Each state's attorney general has signed a letter demanding that Congress amend the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to prohibit mandatory arbitration provisions in claims involving workplace sexual harassment. ...more
BarBri, Inc., a provider of review courses and materials for law school graduates preparing for the bar exam, earlier this month entered into a consent decree to resolve claims that its online and app-based content was not...more
2/1/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Consent Decrees ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Law School ,
Mobile Apps ,
Online Courses ,
Online Education ,
Public Accommodation ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Title III ,
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ,
Website Accessibility ,
Website Owner Liability ,
Websites
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Office of the General Counsel (GC) has signaled in a sweeping memorandum that the agency, under the Trump administration, is likely to reconsider and reverse many of its...more
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued an immediate stay of requirements for certain private employers to report data on pay and work hours to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The OMB's...more
9/5/2017
/ Data Collection ,
EEO-1 ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Equal Pay ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
OMB ,
Pay Discrimination ,
Pay Gap ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Wage and Hour
Employers should take note of a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in a case involving the arbitration clause in an independent contractor agreement....more
The CFPB’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) has issued its annual report to Congress covering the OMWI’s activities in FY 2016. The Dodd-Frank Act required the CFPB and various other federal agencies, including...more
4/14/2017
/ Annual Reports ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Discrimination ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
EEO-1 ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Minority-Owned Businesses ,
OMWI ,
Women-Owned Businesses
A New York regulation establishing conditions for the payment of wages by direct deposit or debit card scheduled to take effect on March 7, 2017, has been invalidated and revoked by the state's Industrial Board of Appeals...more
Employers increasingly face the difficult scenario of employees who misappropriate company data in the pursuit of whistleblower claims alleging misconduct by the employer. Such cases can present a complex mix of regulatory,...more
2/24/2017
/ Bank Secrecy Act ,
Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Confidentiality Agreements ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Labor Code ,
OCC ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
The Trump administration's "Regulatory Freeze Pending Review" (Freeze Memo) instructs the heads of federal executive departments and agencies to send no regulation to the Office of Federal Register (OFR) until a presidential...more
2/22/2017
/ Affirmative Action ,
Blacklist ,
Conflicts of Interest ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Disability ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dodd-Frank ,
EEO-1 ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Compensation ,
Executive Orders ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Federal Register ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Fiduciary Rule ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Investment Adviser ,
Labor Law Violations ,
Minimum Salary ,
OFR ,
OSHA ,
Over-Time ,
Pay Data ,
Pay Ratio ,
Persuader Rules ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Regulatory Freeze ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Trump Administration ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions ,
Workplace Injury ,
Workplace Safety
President Trump's nomination of Judge Neil M. Gorsuch could shape the U.S. Supreme Court for years to come because of the judge's relatively young age (49) and because he could be part of a conservative majority on the Court,...more
2/3/2017
/ Administrative Boards ,
Chevron Deference ,
Confirmation Proceedings ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Joint Employers ,
Judicial Appointments ,
Justice Scalia ,
Neil Gorsuch ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Nominations ,
Over-Time ,
Persuader Rules ,
SCOTUS ,
Trump Administration ,
Union Elections ,
White-Collar Exemptions
When Donald Trump won the presidential election in November, management-side labor and employment lawyers everywhere scrambled to figure out what the changing administration would mean for our nation's employers and our...more
1/23/2017
/ Affordable Care Act ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
EEO-1 ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Mandates ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Health Insurance ,
Healthcare ,
Healthcare Reform ,
Joint Employers ,
LGBTQ ,
Minimum Salary ,
NLRB ,
Over-Time ,
Section 7 ,
Transgender ,
White-Collar Exemptions
The Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday jointly issued guidance to human resource professionals and others involved in hiring and compensation decisions. This...more
Women in the real estate financing sector have a new opportunity to connect with others in their field and to access and exchange information about the industry. On October 18, the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA)...more
The Pennsylvania Superior Court has affirmed a lower court ruling that assesses punitive damages against several individuals and their new employer resulting from their en masse departure from a previous firm and, in the...more
Ballard Spahr Partner Dee Spagnuolo joined Director Stuart Ishimaru of the CFPB’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion and other industry leaders for the panel discussion "Diversity and Dodd-Frank Section 342," on September...more
9/19/2016
/ American Bar Association (ABA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Disability ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Financial Institutions ,
FOIA ,
LGBTQ ,
Minority-Owned Businesses ,
OMWI ,
Veterans ,
Women-Owned Businesses
Members of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services group recently participated in the American Bar Association Business Law Section Annual Meeting held in Boston, Massachusetts. On September 8, Ballard partner, Dee...more
9/12/2016
/ American Bar Association (ABA) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Disability ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Financial Institutions ,
FOIA ,
LGBTQ ,
OMWI ,
Veterans
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has issued final regulations that expand who is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The new regulations go into effect on October 11, 2016.
In issuing the final...more
Regulated entities should be aware that on August 2, 2016, the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation published a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ)...more
On June 29, 2016, BancorpSouth Bank announced a proposed settlement and consent order with the CFPB and the U.S. Department of Justice of charges that the bank’s mortgage lending practices violated the Equal Credit...more
7/28/2016
/ Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Consent Order ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Cooperative Compliance Regime ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Diversity ,
Dodd-Frank ,
ECOA ,
Fair Housing Act (FHA) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Mortgage Lenders ,
Mortgages ,
Race Discrimination ,
Redlining ,
Residential Real Estate Market
In a pair of highly anticipated decisions, the Ninth Circuit significantly reshaped criminal and civil liability under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The court’s recent decisions in United States v. Nosal...more
7/18/2016
/ Civil Liability ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Confidential Information ,
Criminal Liability ,
Data Security ,
Economic Espionage Act ,
Electronically Stored Information ,
Facebook ,
Former Employee ,
Misappropriation ,
Passwords ,
Popular ,
Trade Secrets ,
Unauthorized Access ,
US v Nosal ,
Websites
In a notice to be published in tomorrow’s Federal Register, the CFPB, OCC, Fed, FDIC, SEC, and NCUA announce that the Office of Management and Budget has approved the “information collection” contained in their “Final...more
7/12/2016
/ Comment Period ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Diversity ,
Dodd-Frank ,
FDIC ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Institutions ,
Information Statements ,
NCUA ,
OCC ,
OMB ,
OMWI ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Transparency Directive
Pennsylvania became the latest state to legalize medical marijuana when Governor Tom Wolf signed the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Act into law last week. The statute, which had bipartisan support, establishes a medical...more
The Department of Labor (DOL) has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for regulations under President Barack Obama's Executive Order 13706, establishing paid sick leave requirements for federal contractors. EO 13706,...more
3/1/2016
/ Comment Period ,
Davis-Bacon Act ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employee Benefits ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Minimum Wage ,
NPRM ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Sick Leave ,
Wage and Hour
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has published its Fall 2015 Statement of Regulatory Priorities and announced that its much-anticipated rulemaking on web accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will...more
President Obama has issued an executive order requiring federal contractors to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave per year to their employees. The White House anticipates that the requirement could benefit more than...more