March 2023

On January 25, 2023, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced the U.S. arms transfer figures for FY 2022, showing that U.S. defense sales to foreign militaries bounced back after two years of decline.  Arms transfers through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program increased year-over-year by 49% up to a total of $51.9 billion, and…

On March 26, 2023, Virginia enacted a genetic privacy law (SB 1087) aimed at regulating the practices of direct-to-consumer (“DTC”) genetic testing companies.  Virginia is not the only state interested in regulating these companies—numerous other states, including Minnesota, Texas, Tennessee, and Vermont, have introduced similar bills during this legislative session, following the enactment…

In recent years, there has been increasing antitrust scrutiny around the world of large technology companies. The increased attention on competition in the digital economy started outside of the United States. Since 2019, however, the U.S. antitrust enforcers—the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) as well…

FCA Issues Reminder on Board and Executive Management D&I Disclosure Obligations

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) has provided a reminder to primary market participants in its Primary Market Bulletin 44 of the need to make diversity and inclusion-related (“D&I”) disclosures in their annual reports. The obligations were introduced last year through amendments to the…

This is the twenty-second in a series of Covington blogs on implementation of Executive Order 14028, “Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity,” issued by President Biden on May 12, 2021 (the “Cyber EO”).  The first blog summarized the Cyber EO’s key provisions and timelines, and the subsequent blogs described the actions taken by various government agencies to…

Another court in the Eastern District of Michigan recently dismissed a putative class action on prudential mootness grounds, holding that the manufacturer’s voluntary recall program—which was supervised by a federal administrative agency—mooted the plaintiffs’ consumer fraud and warranty claims.  See Pacheco v. Ford Motor Co., 2023 WL 2603937 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 22, 2023).…

Background

Later this week the Department of the Treasury is expected to release guidance on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)’s EV tax credit under section 30D of the Internal Revenue Code.  Highly consequential for the guidance and practical availability of the credit will be how Treasury interprets the term “foreign entity of concern.”  This is…

The EU’s AI Act Proposal is continuing to make its way through the ordinary legislative procedure.  In December 2022, the Council published its sixth and final compromise text (see our previous blog post), and over the last few months, the European Parliament has been negotiating its own amendments to the AI Act Proposal.  The…