May 2020

As we reported in our prior client advisory on the wave of investigations to follow the pandemic, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES”) Act established three new bodies to conduct oversight and investigations on pandemic-related issues. Separately, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a special committee to conduct additional pandemic-related oversight. In recent weeks,…

State regulation of net metering may be a thing of the past if a recent petition filed by the New England Ratepayers Association (“NERA”) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) is granted.  NERA’s petition requests that FERC (1) find that there is exclusive federal jurisdiction over wholesale energy sales from generation sources located on…

On May 5th, 2020, the California Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection held a hearing and considered AB 2811, a bill that would amend existing California law governing automatic renewals.  As currently drafted, AB 2811 would:

  • require businesses to provide 3-7 days’ notice explaining how to cancel an automatic renewal offer or continuous service

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On May 21, in an open virtual meeting the SEC’s 23-member Investor Advisory Committee debated and endorsed the Investor as Owner Subcommittee’s long-awaited recommendations that the Commission begin in earnest an effort to update the reporting requirements of Issuers to include material, decision-useful, environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.  That same day, BlackRock shareholders debated…

Prompted by the COVID-19 global health emergency (the “COVID-19 Emergency”), Treasury and the IRS recently issued Rev. Proc. 2020-27 to provide relief for U.S. citizens and residents planning to take advantage of the foreign earned income exclusion under section 911 of the Internal Revenue Code whose expatriate assignments were interrupted due to the pandemic.  The…

On May 13, 2020 South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the government’s intention to ease restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19. This announcement comes seven weeks after South Africa first announced a national state of disaster in accordance with the Disaster Management Act, 2002 (Act No. 57 of 2002) (the “Act”). This decision…

Yesterday, with vocal support from fellow Commissioner Brendan Carr, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai released a draft Declaratory Ruling and Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“DR” and “NPRM”) to promote the use of broadcast spectrum for internet services (referred to by the FCC as “Broadcast Internet”). The full, five-member Commission will vote on adoption of the DR…

As described in an earlier post to this blog, the Commerce Department initiated an investigation under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 into whether “laminations for stacked cores for incorporation into transformers, stacked and wound cores for incorporation into transformers, electrical transformers, and transformer regulators are being imported into the United…