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Compliance
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May 16, 2024
Ex-Pharma Exec Cops To Contempt For Barred Finance Work
A Boston federal judge on Thursday accepted a former pharmaceutical company executive's guilty plea to a criminal contempt charge for using an alias to work on a finance venture despite a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ban.
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May 16, 2024
African Tax Admins Promote Use Of Voluntary Disclosures
Voluntary disclosure programs have been very effective when countries launch them in anticipation of complying with an international standard on automatic exchanges of financial account information, the African Tax Administration Forum said Thursday in guidance on the programs.
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May 16, 2024
DOL Unveils Long-Delayed Abandoned Retirement Plan Rules
After being sidelined for more than a decade, a plan for expanding U.S. Department of Labor rules for terminating retirement plans abandoned by employers are moving forward again, the agency reported Thursday, along with a long-delayed role in the process for bankruptcy trustees.
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May 16, 2024
SEC Adopts Rules For Uncovering, Reporting Data Breaches
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the adoption of cybersecurity rules Thursday that will require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised.
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May 16, 2024
New BLM Plans Sunset Federal Coal Leasing In Wyo., Mont.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Thursday unveiled court-ordered, revised resource management plans for coal-rich areas of Montana and Wyoming that end future coal leasing in the regions, a move blasted by congressional representatives of those states.
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May 16, 2024
Oil & Gas Groups Challenge DOI Overhaul Of Leasing Regs
A coalition of oil and gas groups has slapped the U.S. Department of the Interior with a lawsuit in Wyoming federal court seeking to unravel the agency's final rule boosting bonding requirements, royalty rates and minimum bids for its onshore federal oil and gas leasing program.
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May 16, 2024
Firm Seeks To Force IRS To Process Worker Retention Credits
A tax advisory firm helping businesses apply for the pandemic-era employee retention credit has asked an Arizona federal court to force the IRS to resume processing claims, saying the moratorium in place since September violates the Administrative Procedure Act.
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May 16, 2024
Ex-Minn. Public Defender Gets Probation For Tax Fraud
A former Minneapolis chief public defender who argued that he should receive a lenient sentence after resigning in disgrace amid accusations that he failed to pay taxes for years on his private law firm was sentenced to three years probation by a Minnesota federal court.
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May 16, 2024
Biden Admin Proposes To Loosen Restrictions On Marijuana
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that his administration has formally recommended relaxing restrictions on marijuana, marking the most significant federal policy shift on cannabis since the drug was criminalized more than 50 years ago.
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May 16, 2024
Top Linklaters Attys See PE Rebound In Run-Up To Elections
After a subtle uptick in private equity deal values in the first quarter, the global chair of Linklaters LLP's corporate department in New York, George Casey, and one of its top PE dealmakers in London, Alex Woodward, believe the pace of transactions is picking up and the market is primed for a comeback.
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May 16, 2024
Meta Hit With EU Probe Over Child Safety Concerns
Meta was hit on Thursday with an investigation by the European Commission over concerns its Facebook and Instagram services could promote addictions in children.
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May 16, 2024
Justices Say CFPB Is Constitutionally Funded
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutionally funded, rejecting a payday lender-backed challenge that threatened to incapacitate the agency and throw a wrench in the Biden administration's financial regulatory agenda.
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May 16, 2024
Treasury Provides Extra Relief For Bonus Energy Tax Credits
The U.S. Treasury Department provided additional safe harbors Thursday that clean energy project developers can use to qualify for bonus tax credits for domestically sourcing their steel and aluminum parts in response to the Biden administration's new trade restrictions on solar products from China.
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May 15, 2024
Arizona AG Lobs Suits Over 'Deceptive' Amazon Practices
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Wednesday filed a pair of suits claiming that Amazon Prime's cancellation process and other features are deceptive, misleading and have led to higher prices for consumers.
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May 15, 2024
SolarWinds Says SEC's Cyber Breach Suit Goes Too Far
SolarWinds Corp. on Wednesday asked a Manhattan federal judge to throw out the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's suit accusing the enterprise software company of deceiving investors about its lax cybersecurity, which left it open to a Russian hacking campaign.
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May 15, 2024
3 Things To Know About CFTC's Election Betting Proposal
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has proposed to ban the trading of event contracts tied to things like election outcomes, sporting events and the Academy Awards. Here are three things to know about a proposal that is likely to be closely watched by industry insiders, some of whom are already wrapped up in litigation with the agency over this very issue.
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May 15, 2024
Water Co. To Pay $8.5M Criminal Fine Over Accounting Claims
Wastewater treatment company Evoqua Water Technologies Corp. has reached an $8.5 million agreement with federal prosecutors allowing the company to avoid criminal charges for allegedly inflating the company's revenue by $36 million.
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May 15, 2024
'Pissed Off,' 'You Need To Go': Reps Rip FDIC's Gruenberg
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg took withering, bipartisan criticism over his agency's workplace misconduct scandal at a House hearing on Wednesday, although no new Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in directly calling for his resignation.
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May 15, 2024
Two Firms To Lead GrafTech Suit Over Environmental Issues
An Ohio federal judge on Wednesday appointed Abraham Fruchter & Twersky LLP and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP to lead a shareholder class action against GrafTech International, accusing the electrode-maker of covering up its environmental contamination in Monterrey, Mexico, in the run-up to its initial public offering.
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May 15, 2024
Georgia Justices Weigh State Immunity In Trooper's Wage Suit
Georgia's Department of Public Safety urged the state's highest court on Wednesday to undo a Georgia Court of Appeals decision that revived a state trooper's suit alleging that the department failed to pay him owed overtime for time spent in training, arguing that the state never waived its sovereign immunity privilege.
