SOLAS: Saves Lives? Causes Ulcers?
On July 1, 2016, the Safety of Life at Sea (“SOLAS”) requirement for shippers to provide steamship lines with the verified gross mass (“VGM”) of each shipment takes effect internationally.
While under development at the International Maritime Organization for years, these requirements caught many in the U.S. by surprise last summer when the deadline was emphasized. Perhaps equally surprising was the response of the U.S. Coast Guard, the agency with enforcement jurisdiction. Coast Guard management has been publicly quoted as saying the SOLAS VGM requirements are not mandatory under U.S. law! Rather, they are simply one business means to achieve compliance. U.S. terminals have been weighing export containers for OSHA compliance reasons for years, but the same is not true in other countries. Continue reading “SOLAS: Saves Lives? Causes Ulcers?”
New Santa Monica Ordinance Provides for Paid Sick Leave and Increased Minimum Wages
Santa Monica will become the first city in Southern California and the fourth in the state to enact a municipal paid sick leave law. The city’s Paid Sick Leave and Minimum Wage ordinance will take effect in two phases. The first phase will commence on January 1, 2017, when most Santa Monica employees will be entitled to accrue and use up to 40 hours of paid sick leave. That amount climbs to 72 hours the following year, which is three times the amount of paid sick leave that an employee must be permitted to use annually under California’s paid sick leave law. The ordinance also provides a schedule of minimum wage rates for private sector and hotel workers from July 1, 2016 through the year 2022 and regulates service charges imposed by Santa Monica businesses.
Everyone Deserves To Have Secrets – Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016
On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed into law the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) which brought with it a new era of accountability and expediency in protecting employers’ intellectual property. Whether proprietary lines of code in a software program, the secret recipe for fried chicken or highly-valued customer lists, “trade secrets” provide a competitive advantage for businesses. While the DTSA provides new avenues for employers to protect their trade secrets, it also imposes additional burdens, creating new whistleblower protections and imposing new notice requirements. Continue reading “Everyone Deserves To Have Secrets – Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016”
Four Lessons Learned from Prince’s Estate (So Far)
Several of the events surrounding the initial administration of Prince’s estate provide lessons applicable to all estate plans, not just celebrity estate plans.
- If You Don’t Have an Estate Plan, the State Will Write One For You. Prince died without a Will. Because he was not married at the time of his death and he had no surviving parents, children or grandchildren, his sister, and his five half-brothers and half-sisters each will inherit one-sixth of his estate. Two other half-siblings died before Prince, apparently leaving no children of their own; otherwise, they would be entitled to part of the estate as well.
Continue reading “Four Lessons Learned from Prince’s Estate (So Far)”
Higher Learning: A Potentially Expensive Lesson About 529 Plans
A “529 qualified tuition plan” is an education savings plan designed to encourage and help families set aside funds for future college costs. It’s named after Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code, which created this type of plan in 1996.
Americans have an estimated $248 billion currently invested in 529 plans. And it’s easy to understand why. Generally speaking, 529 plans offer an impressive array of income tax and estate tax breaks, plus other benefits.
- Earnings on funds within the plan grow federal and California tax-free as long as the money is taken out to pay for qualified education-related expenses of the designated beneficiary, such as tuition, fees, books, computers, and room and board. Continue reading “Higher Learning: A Potentially Expensive Lesson About 529 Plans”
The Art of Self Defense
Corporate compliance programs come in all shapes and sizes and apply whether your company is privately owned or publicly traded. These internal controls take the form of accounting and audit procedures, import-export/regulatory policies, employment guidelines, ethics/anti-corruption initiatives and so on. The intent of any compliance program is to ensure that employees know what is expected of them and that their behavior complies with and is consistent with the “rules of the road” for your business or industry. Continue reading “The Art of Self Defense”
Shielded but Not Covered – Privacy Demands Better Protection
Yesterday, the Article 29 Working Party took action which some found surprising and others predicted. It found the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield did not contain adequate protections and needs further improvement. The Working Party’s statement can be found here.
While acknowledging the Privacy Shield contains “significant improvements” over the previous Safe Harbor, the Working Party also stated its objective is to “make sure that an essentially equivalent level of protection is maintained when personal data is processed subject to the provisions of the Privacy Shield.” Continue reading “Shielded but Not Covered – Privacy Demands Better Protection”
No Password? See You In Court?
Many headlines have been generated over recent attempts to recover highly desired data from a locked smart device after the death of the device’s owner. While the legal battle between Apple and the FBI over information stored by one of the San Bernardino shooting suspects in an iPhone pitted law enforcement against the technology community, it should also serve as a high profile reminder of the need to address digital passwords as part of an estate plan. Continue reading “No Password? See You In Court?”
TFTEA – Export Focus
In earlier editions of our Alert, we first summarized the new law (see here), then addressed the intellectual property rights changes it contained (see here), and most recently covered the organizational structure (see here). Now, we turn to the export focused provisions in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (“TFTEA”). Mainly those export provisions have to do with information collection for targeting. However, new initiatives for promoting U.S. exports are let out in detail in TFTEA. Continue reading “TFTEA – Export Focus”
TFTEA – CBP Organizational Structure
The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act presents many new guidelines for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The labyrinth of the Act is laborious to dissect and is the reason we have created this series of Alerts. This latest edition digs in to the inner workings of CBP’s organizational structure, duties, and implementation expectations. Anyone who works in international trade, whether an importer or exporter of goods or a service provider, will find this piece exceptionally interesting. Continue reading “TFTEA – CBP Organizational Structure”
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