SEC Sues Convicted Felon and Others for Alleged $45 Million Dollar Fraud Involving Sham Blockchain Technology
Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") filed suit against convicted felon Neil Chandran and others for an alleged $45 million dollar fraudulent investment scheme whereby Defendants "raised more than $45 million from sales of unregistered securities to tens of thousands of investors worldwide" for a blockchain technology ...
Recent EEOC Religious Discrimination Settlement
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that United Airlines agreed to pay $305,000 to a Buddhist pilot as well as provide other relief. In the lawsuit, the pilot claims that United Airlines refused to accommodate his religious request. The pilot was diagnosed with alcohol dependency and lost his medical certificate issued ...
Amendments to New Jersey’s WARN Act Expanding Employee Protections to Take Effect in April 2023
Almost three years after signing into law legislation significantly amending New Jersey's analog to the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act ("WARN Act") —officially titled the Millville Dallas Airmotive Plant Job Loss Notification Act (the "NJ WARN Act")—Governor Phil Murphy signed Assembly Bill No. 4768 on January ...
Mass Layoffs are Sometimes Used to Justify Unlawful Discrimination or Retaliation
In recent weeks, tens of thousands of employees have been fired in mass layoffs, including employees at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and other tech companies. With speculation of a looming recession, many more workers may be laid off in the coming weeks and months. While employers claim that layoffs are necessary to cut costs, layoffs may also ...
Federal Trade Commission Proposes Nationwide Ban on Non-Compete Agreements
On July 9, 2021, Present Biden issued an executive order insisting upon aggressive enforcement of antitrust laws. In the order, the White House specifically targeted non-compete agreements and urged both the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") and Department of Justice to ban or at least limit their use. In recent years, roughly half of states ...
New York State Amends the Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act to Provide Important Protections to Nursing Employees
On December 7, 2022, New York State expanded protections afforded to working mothers by amending the Nursing Mothers in the Workplace Act ("NMWA"). Specifically, the updated NMWA now requires employers to (i) provide reasonable breaks to allow an employee to express breast milk each time the employee has a reasonable need to express milk for ...
U.S. DOJ files Lawsuit Against Major Pharmaceutical Corporation for 8+ Years of Controlled Substances Act Violations
On December 29, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice initiated a civil enforcement action against AmerisourceBergen Corporation and its subsidiaries, AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation and Integrated Commercialization Solutions, LLC, for their violations of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 ("CSA"). AmerisourceBergen ...
New York Passes Legislation Prohibiting Retaliation against Workers for Taking Legally Protected Time Off
As has been widely discussed of late, Congress recently passed legislation imposing tentative contract agreements on unionized rail workers after it appeared that a strike blocking the deal was imminent. While reporting on this issue has largely focused on the aversion of a strike that would have likely crippled the U.S. supply chain during ...
SEC Data Shows Record-Breaking Enforcement Actions and Penalties in Fiscal Year 2022
In early November, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") announced its enforcement results for Fiscal Year 2022. The results reflected a record-breaking year for the agency. The SEC announced that a total of 760 enforcement actions were filed in fiscal year 2022, including 462 new actions. The number of new actions filed in fiscal ...
SEC Seeks Input On Proposal For Stock Buyback Plan
On December 7, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reopened the comment period on proposed amendments to the required buyback disclosures. The SEC made the decision to call for additional public input following the passing of The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The Act was published after the original proposed amendments had ...
U.S. House of Representatives Passes Bill to Ensure Equal Pay For All U.S. Athletes Engaged in International Competition
On December 21, 2022, the House of Representatives passed the Equal Pay for Team U.S.A. Act which will require all athletes, regardless of gender, representing the United States in international competition to be given equal pay and benefits in their sport. The Act stems from the U.S. women's soccer team's recent legal battle with the U.S. ...
SEC FILES COMPLAINT AGAINST SAMUEL BANKMAN-FRIED FOR FRAUD
On December 13, 2022, the SEC filed a civil Complaint against Samuel Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of FTX Trading Ltd. ("FTX"), in the Southern District of New York, alleging that Bankman-Fried engaged in a massive years-long scheme to defraud both investors and the platform's customers whereby he misled investors about FTX's risk ...
The Speak Out Act Prohibits Employers from Silencing Employees with Pre-Dispute Non-Disclosure and Non-Disparagement Agreements
If passed into law, the Speak Out Act would prohibit the enforceability of a pre-dispute non-disclosure or non-disparagement agreement in a sexual assault or sexual harassment dispute involving conduct that allegedly violates federal, tribal, or State law. For employees, the Speak Out Act would permit them to discuss any sexual assault or ...
The WARN Act
The news has been consumed with massive tech company layoffs. Large companies such as Twitter, HP, Cisco, Amazon, and Roku are only a few of the companies that have recently made drastic employee cuts. While companies prepare for a recession, it is important for employees to know their rights. Under the Federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining ...
Federal Judge to Amazon: Stop Retaliating Against Union Organizers
On November 18, 2022, Judge Diane Gujarati of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York Court issued an order enjoining Amazon from retaliating against union organizers in its JFK8 Warehouse, located in Staten Island. Judge Gujarati rendered her decision after Amazon terminated, suspended, and issued performance ...
New Hampshire Judge Rules in Favor of SEC, Finding Blockchain Tokens Were Securities
On November 7, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission obtained summary judgment in a case against LBRY Inc., a blockchain-based publisher and content-sharing platform. This is one of the latest cases testing what constitutes a security under the federal securities laws. In granting summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Paul J. Barbadoro ...
Jury Awards Plaintiff $366 Million for Retaliation
Retaliation is the most frequent alleged basis of discrimination. Retaliation is when an employer takes an adverse action against an employee for engaging in protected activity. Protected activities include, but are not limited to, filing a complaint, answering questions during an employer investigation, resisting sexual advances or intervening ...
Collapse Of FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Prompts Investigations
On November 11, 2022, Bahamas-based FTX, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, filed for bankruptcy and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, stepped down as CEO. This was a stunning turn of events for a company valued at $32 billion earlier this year and whose logo appeared on everything from Formula 1 racecars to the Miami Heat's ...
NYC Transparency Law to Take Effect on November 1, 2022
As previously outlined here and here, in January 2022, the New York City Council enacted an amendment to the New York City Human Rights Law, requiring employers to list minimum and maximum salary ranges in job postings. The new law, which goes into effect on November 1, 2022, reflects an effort by the City to combat gender and race-based pay ...
REGULATING CRYPTO: A SECURITY OR A COMMODITY?
In light of recent events that have occurred in the crypto world – the collapse of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange which was forced to file for bankruptcy after suffering an $8 billion dollar shortfall, and the recent court decision in Securities and Exchange v. LBRY, Case No. 21-cv-260-PB, 2022 WL 16744741 (D. N.H. Nov. 7, 2022), where the ...