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May 15, 2024
Flexibility In Info Security Policy May Add Compliance Burden
New federal guidance for contractors handling sensitive, but unclassified information could introduce confusion and compliance burdens if agencies implement security controls without consulting contractors.
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May 15, 2024
Noncompete Rule Challenge Gets More Backing
A slew of business groups have thrown their support behind a challenge of the Federal Trade Commission's sweeping ban on noncompete clauses for employees, saying the rule relies on "cherrypicked" data to back a policy preferred by the FTC's majority.
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May 15, 2024
House Reauthorizes NTIA, But Agency Takes Heat From GOP
The U.S. House voted late Wednesday to reauthorize the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, hours after Republicans on a key oversight committee blasted the agency for its handling of the government's $42.5 billion broadband deployment effort.
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May 15, 2024
WWE Says $3M Deal Sends McMahon Sex Suit To Arbitration
World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. is joining a bid by former CEO Vincent McMahon to send a suit from a woman accusing him and the organization of sex trafficking and harassment to arbitration, saying she agreed to and signed a $3 million separation agreement that includes an arbitration clause.
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May 15, 2024
Don't Make Network Outage Reporting Mandatory, FCC Told
Telecommunications industry groups are telling the Federal Communications Commission that rules requiring mandatory broadband outage reporting would burden small and rural providers and potentially distract from outage response.
Expert Analysis
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5 Takeaways From SAP's Foreign Bribery Resolutions
German software company SAP’s recent settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, resolving allegations of foreign bribery, provide insights into government enforcement priorities, and how corporations should structure their compliance programs to reduce liability, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
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Series
Serving As A Sheriff's Deputy Made Me A Better Lawyer
Skills developed during my work as a reserve deputy — where there was a need to always be prepared, decisive and articulate — transferred to my practice as an intellectual property litigator, and my experience taught me that clients often appreciate and relate to the desire to participate in extracurricular activities, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.
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10 Ransomware Issues GCs Should Have On Their Radar
As the ransomware threat landscape rapidly evolves, in-house counsel should expect to face a number of challenging dynamics, including the need to justify any ransom payments both to internal and external stakeholders, and data extortion demands that are bypassing the encryption stage, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.
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Opinion
The SEC Is Engaging In Regulation By Destruction
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent use of regulation by enforcement against digital assets indicates it's more interested in causing harm to crypto companies than providing guidance to the markets or protecting investors, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.
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Former Minn. Chief Justice Instructs On Writing Better Briefs
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, now at Greenberg Traurig, offers strategies on writing more effective appellate briefs from her time on the bench.
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Preparing For Possible Calif. Criminal Antitrust Enforcement
Though a recent announcement that the California Attorney General's Office will resume criminal prosecutions in support of its antitrust enforcement may be mere saber-rattling, companies and their counsel should nevertheless be prepared for interactions with the California AG's Antitrust Section that are not limited to civil liability issues, say Dylan Ballard and Lillian Sun at V&E.
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What To Know About IRS' New Jet Use Audit Campaign
The Internal Revenue Service recently announced plans to open several dozen audits scrutinizing executive use of company jets, so companies should be prepared to show the business reasons for travel, and how items like imputed income and deduction disallowance were calculated, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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ShapeShift Fine Epitomizes SEC's Crypto Policy, And Its Flaws
A recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission order imposing a fine on former cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift for failing to register as a securities dealer showcases the SEC's regulation-by-enforcement approach, but the dissent by two commissioners raises valid concerns that the agency's embrace of ambiguity over clarity risks hampering the growth of the crypto economy, says Keith Blackman at Bracewell.
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2nd Circ. Adviser Liability Ruling May Shape SEC Enforcement
The Second Circuit’s recent decision in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Rashid, applying basic negligence principles to reverse a finding of investment adviser liability, provides a road map for future fraud enforcement proceedings, says Elisha Kobre at Bradley Arant.
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Stay Interviews Are Key To Retaining Legal Talent
Even as the economy shifts and layoffs continue, law firms still want to retain their top attorneys, and so-called stay interviews — informal conversations with employees to identify potential issues before they lead to turnover — can be a crucial tool for improving retention and morale, say Tina Cohen Nicol and Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.
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Overdraft Opt-In Practices Hold Risks For Banks
A recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau action against Atlantic Union Bank regarding overdraft opt-in sales practices highlights compliance risks that financial institutions must be aware of, especially when enrolling customers by phone, says Kristen Larson at Ballard Spahr.
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AI In Accounting Raises OT Exemption Questions
A recent surge in the use of artificial intelligence in accounting work calls into question whether professionals in the industry can argue they are no longer overtime exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act, highlighting how technology could test the limits of the law for a variety of professions, say Bradford Kelley at Littler and Stephen Malone at Peloton Interactive.
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New Concerns, Same Tune At This Year's SIFMA Conference
At this year's Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference on legal developments affecting the financial services industry, government regulators’ emphasis on whistleblowing and AI washing represented a new refrain in an increasingly familiar chorus calling for prompt and thorough corporate cooperation, say attorneys at Fried Frank.
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Ruling In La. May Undercut EPA Enviro Justice Efforts
A Louisiana federal court's recent decision in Louisiana v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will likely serve as a template for other states to oppose the EPA's use of disparate impact analyses in Title VI civil rights cases aimed at advancing environmental justice policies and investigations, say Jonathan Brightbill and Joshua Brown at Winston & Strawn.
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Opinion
Intoxicating Hemp Products: It's High Time For Clarity
Thanks to ambiguity in the 2018 Farm Bill, intoxicating hemp cannabinoid products are largely unregulated and are widely available without restrictions on who can buy the products, and although there are several possible solutions, voluntary industry action by good actors is the best option, say Andrew Kline and Tommy Tobin at Perkins Coie.