Republic Act No. 9003, also known as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, is a landmark environmental legislation designed to meet the country’s waste management problems. It requires local government units to achieve 25% waste reduction through re-using, recycling, and composting activities and other resource recovery activities. However, two decades after its enactment, solid waste management remains to be a major challenge ...
New regulations are in force that require occupational pension schemes providing defined contribution (DC) benefits to demonstrate value for members or face consolidation. The New Regulations The Occupational Pension Schemes (Administration, Investment, Charges and Governance) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (the new regulations) came into force on 1 October 2021 ...
December 1, 2023 By: Leah Lively California Business and Professional Code sections 16600 to 16607 already invalidate agreements restricting California employees from pursuing any lawful profession, trade, or business, with limited exceptions mainly in the sale of businesses. Starting January 1, 2024, things are going to get more difficult (and potentially costly) for employers ...
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has published in the Federal Register a Notice of a “Request for Comments on Negotiating Objectives Regarding Modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement With Canada and Mexico.” In the Notice, USTR advises that it will accept written comments by June 12, 2017 and will hold a public hearing at the U.S ...
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced a period for public comment on whether Section 301 product exclusions should be reinstated for certain Chinese-origin goods. The product exclusions eligible for potential reinstatement are the relatively small subset of exclusions for which the USTR had both previously granted an exclusion and an extension of the exclusion ...
The U.S.-China trade dispute continues to simmer with multiple significant developments in the past several weeks: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced the exclusion process for Chinese imports subject to List 4A Section 301 tariffs will open on Oct. 31, 2019 and conclude on Jan. 31, 2020. List 4A and 4B tariffs on an estimated $300 billion of goods imported from China, effective Sept. 1, 2019 and Dec ...
The U.S.-China trade dispute escalated yet again as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a fourth round of tariffs of 10 percent on an estimated $300 billion of goods imported from China not already subject to Section 301 tariffs. At the same time, the USTR continues to accept List 3 exclusion requests and is working to complete review of List 1 and List 2 exclusion requests. 1. USTR Announces Section 301 Tariffs on $300B of U.S ...
There have been several significant U.S.-China trade developments in June. Notably, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued procedures for seeking an exclusion for parties adversely affected by the increased 25 percent tariffs on $200 billion of goods imported from China that came into effect on May 10, 2019 (List 3). The USTR also extended by two weeks the entry deadline to avoid this increased List 3 25 percent tariff ...
In a class action lawsuit filed Monday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Binance.US (Binance), a major cryptocurrency exchange, has been accused of misleading investors surrounding the Terra blockchain ecosystem. This is the first major court filing in the United States relating to Terra, whose UST and LUNC tokens crashed in May, wiping out around $40 billion in investor funds ...
Last year, United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Andrei Iancu noted that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to “fundamentally chang[e]” “the legal concepts of inventor or author.”[i] The USPTO recently had cause to consider this issue. On petition, the USPTO considered whether an applicant can name an AI program as an inventor on a patent application ...
On July 2, 2019, the PTO announced it will implement a rule requiring U.S. counsel for foreign-domiciled trademark applicants and registrants. The new rule is effective August 3, 2019, and applies to all trademark owners with a foreign address. We discussed the rule in ourFebruary Alert. For any new filings after the effective date, licensed U.S. counsel must be designated ...
Under Dutch corporate law it is possible for the Enterprise Section of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to order an inquiry into the policies and affairs of a company and to interfere with the internal organization of such legal entity in order to settle corporate disputes between shareholders, the management and supervisory boards and the works council. The present article creates an overview of these legal proceedings. 1 ...
As all court cases do, the Supreme Court's landmark decision in West Virginia v. EPA last month addressed a specific question: whether the Environmental Protection Agency had the statutory authority to shut down power plants and reshape significant parts of the energy sector in its effort to reduce emissions. The answer was a plain and simple no. Equally clear was the court's argument, which has implications for administrative actions well beyond this case ...
The prospect of compliance disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) to create a temporary policy outlining its enforcement discretion against certain regulated entities. As this is a federal policy, some entities may not enjoy the same enforcement discretion at their state and local level ...
On June 16, 2020 the German government released its Corona-Warn-App. There are some key points employers should be aware of concerning the app: NO OBLIGATION FOR EMPLOYEES TO USE THE APP ON THEIR PERSONAL SMARTPHONES An employer may be thinking about instructing its employees to install and use the Corona-Warn-App on their own devices to reduce the infection risk among its employees. That is not permitted ...
A recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) could mean trouble for many Community trade marks. There is now a heightened risk that national courts will invalidate these trade marks if they have not been used extensively enough in the European Union. Is broader protection better? A Community trade mark (CTM) confers protection in all 27 EU member states ...
In a move aimed at speeding the processing of certain non-immigrant petitions, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced it will suspend the biometrics requirements for certain I-539 applicants for a two-year period beginning on May 17, 2021. Form I-539 is used to change to or extend the authorized stay of non-immigrants holding (or seeking) A, B, F, G, I, J, M, T, U and V and dependents of those holding E, H, L, O, P, R and TN status ...
In a move that will improve the time for obtaining application approvals, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) announced today it plans on resuming premium processing for Form I-129 (non-immigrant worker) and Form I-140 (immigrant worker) petitions in phases throughout June. On June 1, 2020, it will accept Premium Processing requests for all eligible Form I-140 petitions ...
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released guidance on the FY2023 H-1B lottery process. Despite attempts to change the structure of the lottery selection process, the Service announced that it would continue with a random-selection lottery for 2022. The registration system will be open from 12 p.m. ET March 1, 2022 until 12 p.m. ET March 18, 2022. The application fee will continue to be $10 for each case entered into the system ...
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released guidance on the FY2023 H-1B lottery process. Despite attempts to change the structure of the lottery selection process, the Service announced that it would continue with a random-selection lottery for 2022. The registration system will be open from 12 p.m. ET March 1, 2022 until 12 p.m. ET March 18, 2022. The application fee will continue to be $10 for each case entered into the system ...
USCIS recently announced that beginning March 11, 2019 it will require use of a new version of Form I-539 Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, a form commonly used to extend or change the status of H-4 and L-2 dependents. USCIS stated it will also require use of a new Form I-539A, Supplemental Information for Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status ...
On May 24, 2022, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an expansion of premium processing service to two additional categories of Form I-140 immigrant petitions. This is part of a broader push by USCIS to reduce backlogs, increase efficiency, and speed up decisions on certain previously filed Form I-140 immigrant petitions ...
The USCIS has announced it will extend its suspension of in-person services at its field offices, asylum offices, and application support centers (ASCs) until May 4, 2020. It has also indicated it may extend these closures beyond that date if needed. USCIS will continue to provide limited emergency services during these closures ...
