On 27 April 2023, the US Department of State designated Russia’s Federal Security Service and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization pursuant to Executive Order 14078 (Bolstering Efforts to Bring Hostages and Wrongfully Detained United States Nationals Home), with the result that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization has been added to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.
On 3 May 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted new rules to modernize and enhance the disclosure requirements for repurchases of equity securities by publicly listed companies, often referred to as stock buybacks. Among other changes, the amendments will require issuers to disclose in their periodic reports their daily share repurchase activity for each quarter (replacing the proposed rule that issuers would have to make daily filings of share repurchase activity) and provide certain additional narrative disclosure about their share repurchase programs in periodic reports. The SEC also adopted new Item 408(d), which will require disclosure in issuers’ periodic reports regarding the adoption and/or termination of 10b5-1 trading arrangements during the reporting period.
The Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice announced that it reached a settlement in its litigation challenge against ASSA ABLOY AB’s proposed USD 4.3 billion acquisition of Spectrum Brand Holding Inc.’s Hardware and Home Improvement division. The settlement, which came in the middle of trial and is now subject to court approval, is the first negotiated settlement under DOJ Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter. Notably, comments from the judge during the trial suggested skepticism towards the DOJ’s position and potential difficulties for the DOJ in winning its case. Without the settlement, this case may have been next in a recent number of DOJ litigation losses.
In this fifth and final installment of ID&E IMPACT, our Labor and Employment team in the US and UK chat about what’s fueling the trending surge in pay equity audits, the risks and rewards, what organizations should keep top of mind in the pay equity review process, and what employers can expect as a result of the EU Pay Transparency Directive reporting requirement.
On 2 May 2023, for the second time this year, the US and Turkish governments took joint action in imposing sanctions. Specifically, the United States and Türkiye imposed sanctions against two individuals determined to be financial facilitators of Syria-based terrorist groups Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, both of which are sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations. This follows a prior joint action in January targeting parties associated with the financial facilitation network of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Baker McKenzie’s Sanctions Blog published the alert titled United States: OFAC Reissues General License Extending Authorization Period for Transactions Related to Energy on 5 May 2023. Read the article via the link here. Please also visit our Sanctions Blog for the most recent updates.
A federal judge granted six individual defendants’ joint motion for judgment of acquittal in a criminal antitrust trial involving allegations that the defendants conspired to allocate the labor market for aerospace industry employees. The ruling was issued mid-trial before the jury was asked to deliberate. This ruling marks another loss for the Department of Justice in a series of no-poach and wage-fixing criminal prosecutions and is significant because the court held that the alleged no-poach agreement did not constitute a per se market allocation violation as a matter of law.
The early months of 2023 have brought a bumper crop of new state privacy legislation, with Tennessee and Montana legislatures poised to become the eighth and ninth states to enact comprehensive privacy laws. The Tennessee Information Protection Act and Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act, which both passed with unanimous votes out of their respective legislatures on 21 April 2023, follow the recent passage of privacy laws in Iowa and Indiana. The bills now land on their governors’ desks for signature. While the bills hew to broad trends in state privacy laws, each contains novel provisions.
Under the FTC’s order, JAB must obtain the Commission’s prior notice provision and also a broad prior approval provision. That is a risk if the PE firms have a roll-up strategy, because it then requires future notification on acquisitions in the same space. This puts the firms at a disadvantage in a competitive auction setting.
In April 2023, the IRS issued its Inflation Reduction Act Strategic Operating Plan, which describes how the IRS intends to use the additional USD 80 billion in funding for fiscal years 2023 through 2031 provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.