On October 12, 2022, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) opened a public consultation seeking feedback on the draft guidance document on employment practices, specifically relating to monitoring at work (the “Monitoring at Work Guidance”).
The Monitoring at Work Guidance aims to provide practical guidance and good practices relating to monitoring UK workers
Mandatory gender pay gap reporting is new to Ireland and is likely to attract media attention and potential comparisons, particularly for multinational and higher profile companies. Deciding how best to communicate the gender pay gap – if it exists – will be important in averting any particular anxieties which may arise for employees and their
Mandatory gender pay gap reporting is new to Ireland and is likely to attract media attention and potential comparisons, particularly for multinational and higher profile companies. Deciding how best to communicate the gender pay gap – if it exists – will be important in averting any particular anxieties which may arise for employees and their representatives in particular.
Ireland’s unadjusted 11.3% gender pay gap, last reported in 2019, is below the then EU average of 14.4% (down to 13% in 2020 without Ireland, Greece and the UK reporting) and is explained largely by education, occupation, working time and enterprise size. It is pretty typical of most other EU states and addressing the EU gender pay gap is a key focus for the EC’s gender equality policy. It is also important for Europe in addressing the estimated 30.1% pension gap feeding the at-risk-of-poverty rate disparity between the sexes.
What organisations are in scope?
The first compliance deadline looms this December for employers of more than 250 employees. The workforce threshold numbers will decline on a staggered basis over the next two years but smaller employers with less than 50 employees are exempt.
Picking a snapshot date for reporting
The Employment Equality Act 1998 (Section 20A)(Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2022 detail the reporting requirements for employers in Ireland. Organisations in scope this year (having more than 250 employees) are required to pick a snapshot date from last June and to report the results no later than 6 months later, December 2022.
As plaintiffs continue to rely on the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (“CPPA”) to bring greenwashing suits, a recent D.C. Superior Court decision imposes limits on their ability to allege that a company’s general commitments to “sustainability” can constitute actionable misrepresentations.
On October 12, 2022, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) opened a public consultation seeking feedback on the draft guidance document on employment practices, specifically relating to monitoring at work (the “Monitoring at Work Guidance”). The guidance aims to provide practical guidance and good practices relating to monitoring workers in accordance with data protection legislation.
On 19 October 2022, the European Commission (the “Commission”) adopted its new State aid Framework for research, development and innovation (the “2022 RDI aid Framework”). This instrument governs Member States’ investment in RDI activities. It is an important response to the 2020 Commission Communication on a new European Research Area for Research and Innovation (the “ERA Communication”), aiming at strengthening investments and reaching a 3% GDP investment target in the field of RDI. The 2022 RDI aid Framework is a revision of the previous version of 2014.
The three most important things you need to know about the 2022 RDI aid Framework are:
As noted in our COP27 recap, this year’s climate summit in Sharm el-Sheik involved both the historic creation of a fund to compensate countries most impacted by climate change, as well as lost opportunities to adopt more ambitious and accelerated climate mitigation commitments. Perhaps hidden between these headlines, President Biden announced an initiative with significant implications for federal contractors. Under this proposal, the United States would become the first country to require major government suppliers and contractors to set science-based emissions reduction targets aligned with the Paris Agreement. It would also require contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate risks.
This initiative—the proposed Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule—would have wide-reaching impacts if ultimately finalized. Collectively, the proposed rule would cover about 86 percent of the federal government’s supply chain GHG impacts and 86 percent of federal annual spending. To put this in perspective, in the last fiscal year alone the United States purchased $630 billion in goods and services.
The comment period for the proposed Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule closes on January 13, 2023. The proposed compliance requirements for major contractors would start two years after publication of a final rule. If promulgated, this rule may be challenged in court along the lines of the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors.
The United Nations annual climate change conference—officially known as the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (“UNFCCC”), or COP27 for short—held in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, finally concluded early Sunday morning, more than 24 hours late.
