News

President Obama Signs Executive Order on LGBT Workplace Equality

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

On Monday, July 21, 2014, President Obama approved and signed an Executive Order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Executive Order 11478, Equal Employment Opportunity in the...

IOM Releases New Report on Graduate Medical Education

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

On July 29, 2014, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IOM) released a report on Graduate Medical Education (GME), entitled Graduate Medical Education That Meets the Nation’s Health Needs. The 2001 IOM report, Crossing the Quality...

Status Updates - August 2014

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

Long arm of the law. A federal judge in Manhattan has upheld a magistrate judge’s ruling that Microsoft must turn over customer emails that are held in a Microsoft data center in Ireland. The key issue is whether communications kept in overseas data...

Congress Moves to Assist Renewable Development on Government Land

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

Congress recently considered three bills intended to facilitate renewable energy development on federal lands. On July 29, the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources considered H.R. 596, the Public Lands...

Employment Fissuring in Franchising: NLRB pursues McDonald's

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

On July 29, the General Counsel (GC) of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that, absent settlement, he has directed the issuance of complaints in 43 unfair labor practice (ULP) cases, alleging that McDonald’s franchisees and their...

Immigration Update: State Department Announces Longer Delay in Visa Processing Times

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

Last week, the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) visa processing database, which controls the issuance of visas and passports at the U.S. consulates abroad, experienced system performance issues (including outages) leading to worldwide delays in visa...

Another Federal Appeals Court Finds Availability of Class Arbitration Is Question for Court

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

In a footnote in Sutter, SCOTUS hinted that the question of whether an arbitration agreement allowed for class arbitration may be one of the “gateway” questions of arbitrability that are presumptively for courts to decide. Last year, the Sixth...

Beware of H-1B Wage Law Violations: Company to be Debarred, Ordered to Pay Over $120,000 in Penalties and Back Pay for H-1B/LCA Violations

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

A recent case before the Office of Administrative Law Judges (ALJ) is a compelling reminder that violations of H-1B wage requirements can result in significant financial penalties and fines. Moreover, violations of H-1B program rules also can lead to...

CFPB, FTC, And State Authorities Coordinate Action Against Foreclosure Relief Companies

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

On July 23, the CFPB, the FTC, and 15 state authorities coordinated to take action against foreclosure relief companies and associated individuals alleged to have employed deceptive marketing tactics to obtain business from distressed borrowers. The...

Inbound U.S. Tax Planning With Inversions

By EsqSocial Corporation 04/08/14

With all of the recent negative publicity focused on the outbound restructuring of U.S. multinationals engaging in so-called “inversion” transactions (see prior blog “Corporate Inversions Showing No Signs of Slowing Down”), little, if any attention,...

Pages