At the beginning of each government fiscal year, which starts October 1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes available an allocation of new H-1B visas.
In December 2017, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals joined the Second, Sixth and Eleventh Circuits in rejecting the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) six-part test for determining whether interns are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Maryland is now the eighth state (behind Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and Washington) to require sick leave for employees.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), as amended by the Immigration Act of 1990, makes it unlawful for an employer to knowingly hire or continue to employ any person who is not authorized to work in the United States.
The tax bill signed by the president on December 22, 2017, changed the rules for deducting settlement payments and attorney’s fees related to sexual harassment or sexual abuse claims.
In February 2017, a jury in the Middle District of Florida found for a relator in an upcoding case against a nursing home operator, resulting in a total judgment of approximately $350 million.
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit again took up the issue of liability for divided infringement, re-affirming its prior precedent and clarifying the requirements for holding an alleged infringer directly liable for a third party’s actions.
The Bureau of Workers’ Compensation will no longer reimburse spinal fusion surgery unless the injured worker first satisfies a protocol, which among other things requires at least 60 days of conservative care for low back pain.
After postponing the effective date of Obama-era regulations on claims and appeals for disability benefits, the Department of Labor announced on January 5, 2018 that it would allow the regulations to go into effect for claims filed after April 1, 2018.
On December 22, 2017, tax reform became official. There were several changes in the final version, including renaming the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” to the “Act.” The Act will have significant impact on business. This alert focuses on the impact of the Act on employee compensation and benefits programs.
Beginning in 2018, an individual taxpayer generally may deduct 20% of his or her share of “qualified business income” from a U.S. trade or business operated through a partnership (including an LLC treated as a partnership for federal income tax purposes), S corporation, or sole proprietorship (including an LLC treated as a disregarded entity for federal income tax purposes) (the QBI Deduction).
Over the past year, various plaintiff-side law firms sent aggressive demand letters on behalf of activist organizations and individuals to financial institutions – typically community banks – asserting that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to websites.
For some savvy patent owners, enforcing patent rights through European Union (EU) courts has been a valuable tool in their efforts to extract value from their patent portfolios, whether those strategies focus on market exclusivity or monetization.
In a January 3, 2018 decision, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that Ohio does not recognize an implied covenant to explore further as a distinct implied covenant in oil and gas leases.
As we begin the New Year, it’s time to re-visit and update your data incident response plan. Companies subject to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) are required to do so to ensure compliance.
Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) articulated a new standard for evaluating when a facially neutral workplace policy or rule would potentially interfere with rights protected by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). In doing so, the NLRB overruled its 2004 Lutheran Heritage Village-Livonia decision, which had held that employers violated the NLRA if their workplace rules could be “reasonably construed” by employees as prohibiting their exercise of protected rights.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”) was signed into law on December 22. The Act brings about immediate, sweeping changes to the federal income tax laws, affecting businesses and business owners across all industries. Most provisions of the Act are effective for taxable years beginning after December 31, 2017. Certain provisions, however, are retroactive to September or November of 2017.
