Steptoe & Johnson LLP (LexBlog United States)

2038 results for Steptoe & Johnson LLP (LexBlog United States)

  • Federal Court Finds Corporate Transparency Act Unconstitutional: Navigating Implications for Reporting Companies

    On March 1, 2024, the federal district court in the Northern District of Alabama declared in the case of National Small Business United v. Yellen that the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) exceeds the Constitution’s limits on Congress’s power. The court enjoined the Department of the Treasury and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) – the agency...

  • Biden Administration to Implement New National Security Rules Targeting Personal Data

    On February 28, 2024, the Biden administration announced the creation of a new national security regulatory regime that will prohibit or restrict certain transactions involving bulk sensitive US personal data or government-related data and specified “countries of concern.” The Biden administration announced the regime in a new executive order, Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive...

  • The EU’s New Market Definition Notice

    After a lengthy period of consultation, the European Commission has adopted a new Notice (‘Notice’) on the definition of the relevant market for purposes of EU competition law.  The Notice comes on the heels of a significant period of updating competition laws, including (i) a number of new block exemption regulations setting safe harbors (e.g....

  • In First of Its Kind Action, Commerce Moves to Regulate Foreign Tech in Vehicles

    In a first of its kind action, the US Department of Commerce has begun a rulemaking process to prohibit or impose conditions on certain transactions involving foreign technology used in so-called “connected vehicles” or “CVs,” as defined below for automotive applications. The measure, announced by Commerce on February 29, 2024 in a press release and...

  • Community Renewable Generators: Wholesale Power Sales Versus Net Energy Metering

    A Proposed Decision issued by Administrative Law Judges Debbie Chiv and Kelly A. Hyme of the Public Utilities Commission of California rejects a fundamental tenet of many community renewable (CR) programs. That tenet is that wholesale power sales can be “erased’ by couching cash payments to CR generators as “bill credits.” Although FERC has made...

  • Copyright Infringement Lawsuits Against OpenAI and Microsoft Are Mounting

    In two complaints filed last week, The Intercept Media, Inc, Raw Story Media, Inc. and AlterNet Media, Inc. became the latest companies to sue OpenAI for copyright infringement in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Intercept also included Microsoft as a defendant. Both complaints were filed by self-identified “news organizations,” and allege that...

  • OFSI Publishes Expanded Guidance on Financial Sanctions Licensing Process and Principles

    On February 27, 2024, HM Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (“OFSI”) published a number of guidance documents on financial sanctions licensing addressing the process of applying for a licence, as well as the principles applied when making licensing decisions relating to designated individuals. Publication of the guidance follows a recent court case in which...

  • ASIA PACIFIC 2023 ANTI-CORRUPTION RANKINGS: Transparency International’s CPI and the TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix

    Please read our most recent publication in our International Compliance Blog.

  • ASIA PACIFIC 2023 ANTI-CORRUPTION RANKINGS: Transparency International’s CPI and the TRACE Bribery Risk Matrix

    Asia Pacific (APAC) countries continue to “stagnate” in their rankings in 2023, only minimally above the global average, with most well below, according to two anti-corruption due diligence tools, TRACE’s 2023 Bribery Risk Matrix (TRACE Matrix) and Transparency International’s 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index (TI CPI). While the two ranking systems share the same view of...

  • NAESB’s Development of a Standard Distribution Services Contract for DER Aggregators Selling State-Jurisdictional “Distribution Services” to Distribution Owners Raises Issues Similar to Order No. 2222

    On February 7, 2024, at the request of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), NAESB held a kick-off meeting for the development of a standard model contract to facilitate purchases by distribution owners of “distribution services” from DER aggregators. The idea is for NAESB to develop a standard contract that could be used by distribution...

  • Potential new SAR-like Reporting Requirements for Certain U.S. Real Estate Transactions

    On February 8, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a notice of proposed rulemaking (2024 NPRM) about Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations concerning persons involved in residential real estate closings and settlements. To promote U.S. AML/CFT objectives, the NPRM proposes a system of...

  • Disappearing No More: Maintaining Electronic Messages for Antitrust Investigations

    The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice  and the Federal Trade Commission recently issued a revised model second request clarifying that companies under investigation have an obligation to preserve communications on messaging platforms including those on so-called ephemeral applications.  These applications, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Signal, and Google Chat, can be configured to.

  • Commerce Proposes Significant New Regulations on AI Training and IaaS Providers

    In a recent proposed rule, the Department of Commerce has taken additional steps toward imposing significant regulations on infrastructure as a service (IaaS) providers, including providers engaged in training certain large AI models. The notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) is published by Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and, in particular, its newly-created Office...

  • BIS Makes Further Changes to Administrative Enforcement, But Questions Remain

    On January 16, 2024, the Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a memorandum, announcing that: The memorandum builds upon previous changes to BIS’s administrative enforcement program, which were announced in memoranda dated June 30, 2022 and April 18, 2023.  These changes are intended to...

  • The FTC Updates Size of Transaction Thresholds and Filing Fees for Premerger Notification Filings for 2024

    The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has announced updated size-of-transaction thresholds for premerger notification (Hart-Scott-Rodino or “HSR”) filings, as well as updates to the HSR filing fees and transaction value categories.  Separately, the FTC has also updated the de minimis thresholds for interlocking officer and director prohibitions under Section 8 of the Clayton Act. The HSR...

  • Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements Under the Corporate Transparency Act Are Now In Effect

    As of January 1, 2024, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is effective, impacting millions of entities. On September 30, 2022, the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a final rule to implement the beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting provisions of the CTA, which was enacted as part of the Anti-Money...

  • New York Enacts Prohibition Against Employers Collecting Employee Communications from Personal Accounts

    Amid the reporting of the newest round of settlements by broker-dealers and financial advisers in late September for employee engagement in off-line business communications, last month also saw New York Governor Kathy Hochul sign legislation (A.836) prohibiting employers from requesting that employees or job applicants disclose the login information—such as usernames and passwords—to their...

  • What Does the BTC ETP Approval Mean for the SEC’s Regulatory Approach to Crypto? Five Observations on the Immediate, Near Term, and Post-2024 Impact

    On January 10, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”) approved the listing and trading of eleven spot bitcoin exchange traded products (“ETPs”). [1]  The Commission declared effective the registration statements for ten of the ETPs on the same date.  This long-awaited approval stands in contrast to the SEC’s sixteen prior denials...

  • The Top Ten Asia-Pacific FCPA Enforcement Actions of 2023

    Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in 2023 has been described as a lull, a continued downward trend, or a slump, but that may be “bullsh*t,” to quote an FCPA academic. However they are described, the 2023 FCPA statistics show a return to the median range in case numbers but an absence of...

  • The Top Ten Asia-Pacific FCPA Enforcement Actions of 2023

    Please check out our most recent publication in our International Compliance Blog.

  • DOJ and FTC Finalize Merger Guidelines

    On December 18, 2023, the DOJ and FTC jointly released the final 2023 Merger Guidelines that describe how the agencies will evaluate proposed merger and acquisition transactions.  Despite significant editing, and calls from industry to moderate the guidelines, the agencies essentially doubled down on their vision, which we have previously described, promising a more aggressive...

  • Proposed Rule Subjects Digital Payments to CFPB Oversight

    On November 7, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would establish CFPB supervisory authority over certain nonbank companies “participating in a market for ‘general-use digital consumer payment applications.'” Overview The CFPB seeks to subject nonbank companies that provide digital payment wallets and applications to the...

  • The Federal Trade Commission Weighs In on AI and Copyright

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently submitted comments to the US Copyright Office as part of the Office’s notice of inquiry examining copyright issues related to artificial intelligence. The agency’s comments largely focused on two areas: potential threats to competition from AI, and copyright. Competition: The FTC cautioned that “the rapid development and deployment of...

  • FinCEN Proposed Rule Targets Digital Asset Mixers

    On October 19, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s (“Treasury”) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would implement new recordkeeping and reporting requirements on domestic financial institutions and domestic financial agencies, related to transactions that they know, suspect, or have reason to suspect involve convertible...

  • FinCEN Proposed Rule Targets Digital Asset Mixers

    On October 19, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s (“Treasury”) Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would implement new recordkeeping and reporting requirements on domestic financial institutions and domestic financial agencies, related to transactions that they know, suspect, or have reason to suspect involve convertible...

  • The Introduction of the U.K. “Failure to Prevent Fraud” into Law

    On October 26, 2023, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (the “Act”) received Royal Assent.  Among other provisions, the Act contains a new “failure to prevent fraud” criminal offence pursuant to which an organization may be liable where (i) a specified fraud offence is committed by an associated person (defined as an employee,...

  • Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Stay Compliant in an Evolving Cybersecurity Legal Landscape

    Cybersecurity should be one of the core parts of business strategies. Strong cybersecurity can help businesses to protect their systems, networks and data from cyberattacks, and to prevent financial loss, reputational damage, and disruption to their operations. On the occasion of the cybersecurity awareness month, we present some key European Union (EU) cybersecurity laws that...

  • Authors Guild and 17 Well-Known Authors Claim OpenAI Infringes Their Copyrighted Works

    Last Tuesday, the Authors Guild and 17 authors, including George R.R. Martin, Jonathan Franzen, Elin Hilderbrand, John Grisham and Jodi Picoult, filed a proposed class action complaint against OpenAI, alleging direct, vicarious and contributory copyright infringement. The Plaintiffs seek “redress for Defendants’ flagrant and harmful infringements of Plaintiffs’ registered copyrights in written...

  • Judge Gardephe: Better Call Saul’s Fictional “Sweet Liberty” Tax Firm Does Not Infringe Rights of Similarly-Named, Real Business

    In an opinion yesterday, Judge Gardephe dismissed a complaint (see our prior coverage here) brought by Liberty Tax Service against the makers of the TV show “Better Call Saul” for depicting an allegedly similar business, “Sweet Liberty Tax Services,” as a criminal enterprise. In the show, the business is run by Craig Kettleman, who had been...

  • Double-Provision Versus Double-Compensation of Ancillary Services Under PJM’s Order No. 2222 Compliance Filing

    Back in March of 2023, FERC issued a seemingly logical compliance order regarding one aspect of PJM’s Order No. 2222 compliance filing. This blog noted that “FERC acknowledged that DER owners in full retail NEM programs actually are compensated for ancillary services that they do not even provide and that paying them for ancillary services,...

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