An owner hired a contractor to make improvements on real property, but the contractor failed to pay its subcontractors or suppliers. What happens next? Under Michigan’s Construction Lien Act, contractors, subcontractors,...more
If you are a business owner who is interested in applying for SBA financial assistance or participating in SBA programs such as the 8(a) Business Development Program, HUBZone, WOSB, EDWOSB, VOSB, or SDVOSB, you may be...more
Governor Landry recently signed into law two legislative acts that should allow Private Works Act and Public Works Act payment bond sureties to rely on defenses available to their general contractor principals in defense of...more
What You Need to Know About the New Classes of Treasury-Authorized Reinsurers in Advance of the August 9, 2024 Implementation Date - As we reported in our June 24, 2024 Legal Briefing, the US Department of the Treasury...more
The US Department of the Treasury (Treasury) has finalized a long overdue update to federal rules governing the Federal surety bond program (Program). The Final Rule (Rule) adds two new classes of reinsurers, including...more
Beginning July 1, 2024, nearly all recruiters and temporary help agencies (THAs) working with businesses or candidates in Ontario will be required to have a licence. All applications must be submitted to the Director of...more
For civil defense attorneys, “bond” is a four-letter word in more ways than one when it comes to appeals, because appeal bonds only come into play when something didn’t go right at the trial level. That being said, when the...more
Following up on our first blog post about employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) for construction companies, this post addresses surety bond requirements as well as the way in which ESOPs can incentivize employees and...more
On January 9, the State of Oregon enacted a new bill on money transmission licensing, specifically stating that “each license application shall be accompanied by a security device in the amount of $25,000.” ...more
The Appellate Court of Maryland issued a reported opinion in a case construing an American Institute of Architects (“AIA”) A312 performance bond. In Wildewood Operating Company, LLC v. WRV Holdings, LLC, et al. 2023 Md. App....more
As 2023 comes to a close, it is the perfect time to look back and review recent Oregon legislative changes that will impact the construction industry in the coming year. The 82nd Session of the Oregon Legislature...more
On October 13, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a comprehensive licensing regime for digital asset companies operating in California. Until this point, California had refrained from taking a definitive position on...more
The Opportune 2023 Study has been conducted to independently calculate the OCS plugging and abandonment (P&A) liability, assess the risk such liability poses to the U.S. taxpayer, and perform a cost-benefit analysis of how...more
As you may be aware, Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) fidelity bonds and fiduciary liability insurance are not the same. Both serve to mitigate risk for fiduciaries, and are critical aspects of an employee...more
Bond markets have been in upheaval recently, with knock-on impacts on decisions on whether to make or defend calls on performance security on construction projects. In the first quarter of this year, we saw the continued...more
Bonds can play an essential role in protecting owners from the financial risk associated with liens and other contractor claims on Texas construction projects. Two types of commonly used surety bonds are (1) bonds to...more
New York’s intention to create a comprehensive regulatory scheme is clear with the May 10th proposal of Bill 7024 on the back of the CRPTO Act that was proposed by New York Attorney General Letitia James last week. New York’s...more
In All Seasons Landscaping, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty & Surety Co., No. DBD-CV21-6039074-S, 2022 WL 1135703 (Conn. Super. Ct. April 4, 2022) the plaintiff, a subcontractor on a state project, commenced a lawsuit against the...more
In Cell-Crete Corp. v. Fed. Ins. Co., a California court awarded a surety attorneys’ fees and costs that its principal incurred defending the surety against a claim on a public-works payment bond. This is good news for...more
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (“SJC”) recently issued a slip opinion (subject to further revisions) Marengi v. 6 Forest Road LLC, SJC-13316 (December 14, 2022) setting the standard by which a court may require a...more
On September 1, 2022, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held, as a matter of first impression, that a surety is not subject to Pennsylvania’s bad faith statute, 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 8731. In Eastern Steel Constructors, Inc. v....more
Following an August 11, 2022 opinion from the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, certain irrevocable surety bonds will not be considered executory contracts in bankruptcy, even when a court applies a functional...more
In a recent decision, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that an agreement between a debtor, a surety, and third-party beneficiaries was not an executory contract and, thus, was ineligible to pass-through the...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued a June 17th Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) guidance memorandum (“Memo”) titled: Overseeing the Validity of Financial Assurance Mechanisms...more
In a recent case from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, United States ex rel. Scollick v. Narula, Case No. 1:14-cv-01339, two surety companies and the broker that issued bonds on federal construction...more