Category:Uncategorized
Supreme Court to Review SEC Authority in Enforcement Actionsment
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to consider whether the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has the authority to obtain disgorgement in district court actions. Disgorgement is the repayment of “ill-gotten gains” imposed as a court sanction to recover funds that were received through illegal or unethical business transactions. These recovered or disgorged funds are paid back with interest to those who the practice affected. Each year, the SEC obtains billions of dollars in disgorgement, so an adverse ruling by the Supreme Court could eliminate one of the SEC’s most important remedies for securities violations. In 2018, for example, the agency returned $794 million to harmed investors.
Complying with the Every Student Succeeds Act’s Reporting Requirements
The annual Illinois School Report Cards under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) were released on October 30. The report cards are now focused on student growth under ESSA which was signed into law four years ago. This will be the second Report Card released in Illinois under the new reporting guidelines under ESSA that requires states to evaluate schools on a variety of indicators of success, rather than just by student achievement. These report cards will rank schools from “Exemplary” to “Lowest-Performing” and report school spending this year as well as student performance data.
CMS Launched Pilot Project to Offer Individual Market Wellness Programs
Workplace wellness programs — efforts to get workers to lose weight, eat better, stress less and sleep more — are an $8 billion industry in the U.S. Recently, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a pilot project for states to implement health-contingent wellness programs in the individual market. The project is part of a mandate under the Affordable Care Act that added a provision to the Public Health Service Act calling for health-contingent wellness programs to be tested in the individual market through a pilot project operated by HHS, the Department of Labor and the Treasury Department.
Are Tech Companies Doing Enough to Combat Social Media’s Harmful Effects?
Today, we have entire generations of people who do not know life without the internet. Social medial plays a central role in the lives of these individuals. Originally created to serve a purely social function, social media platforms have changed. Many consumers even use sites like Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram as their primary source of news. In addition, social media is an integral marketing tool for many businesses. No matter its function, no one can deny the presence of social media in our everyday lives. The impact of social media is so profound that it is worth considering its negative effects. In particular, social media companies must be cognizant to their platform’s impact on adolescents. Many Americans, mainly parents, feel social media companies are not doing enough. But are they required to do more? Should the government become involved, similar to their involvement in the Facebook privacy controversy?
Virtual Influencers Leave Unanswered Questions on FTC Act Compliance
Thanks to the continued prominence of social media in people’s daily lives, it is no surprise that more familiar marketing strategies such as celebrity product endorsements would update for the current era. Recently, social media advertising has practically entered the realm of science fiction with the introduction of computer-generated influencers. These avatars are created to sell, but who is responsible if they fail to comply with advertising laws?
Leasing Agents And The Fair Housing Act
At first glance, the Fair Housing Act is fairly straightforward: one must not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. These classes are protected by federal law and applicable universally in the United States of America. In practice, however, the fine line complying with FHA anti-discrimination laws and complying with internal leasing policies – aimed at protecting the company from high-risk renters — can be difficult to discern for apartment leasing agents.
CCPA Updates—Draft Guidance
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has been the first step away from the sectoral approach that United States’ privacy laws have followed for many years. While it is set to take effect on January 1, 2020—only recently was the first draft guidance published. Set forth by California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, it states how the CCPA will be enforced. As is standard in notice and rulemaking standard in administrative law, a public consultation period is now in effect and will remain open for comments and hearings until December 6, 2019.
CMS Issues New Rule to Tighten Provider Enrollment
On September 5, 2019, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) released its final rule with comments on Program Integrity Enhancements to the Provider Enrollment Process (“ The Program Integrity Enhancements”). The final rule gives CMS the power to revoke Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollments of providers or suppliers who have an “affiliation” with previously sanctioned entities, even if those providers and suppliers aren’t directly violating any existing rules themselves. CMS says that this new authority will help to “stop fraud before it happens.”
Release of Department of Education’s Final Institutional Accountability Regulations
After two years of deliberation, public comment, and litigation, the Department of Education has released its final regulations for an overhaul of borrower defense to repayment claims. On August 30, 2019, the Department of Education released a press brief outlining new regulations set to take place on July 1, 2020. The new rules maintain that they are in place to create “streamlined and fair procedures that ensure basic due process for both borrowers and institutions.” Touting an anticipated savings of $11.1 billion dollars in savings to taxpayers over a ten-year span, the new regulations will likely make it more difficult for students to have their student loans forgiven. However, because of a missed deadline by the Department of Education, an Obama-era rule that favors borrowers by offering a transparent process for handling their claims, as well as automatic forgiveness of loans for some borrowers, is effective until that time.
YouTube and Google Face Largest COPPA Fine in History
Data protection measures have been increasingly crossing news headlines ever since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in 2018. However, data protection measures did not begin with the GDPR. In the United States, where there is a sectoral system in place, there have been regulations in place for years that monitor children’s online privacy (COPPA), health information (HIPAA), spam (CAN-SPAM), and even video rental history (VPPA). Despite these systems being implemented years ago, large companies still fail to properly comply with the requirements set forth. Recently, a settlement between YouTube and the FTC brought to light the importance of compliance with COPPA.