Tag:Journal of Regulatory Compliance
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.
Texas Abortion Ban: The State-Sanctioned Killing of Poor Black and Brown Pregnant People
Texas Senate Bill 8 (“SB 8”), also known as “The Texas Heartbeat Act,” went into effect on September 1, 2021, banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy or after the fetus’s heartbeat has been detected. Additionally, it awards any civilian who successfully reports someone for aiding, abetting, or performing an abortion after the six-week mark with $10,000. The United States Supreme Court, as Justice Sotomayor described, “buried their heads in the sand” and decided not to comment on the abortion ban’s constitutionality under the guise of a technicality. Historically, abortion bans have been death penalties to many people seeking abortions and contribute up to thirteen percent of pregnancy-related deaths. Abortion bans do not reduce the number of abortions, but rather reduce the number of safe abortions while increasing avoidable deaths. Abortion bans work as a form of dangerous regulatory mechanisms that function as the state-sanctioned killing of poor people who are often Black, Brown, and indigenous who cannot travel outside the state to receive care.
A New Way to Tax Wealth
With Democratic control over the House, Senate, and Presidency for the first time since 2011, President Biden has been ambitious in his efforts to reinvigorate the economy, signing into law a $1.9 trillion economic aid package with plans to increase access to affordable housing and a $3 trillion investment in infrastructure. To finance their legislative agenda, Democrats have several initiatives which would mostly raise taxes for the wealthiest Americans such as Elizabeth Warren’s proposed wealth tax or increasing the maximum income tax rate back to 39.6%, as it was while President Bush was in office.
A Practical Approach to Post-Schrems II Remediation of Cross-Border Data Transfers to the U.S. and Other “High Risk” Third Countries
On July 16, 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) issued its deafening decision that summarily and immediately invalidated the EU-US Privacy Shield. The regulatory program established between the European Council and the U.S. Dept. of Commerce allowed for the transfer of personal data of EU residents to be sent from the EU to the US without violating the data transfer restrictions of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). The decision went on to cast serious doubt on the sufficiency of standard contractual clauses to adequately protect data transferred to any third country, not just the US. Several months later, data exporters in the EU are still sorting through the wreckage of their privacy programs and waiting for practical advice on the way forward.
Nursing Home Staff Turnover Rates Partially Explains Disproportionate Number of Deaths during COVID-19 Public Health Emergency
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted residents and staff of nursing homes and long-term care facilities more than any other demographic, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total mortality rate from the virus in the United States. According to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”), at least 132,000 residents and employees have died from complications of the COVID-19 across 31,000 facilities, although some estimates place the death count closer to 200,000. One factor aggravating the number of deaths in nursing homes is the extraordinarily high rate of staff turnover each year.
An Update on the Gamestop Frenzy: Calls for Regulation and a Congressional Hearing
Cora Leeuwenburg Associate Editor Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, JD 2022 The controversy surrounding the unprecedented movement by retail investors and Gamestop has not died down in the last month following the stock’s meteoric rise in price and dramatic fall. The wildly volatile stock has lost hedge funds millions and resulted in …
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The Fifth Annual Loyola Journal of Regulatory Compliance Symposium: “Labor & Employment Compliance Issues in the Era of Covid-19”
Friday, March 12, 2021 Symposium Summary This year’s virtual Symposium will bring together practitioners to examine current issues in Labor & Employment compliance with particular attention to issues arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. Practitioners will reflect on a variety of concerns facing employment professionals as advisor, employer, and client. Cost & CLE CLE credit will …
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Relax, After GDPR’s Schrems II, Some Companies Transferring Personal Data from the EU to the US May Actually Have Less Challenges Than You Thought
On December 12, 2020, the European Commission (the “EC”) issued a highly anticipated draft of newly revised standard contractual clauses (“new SCCs”) that may be used by European Union-based companies to safeguard data transfers of personal data to third countries, such as the US, in compliance with GDPR Art. 46(1). The release comes at a decidedly inopportune time as it follows on the heels of the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) Data Protection Commissioner v. Facebook Ireland Limited and Maximillian Schrems (“Schrems II”) decision which casts serious doubt on the adequacy of SCCs alone to safeguard against the “high-risks” involved in EU to US data transfers. And for many data protection experts, the language of the revised SCCs only adds to the confusion, raising even more questions. But one question in particular seems to be prominent among others—for transfers to importers, directly subject to GDPR, are SCCs really necessary?
Market Regulation Issues Raised by the Gamestop Buying Frenzy
The regulation of hedge funds has largely been unchecked allowing big Wall Street players to manipulate the market for the benefit and at the detriment of other investors. But forced by an unprecedented movement of retail investors, Wall Street is being forced to reckon with the hypocrisy of their practices.