Population growth has become the be-all and end-all for economic prosperity, but how on Earth can we cope with the extra billions of people? While “leafing” – or should I instead say “scrolling” in today’s need to sound tech savvy – through the news websites, the two subjects seemed to have captured the media’s attention: immigration and plastic ...
When a half-mile from the nearest body of water, must you obtain a federal permit when discharging treated wastewater to groundwater? According to a recent Ninth Circuit decision, the answer may be yes.[1] This alarmed many because the Clean Water Act regulates discharges to navigable waters from "point sources" like pipes or ditches ...
View the PDF version of the April 2018 IP Beacon. Are Works Generated by AI Subject to IP Protection? When Philip Dick wrote the 1968 novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?," the inspiration for the 1982 film "Blade Runner," artificial intelligence was more fiction than science. Fifty years later, theHarvard Business Reviewpredicts that AI will be the single biggest technological development of our era, as transformative as the steam engine or electricity ...
Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group’s annual employment law1 conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its’ impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as “law” or “justice” ...
EPA Administrator Pruitt recently issued another policy to help streamline the New Source Review (NSR) Program. After receiving comments from many industry sources that the NSR Program should be reformed given its heavy time and cost burden, the Trump EPA has made reforming the NSR Program a priority ...
On April 12, 2018, President Trump issued a memorandum to Administrator Pruitt to promote domestic manufacturing and job creation through policies intended to streamline implementation of national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) ...
Earlier this year, revisions to the requirements for new and existing indirect heat exchangers contained in 401 KAR 59:015 and 401 KAR 61:015 became effective. Indirect heat exchangers with a heat input capacity greater than one million Btu/hour (MMBtu/hour) are subject to either 401 KAR 59:015 (new sources) or 401 KAR 61:015 (existing sources). The classification as new or existing depends upon when the indirect heat exchanger was installed ...
The Administrative provisions that set forth the guidelines for comprehensive management of waste requiring special management in the hydrocarbons sector (the “Guidelines”) were published in Mexico’s Federal Official Gazette on May 2, 2018 and became effective the following day ...
Abu Dhabi has introduced new rules governing the functioning of the Emirate’s judiciary. The new rules appear in Abu Dhabi Law 13 of 2018, which amends Abu Dhabi Law 23 of 2006 on the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department. The new provisions largely address internal matters related to the functioning of the courts, such as the composition of panels of the courts and the accountability of judges. But two features could be of more general interest ...
With Administrator Scott Pruitt at its helm, cooperative federalism is the frequently recited principle underlying recent EPA enforcement efforts. As the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory oversight in areas like the Clean Water Act is delegated to the states, the agency is relying more upon state and local authorities to enforce the laws. There are shortcomings associated with this approach, which were raised in the recent U.S ...
The approval of the long awaited Federal Law on Arbitration by the Federal National Council was announced earlier this year ...
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, resolving an issue on which several Courts of Appeals and various federal agencies and administrations had disagreed. At issue in Epic Systems (and two companion cases presenting the same issue: Ernst & Young LLP. v. Morris and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc ...
On May 21, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, No. 16-285; Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris, No. 16-300; and NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., No. 16-307 holding that an employer may require its employees to sign a dispute resolution arbitration agreement that includes an employee’s waiving the right to bring a claim on a class or collective action basis ...
In a much anticipated opinion, the Supreme Court on Monday held that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Court stated that “Congress has instructed in the Arbitration Act that arbitration agreements providing for individualized proceedings must be enforced, and neither the Arbitration Act’s saving clause nor the NLRA suggests otherwise ...
In Praxair Distrib., Inc. v. Mallinckrodt Hosp. Prods. IP Ltd., 2016-2616, -2656, in a decision authored by Judge Lourie, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the printed matter doctrine is properly applied during claim construction and can include not just printed matter, but also mental steps ...
“The framework agreement is an agreement whereby the contracting parties define and establish the main rules and conditions that will govern future agreements that will be concluded between them and that are called agreements “for the application” or “for the enforcement” of the framework agreement.” (High Court of Cassation and Justice Decision n0 ...
In the decision in Rustenburg Platinum Mine and SAEWA obo Meyer Bester and Others, the Constitutional Court dealt with the question of whether an employee referring to a colleague as a “swart man” (“black man”), within the facts set out below, constituted misconduct justifying dismissal.The adjacent large 4x4 vehiclesThe employee in this matter, Mr Bester, was employed by the Rustenburg Platinum Mine (the “employer”) ...
It was this time last year that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt created a Superfund Task Force to “provide recommendations . . ...
This article will focus on the experience in practice and the evolution of privatizations of state and socially owned companies in Serbia in the period of transition and will assess the boundaries of arbitrability of disputes that arise out of the termination of privatization agreements. The term arbitrability will be analysed from a broader perspective, as opposed to the traditional and commonly used meaning of this term - whether a certain dispute is suitable for arbitration ...
The first upscale exploration of oil and gas in Montenegro started in 1914, when King Nikola Petrovic approved the National Assembly's decision for oil exploration around Lake Skadar. The first well in the area of Crmnica dates back to 1922 - although it produced nothing of significance. In later researches of the Montenegrin offshore, the existence of geological structures with the potential for hiding hydrocarbon deposits was confirmed ...
The Corps Struggles to Balance Competing Constitutional and Statutory Duties Federal agencies must often balance competing policy concerns and legal requirements. This process may be difficult and fraught with intense public feedback, and frequently results in litigation. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) has found itself in the hot seat over how it manages the nation’s rivers, pitting its obligations under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) against private property rights ...
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court recently addressed the standard to determine whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee in wage and hour disputes under California’s Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) wage orders. In Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v ...
On June 1, 2018, the Los Angeles County Superior Court granted a Defendant’s Motion to Compel Individual Arbitrations of the two Plaintiffs’ wage claims, dismissed the class claims and stayed the action with regard to the remaining Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) claim. The Court, in Navarrete v. Louis Vuitton, Case No ...
