September 2014

Most group health plans must apply to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services by November 5 for a unique health plan identifying number (HPID).  Although self-insured health plans must apply for HPIDs, the application process was not designed with these plans in mind.

In a post this summer, we identified several deficiencies in the…

EU Member State green energy schemes that only support locally produced renewable energy are compatible with EU law.  This is the main conclusion of the Court of Justice of the European Union in its judgment of 11 September 2014 (CJEU, Joined Cases C-204/12 to C-208/12, Essent Belgium NV v. Vlaamse Reguleringsinstantie voor de Electriciteits- …

The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (“Working Party”), the independent European advisory body on data protection and privacy, comprised of representatives of the data protection authorities of each of the EU member states, the European Data Protection Supervisor (the “EDPS”) and the European Commission, has identified a number of significant data protection challenges related…

Prime Minister Modi’s visit to the United States, set to start in New York on Friday, September 26th, is pregnant with expectation — though a number wonder if the Prime Minister’s PR machine is in overdrive.  The Prime Minister’s visit is not just hype; it will be both symbolic and substantive.  Modi’s message to the…

Earlier today, Motorola Solutions announced that it is transferring $3 billion of pension liabilities to Prudential.  The transfer covers approximately 30,000 plan participants who  currently receive monthly pensions.  In addition, former employees who have a vested benefit under the company’s pension plan but have not yet begun to receive benefits will be given a one-time…

This summer, the International Standards Organization (ISO) adopted a new voluntary standard governing the processing of personal data in the cloud — ISO 27018.  Although this recent development has gone mostly unnoticed by the technology and media press to date, the new cloud standard provides a useful privacy compliance framework for cloud services providers that…

When President Obama announced his intention to convene the first-ever U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, policymakers, pundits, and other interested parties made numerous predictions as to how the historic event would fare, especially in comparison with the summits convened by China, the European Union, and others. Now that the activity of what came to be known as…

Jean Claude Juncker, the former Prime Minister of Luxemburg elected as President of the European Commission in July, presented his new team on September 10.

It took him the whole summer to accommodate the often excessive or contradictory wishes of the EU Member States. But his biggest challenge was to find a substantive portfolio for…