The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently adopted amendments to the rules governing beneficial ownership reporting under Sections 13(d) and 13(g) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Among other changes, the amendments accelerate the deadlines for initial and amended Schedule 13D and Schedule 13G filings. The amendments will become effective on February 5, 2024. However, compliance with the revised Schedule 13G filing deadlines will not be required until September 30, 2024.
The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has again shown that social media influencers, endorsements and testimonials remain an enforcement priority. The FTC sent warning letters to two trade associations and several dieticians and other online health influencers to make clear that failure to include clear disclosures that these are paid endorsements may violate the law.
On 30 October 2023, President Biden issued a 63-page Executive Order to define the trajectory of artificial intelligence adoption, governance, and usage within the United States government. The Executive Order outlines eight guiding principles and priorities for US federal agencies to adhere to as they adopt, govern, and use AI. While safety and security are predictably high on the list, so too is a desire to make America a leader in the AI industry, including AI development by the federal government.
In the first three parts of this series, we provided an overview of the new US Food and Drug Administration regulatory requirements under the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA), the good manufacturing practices regulations FDA plans to establish, as well as the FDA draft guidance on the facility registrations and products listings. In this Part IV, we are providing an important update of FDA’s compliance policy – enforcement discretion for MoCRA facility registration and product listing until 1 July 2024, as well as the existing FDA resources to help industry prepare for MoCRA implementation.
During a LinkedIn Live session on 27 September 2023, IAPP Research and Insights Director Joe Jones discussed the latest regulatory law, policy and enforcement developments, and compliance considerations for children’s privacy in the EU, UK, and US with Baker McKenzie’s Elizabeth Denham, Lothar Determann and Jonathan Tam.
Last year, we warned that the Federal Trade Commission was starting to go after directors, owners and private equity firms in control of entities that violated American antitrust laws. That has now proven true.
On 21 September, the FTC filed a 106-page complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas against US Anesthesia Partners Inc. and its private equity investor, Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe XI LP.
In the ongoing debate concerning data broker regulation, trade-offs between competition and privacy are not always holistically appreciated. This article — originally published in Competition Policy International’s TechReg Chronicle — examines the importance of data protection for individual privacy and access to data for competition, discusses the role of data brokers in data privacy and sharing, and reviews existing, new, and proposed regulations of data brokers who now face additional and varying restrictions in state and federal privacy and consumer protection laws that will increase their compliance costs.
With the new year comes the 1 January 2024 effective date of the Corporate Transparency Act, which will require approximately 32.6 million US entities to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). On 28 September 2023, FinCEN published proposed regulations modifying the BOI Reporting Requirements, which are found in the CTA’s implementing regulations.
On 20 October 2023, the IRS issued a press release announcing a new initiative to send compliance alerts to roughly 150 US subsidiaries of large foreign corporations that distribute goods in the United States to challenge transfer pricing practices that it alleges resulted in improper losses and exceedingly low margins year after year. Further, in 2024 the IRS will expand the Large Corporate Compliance program to include audits of an additional 60 corporate taxpayers selected using artificial intelligence and input from subject matter experts.
Employee handbooks have recently come to the forefront of employers’ key priorities. Why? The NLRB’s recent decision in Stericycle adopted a retroactive “employee friendly” standard for workplace rules, including those often included in handbooks. In addition, the new year often rings in new laws requiring changes to workplace policies likely to be included in handbooks. And the US Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action in higher education has led employers to take a closer look at their inclusion, diversity and equity related policies and statements in employee handbooks.