property his co-conspirator derived from the crime, and that he only can be...more
In a pair of decisions issued on June 5, the Supreme Court sharply curtailed the scope of financial sanctions available in civil securities enforcement and criminal drug trafficking cases. In addition to the results, which...more