On Dec. 6, 2019, the Second Circuit issued a decision in Yu v. Hasaki Restaurant, Inc. that will likely impact settlement of wage and hour actions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In a split decision, the court reversed a district court ruling and held that judicial approval is not required when settling an FLSA claim pursuant to a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68(a) offer of judgment. In this case, the plaintiff filed a complaint alleging FLSA overtime violations. After...

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On September 12, 2019, the European Court of Justice ruled that very high financial penalties for infringements of formal obligations in the context of a secondment are incompatible with the freedom to provide services. An Austrian contractor had contracted with a Croatian subcontractor to provide a service on Austrian territory. During an audit, the Austrian Tax Investigation Service established that for most of the employees, no payroll documents or work permits could be submitted. Both the manager of the Austrian...

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Based on an analysis of more than 100,000 legal news articles, legal publisher The National Law Review (NLR) recognized Kristen Walker Ng, an associate in Greenberg Traurig LLP’s Immigration & Compliance Practice, as a 2019 “Go-To Thought Leader” in Immigration.  According to NLR, the Go-To Thought Leadership Awards recognize exceptional authors in 35 legal practice areas for their contributions in providing practical guidance and highlighting timely and important legal news and developments. The awards also take into account whether articles are “reader favorites” and “quoted or...

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My transaction does not require an HSR filing. That means we don’t have to worry about potential antitrust issues, right? WRONG. The HSR Act requires that parties to certain transactions submit a premerger notification filing to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and then observe a waiting period before closing. Any transaction valued in excess of the HSR threshold – currently $90 million – may require an HSR filing and expiration of the HSR...

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Tories on course to defeat Labour  With less than a week to go to polling day, the UK’s political parties tried to avoid any last minute missteps this week. Voters are stuck between a rock and a hard place as Prime Minister Johnson is leading the most unpopular new government on record, and Jeremy Corbyn the most unpopular leader of the opposition. While Labour continue to gain ground, the Conservatives are still holding a comfortable lead, with electoral predictions putting...

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USAM Group, a global team of enterprise sales and marketing professionals that matches financial institutions with best-of-breed solutions from advanced information and technology vendors, is pleased to announce the addition of two complementary offerings to its rapidly growing roster of fintech solutions: HeliumTM by Levyx is system-level data processing software that delivers unparalleled capacity, automatic persistence, and incredible speed, all while using any standard hardware. Neueda is a data technology and integration specialist with extensive capital markets expertise and...

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On 3 December 2019, a motion was carried asking the government to require listed companies to have at least 30% female members on their supervisory board. The proposed binding quota is based on earlier recommendations of the SER. The government is not obliged to implement the motion. However, it was the government which asked the SER for its opinion on this subject, and the final report is the result of extensive consultation between trade unions, employers and independent experts. There appears...

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Big tech firms, whether entering or already active on payments markets, are under scrutiny. PSD2 has opened up the payments markets to non-bank companies, but this comes with both risks and opportunities. EU regulators are examining anticompetitive risks, for example the possibility of leveraging a strong position in one market into another market. Competition, innovation, privacy and security for financial transactions will all be hot topics as scrutiny increases on providers of payment services. The message remains as vital as...

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The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has determined that the Digital Services Tax that will be imposed by France is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts U.S. commerce. As a result, the Section 301 committee will hold hearings to determine which products from France may be subject to additional duties of up to 100% of the dutiable value to compensate for this action by France. The 63 tariff subheadings that have been identified as candidates for this...

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Thompson Hine LLP is pleased to announce Joan E. Meyer has joined the firm as a partner in the White Collar Criminal Practice, Internal Investigations & Government Enforcement practice group Joan has more than 25 years’ experience handling complex criminal and civil litigation, primarily domestic and international white-collar defense for companies involving anti-corruption, financial frauds, government contracting, false claims, securities and commodities violations, and trade compliance matters. She has tried scores of cases at the state and federal levels and...

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