Business – Taking Care of Business

Update on Cannabis Reform Introduced as a Response to the COVID-19 Crisis

Oct 19, 2020

By: Christopher Wisniewski and Ryan J. Udell

On September 28, 2020, House democrats released an updated version of the Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (the HEROES Act) to address needs that have developed since its introduction on May 15, 2020. The updated version continues to include cannabis reform in the form of reintroducing the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act (the SAFE Act), with the purpose “to increase public safety by ensuring access to financial services to cannabis-related legitimate businesses and service providers and reducing the amount of cash at such business.” As with the introduction, the same ambiguities, problems and hurdles to Senate approval still exist as identified in our June 18, 2020 post, and passage appears unlikely.

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Public Benefit Corporations and the ESG Movement

Sep 23, 2020

By: Carl Koerner

My colleague, John McCarrick, an expert on director and officer responsibility, recently gave a talk about emerging issues in D&O liability and discussed the impact of the ESG movement. ESG is an acronym for Environmental, Social and (Corporate) Governance. The movement asks business enterprises to extend their purview beyond financial success to address issues of public concern, such as global warming or racial injustice. John was asked by a program participant whether the ESG movement might force more companies to reorganize as public benefit corporations (PBCs). (more…)

Department of Labor Releases Fiduciary Guidance

Sep 2, 2020

By: L. Stephen Bowers

On Monday, August 31, 2020, the Employee Benefits Security Administration of the United States Department of Labor (DOL) released a proposed regulation governing the conduct of employee benefit plan fiduciaries (the “Regulation”). Specifically, the Regulation restricts the manner in which fiduciaries of employee benefit plans governed by ERISA exercise shareholder voting rights, including proxy voting power, on securities owned by such plans. (more…)

Businesses Should Strike the Proper Balance Between Their Desire for Management Autonomy With Sensitivity to Social Justice Issues

Jul 1, 2020

By: John K. Baker

American business has been preparing to return to normal operations, with some tweaking due to COVID-19-related governmental guidelines, for weeks. Owners, managers and supervisors are being (or should be) trained about enforcing social distancing and the wearing of masks. As we return to the workplace, businesses should also focus on creating a safe and socially-conscious workplace for all employees. The failure to do so puts an employer at risk in the long term. The combination of savvy union organizers and the Black Lives Matter movement is putting the spotlight on injustice and can endanger the viability of an employer who chooses not to strike the proper balance. (more…)

Supreme Court Limits Fiduciary Actions Under ERISA

Jun 9, 2020

By: L. Stephen Bowers

On June 1, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Thole v. U.S. Bank, National Association, a case involving a breach of fiduciary duty claim under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). In affirming the Eighth Circuit’s decision, the Court determined that Article III of the U.S Constitution does not permit individual participants and beneficiaries to bring such claims against fiduciaries responsible for the investment of assets for defined benefit pension plans.

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Are We Entering Another “Nuclear Winter” for Venture Capital Financing?

May 13, 2020

By: Lori S. Smith and Joshua G. Galante

The U.S. and many other countries are stuck in, or just emerging, from stay-at-home orders that, among countless other consequences, have largely shut down the pipeline for new investment in early stage ventures. According to PitchBook, after a robust investment market in the 4^th quarter of 2019 and 1^st quarter of 2020, the amount of new financings since the pandemic began has fallen off a cliff, with steep declines in both numbers of completed deals and total dollars invested compared to April 2019. To those of us who lived through previous downturns, this change feels a lot like the dot com bust circa 2000 or the “Great Recession” that followed the global financial crisis of 2008 all over again.

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Choosing Delaware Law Does Not Mean You Can Litigate In Delaware – The Sequel

Apr 17, 2020

By: Marc Casarino and Lori Smith

In our August 2017 alert, we cautioned that Delaware choice-of-law provisions standing alone will not confer jurisdiction in Delaware. To best support an argument for litigating in Delaware, we advised that a combination of contractual provisions distinctly establishing consent to Delaware law, forum and jurisdiction should be incorporated into the parties’ agreement. A pair of recent decisions ratify this advice, and serve as further reminder that failure to expressly cover selection of venue and consent to jurisdiction, in addition to choice of governing law, could frustrate a party’s ability to litigate in Delaware. (more…)

M&A Litigation Rising Amidst COVID-19 Uncertainty: Considerations for Litigators and Deal-Makers

Apr 14, 2020

By: Marc Casarino, Thomas Fiddler, Lori Smith and William Fedullo

Just as no human being is naturally immune to the COVID-19 virus, no industry is immune to its economic effects—and related M&A activity across all industries proves no exception. In the weeks following the issuance of stay-at-home orders in states across the country, multiple lawsuits have been filed by parties to agreements whose terms have been rendered economically dubious, impracticable or contrary to the fundamental assumptions on which the parties relied because of the pandemic: in the Delaware Court of Chancery alone, WeWork has filed suit to compel a Japanese investor to close a $3 billion tender offer; Bed Bath & Beyond has attempted to force 1-800-Flowers to complete a $252 million purchase of its subsidiary, PersonalizationMall.com; and a franchisee has sued its franchisor, CorePower Yoga LLC, for specific performance of a pre-pandemic agreement to buy its thirty-four yoga studios. Though all three of these cases are in the early stages of litigation—only the complaints have been filed—they involve issues and circumstances that are certain to recur in actions throughout the country. These cases represent only the tip of the iceberg when considering the types of litigation that are likely to arise from both pending and closed M&A deals and the issues that M&A attorneys and commercial litigators should be considering in addressing upheaval to the deal market caused by COVID-19. (more…)

Board of Directors Guidance When Addressing Emergency Circumstances Occasioned by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Apr 2, 2020

By: Marc Casarino, Lori Smith and Gwenn Barney

The COVID-19 pandemic has sent massive shockwaves throughout the global economy. This crises requires business leaders to confront a host of deleterious effects on an emergency basis – the likes of which many companies have never experienced. Boards of directors must remain cognizant of their oversight responsibilities in these trying times. This post offers guidance to directors of Delaware companies for addressing emergency circumstances occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. (more…)

EPA to Relax Environmental Legal Enforcement During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mar 31, 2020

By: Ryan Udell, Shane Heskin and Gwenn Barney

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in a memo released on Thursday, March 26, 2020 that it will relax its enforcement of environmental legal obligations under certain circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Applicable retroactively to March 13, 2020, the EPA will use enforcement discretion in specific situations where a company or governmental entity is unable to comply with an obligation usually required by the EPA due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, if the company takes certain steps to mitigate and document its noncompliance. This enforcement discretion only applies to civil violations of environmental legal obligations and explicitly does not extend to any criminal violations or conditions of probation in criminal sentences, activities that are carried out under Superfund and RCRA Corrective Action enforcement instruments or imports.

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