Insights
Insights
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- In a significant victory for the oil and gas industry, on February 17, 2015, the Supreme Court of Ohio, in State ex rel. Morrison v. Beck Energy Corp., affirmed the State of Ohio’s “sole and exclusive” authority over the regulation of oil and gas operations in the state.
- On February 11, 2015, Representative Ryan Smith introduced Ohio House Bill 64 (the Bill), the governor’s proposed 2016-2017 biennial budget bill. As Governor John Kasich previously announced, the Bill contains a number of Ohio tax proposals, including reform of Ohio’s severance taxes.
- The language of Governor Kasich’s 2016-2017 biennial budget bill was recently released. House Bill 64 has 84,757 lines and 2,783 pages of text. Many of the details track very closely to summaries of the bill announced during the preceding weeks. The proposal includes significantly reduced personal income tax rates, continued and expanded small business income tax exclusions and higher personal exemptions.
- On February 9, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) proposed rules to implement Section 955 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which directs the SEC to require, by rule, each public company to disclose in any proxy or consent solicitation material for an annual meeting of the shareholders of the company whether any employee or director, or any designee of such employee or director, is permitted to hedge the company’s equity securities.
- Courts continue to whittle away at the public disclosure bar, historically one of the best ways to dispose of parasitic qui tam lawsuits. Most recently, the Eleventh Circuit issued a ruling regarding the impact of the 2010 amendments to the False Claims Act’s (FCA) public disclosure rule. In its opinion in U.S. ex rel. Osheroff v. Humana, Inc., the Eleventh Circuitjoined the Fourth Circuit in holding that the public disclosure rule, as amended in 2010, is no longer a jurisdictional bar to an FCA action. Instead, under the amended version of the statute, defendants now must move to dismiss allegations that have been publicly disclosed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6).
- Whitney Gibson, the leader of the firm’s internet defamation practice, authored an article for Social Media Explorer titled “Strategies for Legally Generating and Monitoring Online Reviews.”
- FLSA claims involving off-the-clock work have become a popular claim in recent years. A recent Eleventh Circuit ruling has made employer defenses to such lawsuits a bit more challenging. In Bailey v. TitleMax of Ga., Inc. (11th Cir., No. 14-11747, 1/15/15), the employer argued that the plaintiff’s claims should be barred because the plaintiff failed to report all hours worked, which caused the company to under-compensate the plaintiff.
- In a much anticipated opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an Idaho district court’s order mandating the unwind of a merger between two health care providers in Nampa, Idaho after determining that the merger violated § 7 of the Clayton Act. In the wake of the FTC’s recent and heightened enforcement in the health care industry, St. Alphonsus Medical Center-Nampa, Inc. v. St. Luke’s Health System, Ltd., No. 14-35173, (9th Cir. Feb. 10, 2015), offers important insight into the hotly debated interplay between the integration encouraged under the Affordable Care Act and the operation of federal antitrust laws.
- A recent Sixth Circuit opinion provides defendants a valuable roadmap for using government witness testimony to defeat False Claims Act (FCA) claims on materiality grounds at the summary judgment stage. In U.S. ex rel. American Systems Consulting, Inc. v. ManTech Advanced Systems Int’l Inc., Case No. 14-3269 (6th Cir.), the court rejected the relator’s argument that materiality decisions should be left to a jury. Instead, the court expressly held that “a judge may decide as a matter of law whether a misrepresentation was material under the FCA.”
- Ohio Governor John Kasich recently outlined the tax changes he will include in his 2016-2017 biennial state budget. The governor’s proposal is a mixture of cuts, increases and elimination of taxes which he says will result in a net $500 million tax cut for Ohioans. The taxes included in his package are: sales tax, commercial activity tax, oil and gas severance tax, individual income tax and tobacco tax.
- Groucho Marx once said that “politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.” So as we welcome the 131st Ohio General Assembly, we already have the introduction of pro-employee wage-and-hour legislation. On February 2, 2015, Senator Kenny Yuko (D-Richmond Heights) introduced Senate Bill 25 which would make significant changes to Ohio’s employment laws.
- Whitney Gibson, the leader of the firm’s internet defamation practice, authored a column, which was titled “Think You're Onto the Apps Your Kids are Into?,” for WCPO.com.
- This is a reminder to all employers with employees in California to implement the new workplace bullying training requirements that went into effect for California employers on January 1, 2015.
- Whitney Gibson, the leader of the firm’s internet defamation group, a Jordan Cohen, a member of the internet defamation group, authored an article for Privacy Law360 titled “FTC Is Cracking Down On 'Revenge Porn.’”
- As multistate employers are well aware, several states have enacted “wage theft prevention acts.” These laws are designed to ensure employees know how much they are being paid by requiring employers to provide detailed notices to employees on a set schedule, including at the time of hire. California and New York have had laws on wage theft for several years. Washington, D.C. enacted a new law late last year dealing with wage theft and making other, perhaps more disturbing, changes to wage and hour law in the District.
- Negative media coverage has always posed a challenge for businesses and professionals. Given the current internet landscape and the ability of articles to spread quickly through social media, businesses must be especially active in trying to deal with bad publicity.
- As the new year is in full swing, you may or may not have ditched your resolutions by now.
- President Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union address on Tuesday, and labor and employment matters took center stage. While the president’s address does not have the force of law, it highlights for employers what issues the White House plans on pursuing in the coming year.
- When someone posts a harmful YouTube video about another person or organization, not only can this cause significant harm in and of itself, but it can also be difficult for the subject of the video to get it taken down.
- We hope you and your family enjoyed a happy holiday season. We’re writing to introduce you to a new e-newsletter we will begin publishing next week.
February
January
Victor J. Ferguson
David A. Groenke
Emily S. Pan
Michael G. Schwartz
David A. Swift
Mark E. Vannatta
Suzanne R. GalyardtInsights
2269 items, 20 items per page
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