Bank of New York Mellon recently learned the hard way that doing a favor for a client can run afoul of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). How hard was the lesson? The SEC entered an Order that imposed, among other sanctions, a 14.8 million dollar fine merely for the…
A woman living in Staten Island must pay her flooring contractor $1,000. What did she do wrong; a negative review on Yelp.com. While the first amendment (freedom of speech) generally lets you critique your home improvement contractors (and anyone for that matter) and comment upon their quality of work and…
On September 18, 2015 the New Jersey Appellate Court issued a decision that should make all employers review their employee handbooks if it contains a mandatory arbitration provision. In the beginning of almost every employee handbook there is a disclaimer provision that says something along the lines that the employment…
I was driving into work this morning and I heard on the radio a caller complaining that the secret service cancelled her wedding just 8 days short of the big day because of the Pope. So I started thinking, what happened to all the deposit money? Did she lose it…
EMV stands for EuroPay, Mastercard and Visa and starting next week, it will be important for business owners to consider how they employ this payment method. On October 1, 2015 the liability for credit card fraud will shift to the business entity that employs the least effective security technology. In…
On July 1, 2015, Pennsylvania’s new Entity Transaction Law went into effect and made it easier, faster, and cheaper for business entities to engage in “fundamental transactions” with another business entity. Examples of fundamental changes include a merger of one company into another, an amendment of a company’s articles of…
Every business owner, large or small, should take time to read the Department of Justice’s Best Practices for Victim Response and Reporting of Cyber Incidents. In today’s cyber world, it seems we cannot go a day without reading about another cyber security incident and its ramifications. For example, the Seventh…
The United States Department of Labor provided further guidance earlier this month on how it interprets the tests it uses to determine whether a worker should be classified as either an employee or independent contractor. While in some circumstances it may be appropriate to classify a worker as an independent…
It is not uncommon for a company to have a board meeting and have its attorney present to render legal advice. What happens though when in litigation the other side requests production of the minutes for this meeting? Can you successfully claim the attorney client privilege? What if an attorney…
The Securities and Exchange Commission reported its first enforcement action earlier this month against a company that inserted restrictive language in an employee confidentiality agreement to impede the whistleblower reporting process. In this action, the SEC charged that engineering firm KBR, Inc. violated whistleblower protection rule 21F-17 under the Dodd-Frank…