Category: Legal Update

Michigan State Rep. Kyra Harris Bolden won the Democratic nomination for a seat on the state’s Supreme Court. Photo taken in Lansing, MI. (Photo: Photo courtesy of Julia Pickett)

Michigan State Rep. Kyra Harris Bolden decided to pursue a career in politics after learning about the 1939 lynching of her great-grandfather.

The 35-year-old Democrat was still an undergraduate student when her great-grandmother told her the story of how Bolden’s great-grandfather Jesse Lee Bond was lynched by white store owners in Tennessee in 1939 and how his murderers were never brought to justice.

“He was beaten, castrated and thrown into a local river by a lynch mob because he asked for a receipt at a store,” Bolden, a candidate for the Michigan Supreme Court in the midterm elections, told HuffPost in an interview.

“The coroner said his death was an accidental drowning.”

Though Bond’s death went largely unreported for decades, the Lynching Sites Project (LPS), a Memphis-based organization that identifies Tennessee lynching victims, helped bring light to his death and the deaths

Small Business Debt Recovery

Small businesses are prime targets for invoices being left unpaid. Unlike a large business with a dedicated accounting department, small business owners often manage their accounts themselves or use a bookkeeper on occasion. This makes it exceedingly difficult to monitor and manage invoices, as well as outlay ongoing fees for an accountant.

Additionally, while an accountant or bookkeeper is equipped to ‘balance your checkbook’, trying to recover money that’s unpaid is an entirely different matter.

When you’re a small business, any unpaid amount is felt that much more acutely. If you don’t have the resources to constantly spend time chasing non-payment of invoices, the thought of recouping outstanding amounts becomes far more arduous.

The pivotal question, is what can you do as a small business owner? The Australian government explores this issue in the following article entitled “what to do when you haven’t been paid”.

Clients and customers refusing to pay for completed work is a strain, both financially and emotionally. Business News Daily raised an important issue highlighting that an, “unpaid invoice can hurt your business”. This is why it’s imperative to take action if you want to be paid.

One of the aspects that

On appeal from: [2019] EWCA Civ 112

This appeal raised questions of considerable importance for company law. It provides the first opportunity for the Supreme Court to consider the existence, content and engagement of the so-called “creditor duty”: the alleged duty of company directors to consider, or to act in accordance with, the interests of the company’s creditors when the company becomes insolvent, or when it approaches, or is at real risk of, insolvency.

In May 2009, the directors of a company called AWA caused it to distribute a dividend of €135 million to its only shareholder, the respondent. This extinguished almost the whole of a larger debt which the respondent owed to AWA. At the time the May dividend was paid, AWA was solvent. However, it had long-term pollution-related contingent liabilities of an uncertain amount and an insurance portfolio of an uncertain value. There was a real risk that AWA might become insolvent in the future, though insolvency was not imminent, or even probable.

AWA went into insolvent administration almost ten years later, in October 2018. The appellant, BTI 2014 LLC, is the assignee of AWA’s claims. BTI sought to recover the amount of the May dividend from AWA’s

By: Rakshith Bhallamudi and Rhea Shimaria

The Labor Ministry of India has, recently, consolidated 29 Labor laws into four Codes (hereinafter ‘Codes’) – Social security, wages, industrial relations and occupational health. In the matter of ‘working hours, the Codes could now enable the factories to extend the existing 9-hour work shift norm under the Indian Factories Act, 1948, to 12 hours per day for four days per week- providing the workers with a weekly three-day rest period thereby. Poor working conditions, affecting the health and safety of workmen, women and even children, have existed for centuries. Lack of time off for leisure, alongside minimal wages and unstable housing facilities, among other things, form crucial risk factors in this regard- something that many labor legislations recognized and acknowledged as early as the early 19^th century. Despite the long-standing recognition of this issue, the proposed development is being sought to be implemented without due regard to these acknowledgments. This piece is a critical take on this development and argues for its serious reconsideration owing to its utter disregard for the overall well-being of an individual, in various ways.

To begin with, the proposed developments are in direct contravention of the 1919

New Jersey joins a growing list of states seeking to limit employers’ use of non-compete and non-solicitation agreements, adding to the patchwork of legislation in this area.

The New Jersey State Legislature proposed a bill on May 2, 2022 that would regulate and severely limit an employer’s use of non-compete agreements. Specifically, under A3715, all no-poach agreements would be void and non-compete agreements never enforceable against certain types of workers, including interns, apprentices, independent contractors, minors, low-wage employees, or employees who will be employed for less than one year. Outside of this population, restrictive covenants would only be enforced if the employer first discloses the terms of the agreement in writing 30 days before a prospective employee’s offer or, for current employees, 30 days before the agreement would be effective. Post-employment restrictions could only last for 12-months and employees must provide 10 days’ notice of their intent to enforce a post-employment agreement.

