Insights

August

• 8/6/2015
  Client Alert: Extending Consumer Credit to Active-Duty Military Service Members: Department of Defense Issues Final Rule Implementing the Military Lending Act
  On July 22, 2015, the United States Department of Defense issued a final rule implementing the Military Lending Act (the MLA), a federal law that provides various protections to active-duty service members in consumer credit transactions. The MLA imposes various restrictions and disclosure requirements on a creditor who extends consumer credit to active-duty service members, their spouses and their dependents.
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• May/June 2015
  • Daniel J. Buckley
  • Lisa Babish Forbes
  • Elizabeth E.W. Weinewuth
  Newcomer V. National City Bank Appeal Concludes, Affirms Important Guidance for Ohio Trustees
  Vorys attorneys Daniel Buckley, Lisa Babish Forbes and Elizabeth Weinewuth authored an article for the Probate Law Journal of Ohio titled “Newcomer V. National City Bank Appeal Concludes, Affirms Important Guidance for Ohio Trustees.”
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• 8/3/2015
  Whistleblower Defense Alert: Three Questions Every FCA Defendant Should Ask To Evaluate Whether Claim Preclusion Can Fill The Gap Created By The Supreme Court’s Interpretation Of The First-To-File Rule
  A decision last week in an FCA case in Pennsylvania confirms that the FCA’s first-to-file bar has been weakened. See U.S. ex rel. Boise v. Cephalon, Inc., No. 08-CV-287 (E.D. Pa.). The court in the Cephalon case confirmed that the Supreme Court’s decision in Kellogg Brown & Root Servs., Inc. v. United States ex rel. Carter means that the first-to-file bar does not apply when a previously filed case is no longer pending.
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July

