President Biden’s Message to doubters is that fiduciaries “should be able to consider any factor that maximizes financial returns for retirees across the country. That is not controversial—that is common sense.” The House of Representatives voted in an attempt to override President Biden’s veto of a resolution passed by both chambers of Congress to overturn a Biden administration retirement investment rule that allows managers of retirement funds to consid...
The FTC intends an addition to the 1973 Negative Option Rule to help rescue consumers from “seemingly never-ending struggles” to cancel unwanted automatic payment renewal plans. The FTC has proposed a...
The duty of prudence requires a plan fiduciary to systematically review its funds both at the initial inclusion of a particular fund in the plan and at regular intervals to determine whether each is a prudent investment. On remand from the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Hughes v. Northwestern University , the Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of an excessive recordkeeping fees claim and a share-class claim brought by Northwestern employees who participated in retirement…
As a securities customer, the petitioner says he never agreed to submit to FINRA’s authority, but was penalized nonetheless. The Chicago-based manager of a family office is asking the Supreme Court to limit FINRA overreach. According to the petition for certiorari, the petitioner had no obligation to respond to a FINRA request for information, but the SEC leveraged the resulting FINRA ban to deem him a recidivist. Given a district court dismissed his case against FINRA for lack of…
A bill designed to improve the security of open-source software has been introduced by Sens. Gary Peters (D., Mich.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.). The Securing Open Source Software Act (S 917) would direct the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) “to develop a risk framework to evaluate how open source code is used by the federal government,” the senators said in a news release . “CISA would also…
The court granted the pharmacist’s request for a preliminary injunction to block a Missouri statute that bans pharmacists from contacting patients or doctors about potential problems with certain drugs. Concluding that a Missouri law violates the free speech rights of pharmacists, the federal district court in Missouri has issued a preliminary injunction to block enforceability of the statute that prohibits pharmacists from contacting patients or doctors about potential problems with certain…
The Second Circuit rejected the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning regarding the CFPB’s funding in a case involving a CID against a law firm debt collector. On appeal, the Second Circuit rejected arguments that the funding mechanism for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is unconstitutional, and declined to follow the Fifth Circuit’s recent decision in Community Financial Services Association of America v. CFPB , which had held that the creation of the CFPB violated the Appropriations clause. The…
Sanctions for discovery abuses included attorney fees and costs but a decision barring a Lanham Act false advertising claim held in abeyance pending Supreme Court’s Arbitron decision. A licensee of water-resistant zippers, who was sued for selling zippers in international markets not covered by the licensing agreement, was entitled to attorney fees and costs for the manufacturer’s failure to produce documents during discovery that were related to the validity of its foreign patents, the…
The plaintiff’s direct and indirect evidence all fell short of raising a material issue of fact for trial. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed summary judgment for defendant Fashion Nova, Inc. in a dispute brought by clothing vendor Honey Bum, LLC involving an alleged Klor hub-and-spoke horizontal conspiracy among other clothing vendors to boycott Honey Bum. The Ninth Circuit held that Honey Bum’s Section 1 Sherman Act claim failed because no reasonable jury could have found…
The swimmer failed to present evidence of a breach after the pool’s architect-designers presented expert evidence that the pool complied with professional standards of care. In an action brought against the owner of a fitness center and its pool’s architect and designer by a swimmer who sustained an injury when her head hit the pool’s wing wall made of concrete, the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to the companies on the swimmer’s negligent design…
“At bottom, the analysis asks whether the employee’s primary duty is ‘directly related’ to the ‘management or general business operations of the employer.’” A New England utility servicing company facing potential overtime liability was not entitled to summary judgment on its defense that its dispatchers and controllers are FLSA-exempt administrative employees, the First Circuit found. Clarifying that the “primary duty” analysis for purposes of the FLSA’s administrative exemption is…
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a recent decision that impacts the use of non-disparagement and confidentiality clauses in employee agreements. In the McLaren Macomb decision, the NLRB concluded that non-disparage...
Even if your compliance program is not perfect, doing nothing carries greater risk than implementing a plan to tackle the tough compliance issues. Among the most critical developments companies and their counsel should understand ...
Behnam said the Commission would keep farmers and lenders in focus when addressing the impacts of carbon credit markets on agribusinesses. Speaking to an annual meeting of the National Grain and Feed Association in La Quinta, Cali...
Commission’s charges are focused on the crypto company’s staking service Coinbase Earn, as well as Coinbase Prime, and Coinbase Wallet. The SEC intends to bring charges against crypto trading platform operator Coinbase that are fo...
Legislation that would elevate the Department of Energy’s cybersecurity office and require it to be led by a Senate-confirmed assistant secretary has been introduced in the Senate. S 934 was introduced by Sen. John Barrasso (R., W...
The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved a bill today to help address cyber vulnerabilities of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the wake of a nationwide outage last December. On a 46-0 vote, the committee...
High-dollar recipients, mergers and acquisitions, and transferred targeted distributions increase the likelihood of a HRSA audit. Industry experts at the American Health Law Association’s Institute on Medicare and Medicaid Payment...
The trial court’s jury instructions about mens rea were adequate, and the pharmacist failed to develop adequate grounds for the appeal in more than one respect. In an unpublished opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Ci...
The Wolters Kluwer Bank Failure Communications Checklist provides proactive steps for corporate legal departments to take when communicating with stakeholders after a bank failure. Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. has announ...
The Administration highlighted several efforts across the federal government to combat racial bias in home lending and the valuation process, including using data to evaluate disparate treatment along racial and ethnic lines. The ...
But service problems limit the sculptor to only a TRO and not a preliminary injunction. An Indian company that filed a DMCA counternotice that agreed to accept service of process did not waive its right to have service of a follow...
The plaintiff relied only on speculative allegations and failed to produce any evidence to support its claims against a competing firm. Summary judgment was granted in favor of the defendant in a dispute between security companies...
“A statement about the presence of an ingredient is not a promise about the amount of the ingredient,” the court said, in dismissing the complaint in its entirety. A consumer’s false advertising claim involving Nips, a hard carame...
A false advertising complaint was dismissed because the label, which said that the carbonated water contained lemon, did actually contain lemon, if not in the amount the consumer wanted. A consumer’s putative class action suit all...
Louisiana law largely favored the shipyard owner, and the only fact issue to be resolved centered on a contract with the injured operator’s employer. A shipyard that utilized a third-party crane company was not liable to the crane...
The injured plaintiff’s products liability claim satisfied the federal court that recovery was possible against one defendant, thus destroying federal jurisdiction based on diversity. In a medical device products liability case in...