By Steve T. Ball | Holland & Knight The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on Sept. 24, 2019, issued its final overtime rule as it relates to the salary amount that employees must be paid in order to meet the salary basis requirements for exemption from overtime pay. (See Holland & Knight's previous alert, "Be Prepared for New Federal Overtime Rule Regarding Salary," Sept. 12, 2019.) Through the end of 2019, most white-collar exempt employees must be paid at least $455 per...

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Key Events This Week Supreme Court rules on Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament was unlawful. The court ruled that the decision itself to prorogue parliament was unlawful as it had “the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions without reasonable justification.” Notably, the court also asserted that the decision by the Privy Council to ask the Queen to suspend parliament was...

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By Joanna Massey, President & CEO, JDMA Inc. With millennials expected to comprise at least half of the workforce by 2020, and Gen Z becoming an ever-larger percentage of employees every year, the key to ensuring inter-generational corporate harmony is education. Senior executives, who mostly comprise the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers and Gen X, must firmly grasp that there are now more of them than there are of us. So, it will not work for a successful business today—much less in...

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By Greetje van Heezik, Paulus Merks, Lorenzo Fiorilli, Rezan Ökten | Houthoff  On 24 September, the General Court of the European Union (General Court) issued two landmark judgments following appeals against the decisions of the European Commission (Commission) in the Fiat and Starbucks cases. In these cases, the Commission had found that Luxembourg and the Netherlands had granted unlawful State aid to Fiat and Starbucks respectively, through a number of tax rulings that artificially reduced the amount both multinational groups...

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Kotkamills is a Finnish company that makes plastic-free and recyclable food service products. They create products through renewable resources that prioritizes both the environment and consumers.   Why We're Celebrating:  They won the Starbucks and McDonalds-organized 2019 Next Gen Cup Challenge, an award given to the to-go cup that best addresses the concerns of food packaging waste. They were also the recipients of a 2019 Worldstar Packaging Award.    What makes Kotkamills so exciting? The Kotkamills cup is plastic free, biodegradable, and easily recyclable.  The cups and to-go containers that...

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The EACC, in partnership with the International Property Tax Institute (IPTI), wants to keep its members up to date with the latest developments in property taxes in the USA and Europe. IPTI has put together a selection of brief reports from articles contained in IPTI Xtracts which can be found on its website (www.ipti.org).   USA Arkansas: Walmart appeals property-tax decision The property-tax fight between Walmart and Pulaski County is headed to circuit court. The Bentonville-based retailer on Tuesday filed an appeal of...

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By Joanna Massey, President & CEO, JDMA Inc. Gen Z and millennials have come to expect their favorite corporations to take daring social stands—and any potential divisiveness of the stand itself is usually trumped by a company’s willingness to be completely open about it. Chick-fil-A and Nike are two brands whose stances have stoked controversy, albeit on opposite ends of the political spectrum—and yet both are clear favorites for Gen Z. In Piper Jaffray’s recent bi-annual survey of teen brand popularity, Nike...

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