COP27 was held amidst the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine and the consequent economic turmoil, including Europe’s scramble to secure non-Russian gas. It was previewed by a UNFCCC report which concluded that on its current trajectory the world faced warming of between 2.5 and 2.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, and accompanied by a new report from the International Energy Agency’s 2022 World Energy Outlook which concluded that the world needed to spend at least $4 trillion annually to tackle climate change from now until 2030.
Against this challenging backdrop, COP27 was never going to be straightforward. But those difficulties were compounded by divisions between developing and developed world over the priorities that should form the focus for COP27. Those divisions manifested themselves most clearly in tensions before, during, and at the conclusion of the Conference over the issue of “loss and damage.” This acrimony overshadowed almost all other aspects of the COP, which will nonetheless be viewed as historic for being the first COP to not only place the loss and damage issue on the official agenda, but for its creation of a separate fund to compensate countries most impacted by climate change. But loss and damage aside, the broader picture that emerged from COP27 was one of lost opportunities to adopt more ambitious and accelerated climate mitigation commitments in response to the dire scientific warnings about the impact of rapid global warming on the planet. In particular, efforts calling for a phase down of all fossil fuels were ultimately unsuccessful in the Summit’s final agreement and highlighted the mismatch between the pace of global emissions reduction commitments and that which is needed to avoid the most disruptive climate impacts.
The United Nations annual climate change conference—officially known as the 27th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (“UNFCCC”), or COP27 for short—held in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, finally concluded early Sunday morning. COP27 was held amidst the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine and its consequent economic turmoil, as well as increasingly tumultuous global weather events over the past year. Against this challenging backdrop, COP27 was never going to be straightforward. But difficulties were compounded by divisions between the developing and developed worlds over the priorities that should form the focus of the Summit, most clearly manifested in tensions over the issue of “loss and damage.” Although COP27 will be viewed as historic for its creation of a fund to compensate countries most impacted by climate change, there were also lost opportunities to adopt more ambitious and accelerated climate mitigation commitments that will be needed given the dire scientific warnings about the rapid impact of climate change on the planet.
On Monday, November 7, the Supreme Court heard argument in Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran to decide whether a party subject to an FTC or SEC administrative proceeding can simultaneously challenge the constitutionality of an administrative proceeding, or even of the agency itself, in federal district court rather than waiting for final agency action. At least five Justices expressed some measure of support for the private parties’ arguments, which indicates that the Court may permit certain kinds of collateral constitutional attacks (e.g., due process and appointments clause claims) at the outset of administrative proceedings.
Although predicting the outcome of any case from the oral argument is extremely difficult, three Justices – Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas – expressed strong support for finding in Axon’s and Cochran’s favor. Through their questions, they implied that 28 U.S.C. Section 1331, which grants federal district courts “original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution of the United States,” provides a clear grant of jurisdiction over constitutional claims and neither the FTC Act nor the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“the Exchange Act”) could strip district courts of that jurisdiction. They also suggested that Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB requires a finding for the companies. In PCAOB, the Court held that a district court had jurisdiction to hear an appointments clause challenge to PCAOB’s structure despite the fact that the SEC had not yet issued a final order against Free Enterprise Fund.
Other justices appeared to favor the private parties, but not as overtly. Chief Justice John Roberts’s questions suggested that PCAOB may prove to be an insurmountable barrier to the government’s claims and that the availability of jurisdiction in other forums (i.e., the court of appeals) under the FTC Act and the Exchange Act clearly does not act as an implied removal of jurisdiction from Section 1331. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s questions indicated that he believes that the issue may be decided solely by reference to the “wholly collateral” factor of the Thunder Basin test, which courts have used to guide determinations about when a party may bring an Article III challenge to agency proceedings before those proceedings have concluded. Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U.S. 200 (1994) (holding that the statutory review scheme of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Amendments Act of 1977 precludes a district court from exercising subject-matter jurisdiction over a pre-enforcement challenge to the Act). He stated that clarity, certainty, and speed counseled in favor of permitting district courts to hear constitutional claims.