In this week’s Roar: setting the supply chain table for 2023, improved schedule reliability, opinions on the West Coast port situation, the state of truck driving jobs in the US, and the effect of climate change on the future of manufacturing. Some are optimistic 2023 will be the year to put the supply chain woes of the last few behind us. We’ll see about that. 2020 to 2022 taught us a few things, one of them being that global trade wasn’t...

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The EU continued this week to make progress on its Green Deal ambitions after the Council and European Parliament came to a provisional agreement on the so-called, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Once implemented, the CBAM will introduce a levy on carbon intensive goods entering the EU market. By mirroring the EU’s own internal carbon price under the EU’s emission’s trading system (ETS), European industry will be shielded from cheaper, more polluting products imported from abroad. Under this regulation, companies that import into the...

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Thompson Hine is conducting its third Innovation Survey, polling general counsel, Chief Legal Officers, and legal operations professionals to monitor trends and gauge the state of innovation in the legal market. Since 2017, the Thompson Hine Innovation Surveys have served the legal industry by measuring the gap between client feedback and law firms’ appetites to adapt and effect change. EAAC members are being offered an opportunity to help contribute to the Report by sharing thoughts and opinions about innovation.  The...

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Regulation On December 6, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU announced that a provisional deal has been reached on a proposal to "minimize the risk of deforestation and forest degradation associated with products that are imported into or exported from the European Union." The agreement sets out mandatory due diligence rules for companies that want to place relevant products on the EU market, and proposes penalties for non-compliance including fines "proportionate to the environmental damage and the...

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The Biden administration’s Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division recently secured its first criminal conviction for a labor-side violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act after VDA OC LLC (VDA) entered a guilty plea. The conviction follows a pair of highly publicized losses the DOJ suffered earlier this year in its first two criminal trials involving no-poach and wage-fixing accusations. While VDA’s guilty plea shows the DOJ’s commitment to criminally prosecuting labor-side Section 1 claims, questions still remain...

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