Tag:compliance
Insider Trading Isn’t Illegal if You Are a Member of Congress
Jon Ossoff, the freshman Senator from Georgia, has made it clear that he intends to put forth a bill that would ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks. This is a policy that seems likely to fail, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary. It is estimated that members of Congress and their families bought and sold over $500 million worth of assets. That’s not to say that all these trades were based on information not available to the general public, but it is clear that there is a massive conflict of interest in allowing law makers to trade stocks when their job is intrinsically tied to making decisions that affect the price of stocks.
Concert Venues Crowd Control Regulations
On November 5, 2021, Travis Scott performed a concert at the Astroworld Festival in Austin to a crowd of fifty thousand people. In the hour that he performed, eight people were killed in a deadly crowd crush (another concert goer losing their life days after), and hundreds were injured. Multiple lawsuits have been filed against Travis Scott himself, as well as the production companies that organized the show in response to the tragedy. In the wake of the devastating event, regulations concerning crowd control and management must also be considered, as well as whether these regulations were complied with by the organizers of Astroworld.
The Free Britney Movement and the Call for Conservatorship Reform
Britney Spears: global pop superstar, Grammy award winner, songwriter, dancer, and … the face of the conservatorship reform movement? Ms. Spears can add a new line onto her prolific resume, as legal issues stemming from her decade-plus long conservatorship have shed a light on conservatorship abuse. Britney has subsequently fueled the push to reform conservatorship regulations that affect over an estimated 1.3 million adults in the United States.
House Moves to Bolster Supply Chain and Network Security
On October 20, the House of Representatives passed several bills directed at the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the Department of Commerce (“DOC”) that may impact network security compliance measures affecting U.S. businesses. These bills take aim at much of the software and network technology used by companies within the supply chain to ensure that security is not dismissed in the effort to cut costs and to maintain healthy competition between network communication equipment vendors.
Compliance Spotlight: William Hanning, CISSP, CISO
William Hanning is a Chief Information Security Officer with Groups360 and close to twenty years of Information Security experience. Mr. Hanning has built and managed security programs in multiple industries in organizations of varying sizes, as well as within Fortune 100 companies. Here, he gives insight about the separation between data privacy and cybersecurity, the role of information security teams, and how cybersecurity relates to and supports the work of legal and compliance departments.
NBA Healthcare Fraud Scheme
Krista Solano Associate Editor Loyola University Chicago School of Law, JD 2023 Eighteen former NBA players were charged with defrauding the league’s health and welfare benefit plan. The former players were charged under 8 USC Section 1347, otherwise known as the federal healthcare fraud statute. The fraud scheme submitted $3.9 million in fake claims, for …
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The Pandora Papers and the Bank Secrecy Act
The recent Pandora Papers leak in October 2021 shined the light on the massive and intricate web of offshore accounting that allows for insurmountable amounts of wealth to be hidden throughout the world. One of the most shocking revelations of these Papers was how heavily the United States was implicated in creating and perpetuating this system. As such, legislators have been pressured to find a way to crackdown on this sort of offshore money. One way that they have proposed addressing the problem is by amending the United States’ current criminal financial legislation, the Bank Secrecy Act.
A Potential Strike May Impact Hollywood
The biggest industry strike among Hollywood production workers since World War II may be impending. On October 4, 2021, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) announced that members overwhelming granted the union’s president the authorization to strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The crux of the demands by the union revolves around increasing workers’ quality of life. Average working days consist of fourteen hours or more, with meal breaks often avoided, leaving little to no personal life outside of the industry.
Should The US Implement More Federal Data Privacy Laws
While the United States does have some federal data privacy regulations in place, the most comprehensive regulations exist at the state level with a degree of variation of protection from state to state. Recently, more conversations are being had about whether the United States should implement more federal data privacy laws. Proponents say they would likely use something equivalent to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which focuses on regulating consumer data privacy and protecting consumers from data breaches. This is especially significant because states are taking matters into their own hands by passing state data privacy regulations that all vary slightly, which could become confusing for companies trying to be compliant with more than one.
Professional Sports Leagues and Vaccine Mandates
Following President Biden’s announcement mandating vaccinations for companies with over one hundred employees, major professional sports leagues may be required to ensure compliance with the mandate. This mandate has the potential to have sweeping implications throughout professional sports, from the athletes, to staff and even spectators. The NFL, NBA, and MLB all have high vaccination rates among their players and the staff that works closely with them, since many teams have already mandated that players and those working in “close proximity” to them be vaccinated. However, their back-office staff are less protected, as those employees have yet to be subjected to strict protocols of the rest of the leagues. Despite these high vaccination rates among athletes and certain staff members, the leagues have been reluctant to institute absolute mandates. But that doesn’t mean that athletes don’t still have a responsibility not only to get vaccinated but also encourage others to do so as well.