On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule that would ban all non-compete clauses (“noncompetes”) with employees in the United States going forward. The rule, which would create a new regulation at 16 C.F.R. §910.1-910.6, is slated to take effect 120 days after it is published in the Federal Register. The new rule bans all new noncompetes with “workers” in the United States. “Worker” is defined broadly to mean any natural person who provides services, whether paid or unpaid, and regardless of title or status (including contractors and volunteers). A prohibited noncompe ..read more

Companies beware! The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a pilot program “designed to encourage voluntary self-disclosure by individual participants in certain types of criminal conduct involving corporations.” In other words, even if you may have participated in a company’s wrongdoing, we will give you a get out of jail free card – a mandatory non-prosecution agreement (NPA) – if you meet the criteria of this program. DOJ hopes that this program will lead to more corporate crime being reported to it as well as further encouraging companies to create, maintain and strengthen compl ..read more

The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) have, in two separate recent settled enforcement actions involving off-channel communications (“OCC”), imposed fine amounts that are extraordinary and border on the punitive. One of these matters involved a first-of-its-kind OCC case against a stand-alone investment adviser (“IA”). The other matter involved a small broker-dealer with apparently modest financial resources. Both of these cases are reminders that regulators continue to vigorously investigate, and pursue enforcement actions aga ..read more

We have been talking about it since last year: the bill to secure and regulate the digital space ("SREN") has now been passed. The legislative process leading up to the enactment of the SREN bill has been slow (as a reminder: the bill was presented to the French Sénat on May 10, 2023). And for good reason: the European Commission notified the French government of some observations concerning its content. In particular, the Commission considered that the scope of application of the SREN bill would fall within that of the Digital Services Act, particularly regarding age verification of users. Nu ..read more

On April 12, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) announced settled charges against five registered investment advisers for violations of Rule 206(4)-1 (the “Marketing Rule”) under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the “Advisers Act”). These charges reflect an ongoing enforcement sweep regarding performance presentation under the Marketing Rule and follow a similar sweep against nine registered investment advisers in September 2023. Our client alert on the prior sweep can be found here. In four of the five most recent enforcement actions, the advisers we ..read more

Overview The CNIL’s newly released recommendations for AI system developers set out the regulator’s expectations for the entire development process of an AI system, from design to database creation and integration, ensuring development takes place in line with both GDPR and the EU’s AI Act. Intended to remind AI systems developers of the centrality of EU GDPR rules to the AI development process, the recommendations also provide a step by step guide, taking a developer from conception of the system to delivery. Each step of the design process is mapped against the relevant GDPR obligations (fro ..read more

Retrofitting and reuse of existing buildings, as opposed to their demolition and rebuild, is a more environmentally sustainable approach to development in most (but not all) cases, in terms of lower carbon emissions.   However, there is currently no standardised approach to calculating and assessing the non-operational carbon or ‘embodied carbon’ impacts of a development over its lifetime. Neither are there clear national planning polices or guidance on how these emissions should be taken into account in planning decisions. This contrasts to ‘operational carbon’, being the carbon emi ..read more

This article contains some links which are only accessible by PLC subscribers. Today, Singapore is one of the most solar-dense cities globally. According to the Singapore Green Plan 2030, it aims to achieve at least 2 gigawatt-peak (GWp) of installed solar capacity by 2030, meeting the annual electricity needs of around 350,000 households. However, solar energy projects are not without their challenges and a major point for negotiation in this type of project is the delay damages regime. This area is complex and disputes are rife. Therefore, the recent judgment from the Singapore High Court in ..read more

Potential Benefits to US Issuers from the Issuance of Reverse Yankee Bonds US issuers may elect to issue Reverse Yankee bonds for a number of reasons.  Of significant importance is likely to be favorable pricing and coupon rates that may be available (particularly for very large US issuers), which may result, in part, from the implementation of differing central bank monetary policies from the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of England, respectively, in response to global inflationary trends. In the first quarter of 2024, there was rising optimism about the state of the eurozone economy, allowi ..read more

New York may lead the charge on implementation of data excise taxes (i.e., “data mining taxes”) which will impose taxes on businesses that collect personal data.  These data excise taxes primarily target large tech companies like Google and Amazon and other large corporations given the thresholds set forth in the proposed bill.  Presently under review by the New York Senate is NY Senate Bill S2012 (the “Bill”) which, if enacted, would “raise revenue to fund state services by imposing a tax on the collection of New Yorkers’ consumer data by businesses for commercial purposes.”  T ..read more