• 7/30/2015
  • Elizabeth Turrell Farrar
  Regulation FD: A Refresher on the SEC Rules Governing Selective Disclosure
  In mid-2000, the SEC adopted Regulation FD to protect investors by creating a level playing field for all investors for access to material, nonpublic information. The SEC’s primary concern was that selective disclosure, and the perception of selective disclosure to analysts and institutional investors, of material, nonpublic information, leads to a loss of investor confidence in the integrity and fairness of the securities markets.
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• 7/30/2015
  • Nelson D. Cary
  • Jeffery E. Smith
  In Depth: Financial Regulators Issue Policies and Practices for Diversity
  On June 9, 2015, the Federal Reserve, OCC and FDIC (as well as the SEC, CFPB and NCUA) issued a final interagency joint policy statement (JPS) establishing standards for assessing the diversity policies and practices of the entities they regulate.
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• 7/30/2015
  • Jennifer Bibart Dunsizer
  • Jeffery E. Smith
  Change-in-Control Compensation Agreements
  Imagine the following scenario: your bank has just announced an agreement to be acquired by a larger institution that is entering your market for the first time. Two months into the process your CEO, CFO and chief lender tell the board that they have decided to accept offers from local competitors because (a) they will make more money, (b) they have a built-in customer following and (c) despite good relations with the buyer they are uncertain as to their future and have families to consider.
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• 7/30/2015
  • Jeffery E. Smith
  Be Prepared: Strategic Planning for M&A Activities
  As the M&A environment heats up and industry chatter increases, banks and their boards need to be prepared to take advantage of strategic opportunities. Boards should have an M&A strategy in place and this preparation needs to take place before the situation arises.
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• 7/30/2015
  • Natalia Steele
  Technological Advancements Have Led to More Traces of Infectious Disease—Now How to Assign Blame When They Cause Harm?
  Natalia Steele co-authored a column titled “Technological Advancements Have Led to More Traces of Infectious Disease—Now How to Assign Blame When They Cause Harm?” for Texas Lawyer.
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• 7/30/2015
  Labor and Employment Alert: Congress Proposes Regulating Employee Schedules
  Democrats in Congress recently introduced the Schedules that Work Act to control how employers schedule their employees’ to work. The bill would apply to employers of 15 or more employees.
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• 7/29/2015
  Labor and Employment Alert: Oregon Requires All Employers to Provide Sick Leave to Their Employees
  Oregon is now the fourth state, after Connecticut, California, and Massachusetts, to mandate that employers provide their employees with sick leave benefits. Oregon’s new sick leave law goes into effect on January 1, 2016, applies to all private- and public-sector employees, and in most cases, requires that the sick leave be paid.
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• 7/23/2015
  Google, the United States and the EU ‘Right to Be Forgotten’: Strategies for Removing Harmful Google Search Results
  In May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that individuals have the right to ask Google to remove certain search results about them. This “Right to Be Forgotten,” as it is popularly known, has led to nearly 290,000 removal requests and counting, with Google having evaluated well over a million URLs to date.
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• 7/20/2015
  Whistleblower Defense Alert: Ninth Circuit Paves Way for More Qui Tam Lawsuits
  The Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in U.S. ex rel. Hartpence v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., 2015 U.S. App. Lexis 11643 (9th. Cir. July 7, 2015), overruled existing Ninth Circuit precedent regarding the requirements for meeting the public disclosure rule’s original source exception, weakening the public disclosure bar in the Ninth Circuit and opening the door for increased qui tam activity within that jurisdiction.
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• 7/20/2015
  Oil and Gas Alert: Water Haulers of Hydraulic Fracturing Company are Entitled to Overtime
  A recent opinion from the federal district court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania determined that drivers who transported water to drilling rigs were not exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or Pennsylvania law.
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• 7/17/2015
  State and Local Tax Alert: Vendors Need to Prepare for Ohio’s Upcoming Ohio Sales Tax Holiday
  Ohio’s one-time sales tax holiday starts on Friday, August 7, 2015 at 12:01 a.m. and ends on Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. Vendor compliance with this holiday is mandatory.
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• 7/16/2015
  • Victor J. Ferguson
  • David A. Groenke
  • Colleen B. Laux
  • Emily S. Pan
  • David A. Swift
  • Mark E. Vannatta
  Estate Planning For Retirement Plan Assets
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• 7/15/2015
  Labor and Employment Alert: DOL Declares That Most Workers are Employees, Not Independent Contractors
  Today, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an Administrator’s Interpretation discussing the misclassification of employees as independent contractors. In this guidance, the DOL takes the position that “most workers are employees under the FLSA’s broad definitions.”
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• 7/14/2015
  State and Local Tax Alert: Ohio Budget Bill Tax Provisions - Business Community Dodges A Bullet But More Battles to Come In 2016
  On June 30th Governor Kasich signed Ohio’s 2016-2017 biennial budget. Amended Substitute House Bill 64 (HB 64) contains a few noteworthy tax reforms. That said, HB 64 is more noteworthy for the tax reforms the General Assembly considered but ultimately discarded -- a commercial activity tax (CAT) rate increase, severance tax reform, sales tax rate increase, and sales tax base expansion.
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• 7/13/2015
  State and Local Tax Alert: Ohio Budget Bill Includes Changes to the Job Creation and Job Retention Tax Credits
  On June 30, 2015, Governor Kasich signed into law Amended Substitute House Bill 64 (HB 64), which contains several tax law changes. Included in HB 64 are numerous modifications to both the Ohio Job Creation Tax Credit (JCTC) and the Ohio Job Retention Tax Credit (JRTC). These changes are effective September 29, 2015, the 91st day after the bill was signed. The most significant changes are described in this Alert.
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• 7/13/2015
  Court: Defamation Plaintiff Must Provide Evidence to Unmask Unknown Avvo.com Poster
  A Washington appellate court offered defamation plaintiffs a friendly reminder last week: if you want to unmask the identity of an unknown internet poster, you better present evidence to back up your defamation claims.
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• 7/6/2015
  Securities Alert: SEC Proposes Executive Compensation Clawback Rules
  On July 1, 2015, the SEC issued proposed rules that would require listed issuers to: • adopt and comply with a policy requiring the recovery of excess incentive-based compensation from the issuer’s executive officers in the event of material accounting restatements; and • disclose the listed issuer’s clawback policy and certain information relating to the application of such clawback policy.
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