Client Alerts
Client Alerts
1265 items, 20 items per page
- Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have laws that restrict the collection of personal identification information at the point of sale when payment is made by a credit card. Retailers received good news recently from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Hancock v. Urban Outfitters.
- The Supreme Court of Ohio issued its decision dated March 4, 2014, in the case of FirstMerit Bank, N.A. v. Inks, et al (2014-Ohio-789), confirming important Ohio statutory protections for lenders in workout situations under Ohio Revised Code Section 1335.05.
- When the New York attorney general’s office cracked down on 19 companies in September for false reviews, it sent a loud and clear message to many businesses. For others, the combined $350,000 in fines may have simply been a wakeup call to get more creative with their deceptive online advertising practices.
- On April 9, 2014, following the release of an injunction against the disclosure of the information, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) posted all Medicare provider and utilization data (data) on its website.
- It is not uncommon for people to create fake social media profiles of celebrities and other public figures. Unfortunately, some people also imitate non-public figures, often for harassment purposes. This is especially problematic on Facebook, which refers to these accounts as “impostor Timelines.”
- In Walker v. Noon, the Seventh District Court of Appeals recently addressed two issues concerning the 1989 version of the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act (DMA). In Walker, the Court of appeals held: (1) for the purposes of the DMA, a severed mineral interest was not the “subject of” a title transaction that conveyed the surface with a restatement of a prior mineral reservation; (2) the 1989 version of the DMA automatically vested a surface owner with a severed mineral interest where no savings events occurred within the statute’s look-back period, and that such vesting was not disturbed by the amendment of the DMA in 2006.
- Kevin M. Gormly and Melissa McCoy Gormly, attorneys in the Vorys Pittsburgh office and members of the energy group, recently obtained a preliminary injunction in the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on behalf of ION Geophysical Corporation. In the case, Hempfield Township attempted to prevent ION from conducting seismic testing on the township’s roads and rights-of-way. Instead of passing an ordinance regulating or banning seismic testing, the township had its solicitor send ION a letter informing ION that the township would not permit such seismic activity.
- This is the 2nd of 4 installments on tips when contracting for technology products and services. Every business runs at least in part on technology – and when contracting for technology products and services, the “gotchas” don’t discriminate based on size or industry.
- This is the 1st of 4 installments on tips when contracting for technology products and services. Every business runs at least in part on technology – and, when contracting for technology products and services, the “gotchas” don’t discriminate based on size or industry.
- Yesterday, the NLRB’s regional director for Region 13, Peter Ohr, issued a 24-page ruling in which he held that college football players at Northwestern University were employees entitled to the right to organize. Ohr reasoned that the players met the standard for an employee under the NLRA and common law: a person performing services for another under a contract of hire, subject to the employer’s control or right of control, in return for payment.
- A recent False Claims Act decision serves as an important reminder that although qui tam relators may “stand in the shoes” of the government for purposes of bringing a lawsuit, they are not entitled to substitute their judgment for that of key government decision-makers to avoid summary judgment.
- On March 20, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) posted a “Transition Plan Toolkit” to assist states in developing their Home and Community-Based Settings (HCBS) 1915(c) waiver and section 1915(i) state plan amendment or renewal application(s) so that they comply with new requirements in the HCBS Final Rule, released earlier this year.
- The state’s two-year Capital Appropriations measure, House Bill 497, was introduced in the Ohio House on March 18. This year’s Capital Bill allocates $2.39 billion, largely bond-backed funding for brick-and-mortar construction and renovation projects for state agencies, colleges, universities and school districts. Also, for the first time in six years, the Capital Bill goes beyond funding construction and renovation needs for state-owned properties, providing approximately $160 million in funding for additional “community projects” identified as priorities across various regions of the state.
- Thanks to mobile apps such as Secret and Whisper, people can now divulge their deep secrets anonymously, with fewer consequences – the key here being fewer, as there is no absolute guarantee of anonymity.
- As discussed in Vorys’ September 3, 2013 Client Alert, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) previously issued final rules interpreting Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 503) and the Vietnam Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA). The final rules, aimed to improve hiring and employment opportunities for disabled and veteran workers, impose numerous new affirmative action obligations on federal contractors or subcontractors covered by Executive Order 11246 (contractors). The final rules take effect on March 24, 2014. However, any contractor with an affirmative action plan (AAP) already in place may maintain that AAP until the end of the AAP year.
- In November of 2013, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued Final Rules on the Protection of Collateral of Counterparties to Uncleared Swaps (the Final Rules).
- As investigators work to recover the data related to Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, we are reminded that the deletion of data discovered through forensic analysis is something that has played a significant role in many of our cases.
- On March 12, 2014, the Supreme Court of Ohio accepted an appeal in Dodd v. Croskey (7th Dist. 2013) on one issue pertaining to the 2006 version of the Dormant Mineral Act, Ohio Revised Code § 5301.56. The Court will consider whether a notice of preservation timely filed after an abandonment notice was effective to preserve a mineral interest where no savings events occurred within the 20 years preceding the abandonment notice.
- As most bankers know, Ohio adopted a new Ohio Financial Institutions Tax (FIT), which is based on a consolidated entity formula explained below. Given the new consolidated approach to taxing financial institutions with a presence in Ohio and the bank regulatory issues that accompany any type of inter-company and bank liability sharing or exchange, it is important that financial institutions have in place an appropriate tax sharing agreement.
- On March 13, 2014, President Barack Obama signed a presidential memorandum directing the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to “propose revisions to modernize and streamline the existing overtime regulations” related to the overtime exemptions for executive, administrative and professional employees. The memorandum does not specify exactly what the new rules should include. However, the administration’s intent to narrow these overtime exemptions is apparent from President Obama’s statement that, “Because these regulations are outdated, millions of Americans lack the protections of overtime and … the minimum wage.”