The bill also would codify factors which are typically evaluated by courts in considering the reasonableness of a restrictive covenant, including geographic reach, scope of activities, and only imposing restrictions as necessary to protect the legitimate business interests of the employer. Legitimate business interests explicitly include trade secrets

On June 23, 2022, the American Bankers Association and 51 state bankers associations released a letter to the federal financial regulators¹ that describes the principles the regulators should use when developing guidance and regulations on environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) issues (“Industry Letter”).² These principles reflect the industry’s view on how the government can maintain a free-market financial system that also addresses national and global challenges.

The Industry Letter is driven by growing concern that new ESG regulatory requirements will impede banks’ ability to provide necessary products and services to customers. In this Legal Update, we provide background on new ESG requirements from the federal financial regulators and discuss the principles in the Industry Letter.

Background

In recent years, many of the federal financial regulators have undertaken initiatives to address ESG issues. The OCC and FDIC have proposed climate risk management principles.³ The SEC has proposed ESG disclosure requirements for public companies and the investment management industry.⁴ The FHFA has added resilience to climate risk as one of its institution assessment criteria and is considering other actions.⁵ There are other instances of similar actions and initiatives and, given the evident interest of policymakers in ESG—and

This post was authored by Amy Lavine, Esq.

The Kansas Supreme Court held in July that a written agreement between two cities to restrict their future annexations was unenforceable.

The agreement at issue was executed in 2006 between the City of Olathe and the City of Spring Hill, and it delineated the boundary for each city’s annexation authority for the area located between the two cities; the City of Olathe agreed not to annex property south of the boundary line, the City of Spring Hill agreed not to annex property north of the line, and both cities reserved their rights to annex properties within their respective boundary lines. The agreement did not include any expiration date and instead stated that it would remain in effect until it was terminated by the mutual consent of both cities. In 2021, the City of Spring Hill notified the City of Olathe that it is intended to annex property north of the boundary line, in contravention to the agreement. This prompted the City of Olathe to commence litigation to enforce the agreement.

Upon review, the Kansas Supreme Court concluded that the agreement was unenforceable as a governmental action that could not bind subsequent city

Personal Injury

An example of a personal injury matter can be an MVA – motor vehicle accident.

Public liability

Public liability claims according to NSW Service, pertains to damage to your car or other property on NSW roads. “If your car or other property is damaged due to the condition of a NSW road”, you may be entitled to receive compensation. This is a prime example of a public liability claim that no win no fee lawyers handle.

Workers Compensation

If you experience an injury while at work, you are entitled to claim workers compensation. This needs to be addressed quickly and in NSW, within 6 months from the date of the injury.

Engaging a no win no fee lawyer helps you to expedite the process, so that you receive the funds while you’re recovering from the injury.

SIRA (state insurance regulatory authority) is the NSW government body that assesses worker’s compensation matters. SIRA outlines the different types of claims that are available if you suffer a work related injury.

Medical Negligence

Medical negligence claims occur when you suffer an injury as a result of a medical practitioner’s wrongdoing. These claims, often referred to as medical malpractice claims, are

In this post, Jack Prytherch, Of Counsel in the Tax team at CMS, previews the decision awaited from the Supreme Court in Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs v NHS Lothian Health Board [2020] CSIH 14. The appeal was heard by the Supreme Court on 8 and 9 June 2022. The Supreme Court was asked to consider the correct approach that should be taken by HMRC and the courts to evidence, and the burden and standard of proof, in historical claims for the recovery of overpaid VAT.

Background

The law in relation to VAT broadly confers a right to deduct the amount of any VAT on input expenditure for business activities. Where such ‘input tax’ is unrecovered so that VAT has been overpaid, it is possible to make a claim for prior periods (subject to any applicable statutory time limits).

Claims for overpaid VAT, potentially going back as far as the inception of VAT in 1973, are known as ‘Fleming claims.’ They are so called after the decision of the House of Lords in Fleming (trading as Bodycraft) and Condé Nast Publications Ltd v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs [2008] UKHL 2, which concerned the way

By: Prabhat Singh

(This post is the first of a two-part series on the topic – ‘A CASE IN SUPPORT OF RETAINING SECTION 124A’)

INTRODUCTION

The Supreme Court of India has fixed a date for conducting final hearings in the matters challenging the constitutional validity of Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (herein after referred to as “IPC”). The deliberations qua utility of having Section 124A on the statute book are as old as the provisions themselves. privatea recent statement by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India –

The use of sedition is like giving a saw to the carpenter to cut a piece of wood and he uses it to cut the entire forest itself” has once again catalyzed the debate.

There are two schools of thought, namely, the one which prays for annulment of the said Section on the ground that it has outlived its utility, and does not pass the muster of law given ‘Freedom of Speech and Expression,’ as guaranteed in the Constitution. Per contra, another School argues that there is no right in an absolute sense, every right is subject to certain reasonable restrictions and freedom of speech is no exception to