Rule 13a-14 issued under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) requires that Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers certify the accuracy of the public company’s financial statements. Section 304 of SOX states that CEOs...more
Tax-exempt and governmental employers do not pay Federal income tax and therefore, unlike for-profit entities, are not affected by the timing of tax deductions relating to the payment of compensation. Tax authorities are...more
On September 2, 2016, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland (which sits in the Fourth Circuit, along with North Carolina and South Carolina) held that the EEOC can move forward in its case against a...more
Under the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order (E.O. 13,673), beginning in October 2017 federal contractors will have to begin disclosing a range of labor law violations when bidding for new federal work. These...more
Employers faced with more than doubling the minimum salary paid to employees to maintain their overtime exempt status basically have two choices. First, they can increase the employees’ salaries to the new minimum. Second,...more
Employees on approved Family and Medical Leave are entitled to reinstatement upon return to the same or an equivalent position. Commonly, when the employee is absent on leave, the employer discovers work performance issues...more
The National Labor Relations Act vests the NLRB with broad powers to correct violations of U.S. labor laws. Last month, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the Board’s broad reach by affirming a decision ordering a...more
In recent years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has begun finding separate companies jointly liable for compliance with federal labor laws under a joint or co-employment theory. Most notably, the Board has...more
On Wednesday, the North Carolina Department of Labor (NCDOL) announced the completion of an agreement with the federal DOL to share information intended to identify companies misclassifying employees as independent...more
Last month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a final enforcement guidance on retaliation claims under the various federal civil rights laws administered by the agency. The guidance will replace...more
Yet another chapter in the National Labor Relations Board’s assault on employer social media policies. Earlier this month, the Board rejected Chipotle’s policy that prohibited employees from “posting incomplete, confidential,...more
In May, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued final regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. This legislative provision, which has been in effect since 2010, prohibits health...more
Employers already know that Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin and citizenship status. However, they may not be aware that the federal Immigration and Nationality Act also contains...more
Last week’s EmployNews reported a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision applying North Carolina law that invalidated an employment non-competition clause due to what it viewed as the overreaching scope of the restrictions....more
Managed care companies help insurers and government programs coordinate healthcare plans by making coverage determinations for participants. In many situations, case managers conduct utilization reviews to determine the...more
Another week, another National Labor Relations Board decision concluding that a standard employee handbook policy violates employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted activity under Section 7 of the NLRA. This time,...more
Most states allow judges to “reform” provisions of employee non-competition agreements deemed overbroad. For example, if the court believes that a 100-mile territorial restriction is too broad, it can reduce the radius to 50...more
Over the past several years, the National Labor Relations Board has repeatedly declared standard employee handbook policies illegal because it considered them to violate employees’ rights to engage in protected concerted...more
Earlier this month, Massachusetts’ Republican governor signed into law a bipartisan bill requiring employers to pay men and women equally for similar work. The law’s basic requirement is one in place in many states and under...more
In a typical corporate transaction, the parties structure the deal as an asset purchase, whereby the buyer purchases essentially all of the company’s property, equipment, goodwill, customer lists, etc. If the asset purchase...more
The National Labor Relations Board continues its assault against standard employment policies considered to interfere with employee rights. This time, a federal administrative law judge accepted the Board counsel’s argument...more
Incentive pay is an important part of compensation packages. It allows employers to reward those employees who perform well (and show those employees who do not that under-performing will have negative consequences). ...more
On July 29, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals handed the EEOC a major setback, concluding that Title VII does not protect employees against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. In Hively v. Ivy Tech...more
Last week, a federal district court judge in California declined to certify a collective action claim by minor league baseball players who alleged they had not been paid overtime as required under the Fair Labor Standards Act...more
The hospitality industry continues to face an increasing number of collective action lawsuits filed by tipped employees who claim that their employers failed to comply with minimum wage requirements for servers and related...more