Tag:Regulation
Investor Choice Act Approved by House Committee
For several years, broker-dealers and investment advisory firms have typically required harmed investors to dispute matters through arbitration rather than the court system. However, the House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee has approved a bill aimed at prohibiting mandatory arbitration commonly imposed by broker-dealers and investment advisory firms. H.R. 2620, known as The Investor Choice Act, restricts investment advisors and broker-dealers from including pre-dispute binding arbitration clauses in their client agreements. The Investor Choice Act addresses “long-standing and deeply unfair practices of forcing customers to resolve their claims through arbitration instead of as part of a class action,” according to Maxine Waters, Chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee.
Expanding Mental Health Services Through Community-Based Care: Crisis Stabilization Centers
Many believe that a hospital emergency department is potentially the worst place for an individual experiencing a mental health crisis. Emergency departments are often loud, bright, and bustling with hospital employees, emergency responders, patients, and visitors. These conditions are stressful and can further trigger additional symptoms for individuals facing a psychiatric crisis. Moreover, many individuals experiencing a mental health crisis do not require inpatient care at a psychiatric hospital. Rather, there is a growing trend to promote community-based care through Crisis Stabilization Center Models. Crisis stabilization centers or units provide an alternative to traditional emergency department and psychiatric hospitalization care by providing continuous care for a short period of time in a safe environment for those with an acute psychiatric crisis.
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.
Coinbase Proposes a New Regulator to Oversee Digital Assets After Feud with SEC
In October 2021, the cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase released a proposal for a regulatory framework that would designate a single regulator for the digital asset markets. This proposal comes less than a month after Coinbase’s CEO had a public meltdown on Twitter after the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) sent the firm a Wells Notice, a warning of potential litigation, about their planned cryptocurrency lending platform allegedly violating securities regulations. As the digital asset market grows and the financial institutions involved become more influential, regulators continue to struggle with jurisdictional and definitional questions around the new products.
Should Small Business Owner’s Allow Payments of Cryptocurrencies?
Cryptocurrency is a relatively new form of currency that has risen in popularity worldwide. Since the pandemic struck, many small businesses have begun to accept cryptocurrency as a form of payment for their goods and services. There is much debate regarding taxation and auditing of cryptocurrency transactions in small businesses, along with weighing the cost and benefit of providing this alternative payment method.
A Progressive Move for New York’s Office of Cannabis Management
Earlier this month Tremaine Wright, the woman in charge of New York’s cannabis regulation revealed a plan to promote social equity through conscientious licensing and tax revenue policies. New York legalized cannabis recently, so its regulations for it are still in a fledgling stage. As a result, the policies being made now will shape the cannabis industry for years to come.
Fly Me (Safely) to the Moon: Regulating Commercial Space Travel
The recent successful trips to the edge of space by Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are predicted to boost consumer confidence in the possibility of using commercial spaceflight as a global transportation system. However, as interest and involvement in commercial spaceflight grows, safety regulations are failing to keep up. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) has the authority to regulate spaceflight, but there is currently a moratorium on regulating the industry until 2023 to encourage innovation.
The DOJ Challenges Penguin Random House’s Acquisition of Simon & Schuster
In the United States, “The Big Five” denote the largest five publishing houses. These publishing empires print everything from medical textbooks to children’s books and together control over eighty percent of the publishing market. The Big Five includes Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. In November of 2020, Viacom announced the sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House for $2.175 billion. A year later on November 2, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a lawsuit challenging the acquisition to ensure “fair competition in the U.S. publishing industry.”
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Its Failure to Protect Our Undocumented Communities
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has proposed new regulations regarding DACA and is accepting comments on the proposed rule. USCIS claims that the new regulations will preserve and fortify the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy. As well as respond to President Biden’s memorandum from January 20, 2021, where Biden states in support of DACA, that “these immigrants (DACA recipients) should not be a priority for removal based on humanitarian concerns, and that work authorization will enable them to support themselves, and contribute to our economy, while they remain(in the U.S.)” USCIS further claims that DACA has been economically and socially beneficial to undocumented communities. It reiterates their “consistent judgment” that DACA recipients should not be a priority for removal citing Secretary Napolitano’s 2012 memorandum that DACA recipients lacked the intent to violate the law as children. Further, “removing productive young people (unless justified)” is not a prudent way to spend border resources. The agency continues to provide that the proposed regulation does not provide lawful status or path to citizenship. Despite the use of language that speciously centers on DACA recipients, the proposed provisions are at best superficial and continue to leave undocumented young people in a state of uncertainty.
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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