Client Alerts
Client Alerts
1450 items, 20 items per page
- The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina) recently held that calling an African-American employee a “porch monkey” twice within 24 hours was so severe that it created a hostile work environment. The Court also found that the employee’s complaints about the comments were protected by the anti-retaliation provisions of Title VII.
- The IRS announced the 2016 indexed amounts for health savings accounts (HSAs) and high deductible health plans (HDHPs).
- Although visual in nature, people are not immune from defamation on the popular photo-sharing app Instagram. In fact, in 2014 – merits of the claims aside – rappers 50 Cent and The Game were each sued in unrelated matters for allegedly tarnishing others’ reputations through Instagram posts.
- On April 29, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rules to implement Section 953(a) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which directs the SEC to require additional “pay-versus-performance” disclosure in any proxy information statements in which executive compensation disclosure is required pursuant to Item 402 of Regulation S-K.
- Pissed Consumer – branded as a “premier consumer advocacy group” – is home to countless online reviews and complaints about businesses across dozens of industries. For many small- and medium-sized businesses, false and defamatory reviews on Pissed Consumer can be quite harmful.
- On April 29, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that courts may review the EEOC’s conciliation efforts that are a prerequisite to the EEOC’s filing suit against an employer under Title VII. The Court recognized that the EEOC has “expansive” and “abundant” discretion in how to conduct conciliation efforts and when to end them. Consequently, while courts may evaluate whether the EEOC has attempted conciliation, the scope of that judicial review is limited and “relatively barebones.”
- When running a search of a business on Google, chances are that an aggregate star rating (on a 5.0 scale) and a listing of Google Reviews will appear high up in the search results. While Google Reviews may not yet have the widespread appeal of Yelp, they are gaining in popularity and will continue to be prominently displayed in Google.com search results for obvious reasons.
- Following its proposal early this year, on April 9 the Federal Reserve issued an important revision to its Small Bank Holding Company (SBHC) Policy Statement relieving bank and savings and loan holding companies with consolidated assets of less than $1 billion from the requirements of Basel III.
- For years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission declined to provide formal guidance on the application of the ADA to wellness programs. It has now issued rules.
- There are many internet forums on which disgruntled parties are initiating online reputation and brand attacks. This includes people publishing false and defamatory blog posts, which typically involves them creating a free blog through Google, WordPress or another easy-to-use blog-publishing platform for the sole purpose of disparaging other parties.
- Last year, the Sixth Circuit opened the floodgates on telecommuting as a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In EEOC v. Ford Motor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued Ford under the ADA for failing to accommodate Jane Harris’ (a former employee) irritable bowel syndrome by refusing her request to telecommute as-needed up to four days a week.
- Increasingly today, “extortionists” – given the significance of online reviews – are threatening businesses with potential harmful reviews or posting other damaging content online. For instance, if a business does not give that person a refund, produce replacement, or discount, he or she could make good on a promise to harm the company online.
- California courts have made it notoriously difficult to enforce noncompete agreements against former employees in California. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just made it even harder.
- On April 7, 2015, USEPA proposed a zero discharge Clean Water Act pretreatment standard for wastewater from existing or new Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction facilities discharged to a Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW).
- The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently announced the results of a 2014 enforcement initiative that focused on the oil and gas industry in New Mexico and west Texas. According to the DOL, it recovered more than $1.3 million owed to some 1,300 employees as a result of this investigation. This is not the first DOL foray into wage-and-hour practices within the oil and gas industry. In December 2014, the DOL announced that employers engaged in natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania and West Virginia agreed to pay $4,498,547 in back wages to 5,310 employees.
- Despite serious concerns by the industry, as announced on March 19, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has opted to publish “personal narratives” in conjunction with complaints against banking institutions. The CFPB website will carry unverified, unsubstantiated and uninvestigated narratives, in the words of the customer, describing their purported issues with a named institution.
- On March 25, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments to Regulation A, which provides an exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act of 1933 (Securities Act) for smaller securities offerings by private (non-SEC reporting) companies.
- The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio recently certified an important question of law concerning the deduction of post-production costs to the Supreme Court of Ohio: Does Ohio follow the “at the well” rule (which permits the deduction of post-production costs) or does it follow some version of the “marketable product” rule (which limits the deduction of post-production costs under certain circumstances)?
- The National Labor Relations Board has determined that confidentiality statements used in internal investigations are unlawful. Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has weighed in on employee confidentiality agreements.
- On March 18, 2015, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced that those engaged in crude petroleum and natural gas extraction, drilling, and related support activities are engaged in “high hazard” activities and will be subject to OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program. The program has been in effect since 2010, when it replaced the prior Enhanced Enforcement Program. When the program started, OSHA placed its national emphasis on the “high-hazard” industries that involved fall hazards and hazards from amputations; combustible dust, crystalline silica; excavation and/or trenching; lead; and shipbreaking. This announcement is an expansion of the program’s “high hazard” activities. This is important for the oil and gas industry because OSHA concentrates the majority of its resources to inspecting employers from “high-hazard” industries.