In the margins of US President Joe Biden’s visit to Brussels last week, he and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a somewhat surprising agreement on a revamped transatlantic data sharing agreement “in principle”. The agreement comes after the European Court of Justice struck down the original 2013 Safe Harbor and 2020 Privacy Shield agreements. The EU’s highest Court repeatedly struck down the transatlantic agreements over concerns that European citizen’s private data would not be safe from the...

Read more

The EIB Group joins other EU institutions in denouncing Russia's military invasion of Ukraine. Within days from the invasion the EIB, in cooperation with the European Commission, prepared an emergency solidarity package for Ukraine. The package included €668 million in immediate assistance for the Ukrainian authorities. It was fast-tracked and fully disbursed within a month. The Bank is working on other support measures, including committing an additional €1.3 billion for infrastructure projects. In addition to the €668 million package, the...

Read more

On Tuesday, March 29, 2022, USCIS announced an action plan aimed to increase efficiency and reduce burdens to the legal immigration system. USCIS indicated three main goals within this new plan, including: Set new agency-wide backlog reduction goals; Expand premium processing to additional form types; and Work to improve timely access to employment authorization documents (EADs). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and resource constraints resulting from the prior administration, USCIS inherited a significant number of pending cases and increased processing...

Read more

Citing the “unprecedented surge” in the number of initial public offerings by special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) over the past two years, the SEC has proposed new rules that would require enhanced disclosures and provide additional investor protections in initial public offerings by SPACs and in “de-SPAC” transactions. To date, the SEC has relied on the comment process and staff guidance to shape SPAC-related disclosures in registration statements and proxy statements. The proposed rules would represent the most significant...

Read more

On March 9, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed new rules that would require public companies to report detailed information about material cybersecurity incidents affecting their business and their cybersecurity risk management and governance. The new requirements are intended to expand cybersecurity incident reporting and promote increased cybersecurity risk management and governance among publicly traded companies in the U.S. Form 8-K Changes The SEC proposes to require publicly traded companies to report, via Form 8-K, material cybersecurity incidents...

Read more

March 18, 2022 - NYC - Qarik Group is very excited to announce the addition of two former senior Googlers to Qarik’s leadership team. Dan Barrett and Rob Schmit will join our talented team within Qarik in early April.   Dan and Rob each bring a wealth of experience as leaders within Google Cloud. Together they will help lead and further deepen Qarik’s Premier Google partnership, turbocharging Qarik’s established efforts in modernizing / transforming client capabilities. “Dan and Rob partnered effectively to...

Read more

What is Umbrella Insurance and Why It's Important WHAT IS UMBRELLA INSURANCE? Umbrella insurance is a type of supplemental insurance that can be added to your existing personal insurance coverage. This added layer of protection against different elements of risk, provides excess liability above the limits of your basic auto and homeowners insurance, for example. WHAT DOES UMBRELLA INSURANCE COVER THAT MY OTHER POLICIES DO NOT? Much like the homeowner who was sued for the head injury of a visitor that occurred in...

Read more