Alert
Published 11/09/2022
Industries K-12 Schools
Two federal programs administered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (the “EPA”) provide financial assistance in the form of grants and rebates to public and non-profit entities seeking to replace their existing buses and trucks into clean vehicles. The most recent program was created by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “IRA”), which appropriated $1 billion to fund a grant and rebate program for states, municipalities, Indian tribal governments, and nonprofit school transportation associations to help them acquire, charge, and maintain zero-emission heavy-duty...
Alert
Published 11/07/2022
Industries Health Care
Services Cybersecurity and Privacy
​October was National Cybersecurity Month. As part of its ongoing focus on HIPAA Security Rule awareness and compliance, the Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) within the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), published its HIPAA Security Rule Incident Procedures newsletter (the “Newsletter”) to inform and “educate stakeholders on cybersecurity awareness and how best to protect the privacy and security of confidential data.” The Newsletter noted that cybersecurity incidents and data breaches are increasing across all industries, including healthcare. In 2020, HHS OCR received notice of...
Alert
Published 11/04/2022
Industries Energy
Services Environmental
The Inflation Reduction Act (the “IRA”), signed into law on August 16, 2022, appropriates nearly $27 billion to provide financial assistance to certain entities in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. This “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund” (the “Fund”) is available to a wide range of recipients and prioritizes funding for projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities. However, the IRA leaves many aspects of the Fund undefined and tasks the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (the “EPA”) with filling out the details of the program. The EPA is currently soliciting...
Alert
Published 11/04/2022
Industries Insurance
Services Employee Benefits and ERISA Litigation | Litigation
This month’s Friday Five covers cases relating to augmentation of the administrative record following new rationales, attempted alternative ERISA causes of action, untimely ERISA claims, plans governed by ERISA even in the absence of a written plan document, and the limited weight given to residual functional capacity evaluations. The Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr Employee Benefits/ERISA Litigation Team November 4, 2022 | By Amy Kline , Caitlin Strauss , and Allison Burdette Ninth Circuit Reverses District Court Decision Finding Abuse of Discretion for Not Permitting Plaintiff to Augment...
Alert
Published 11/01/2022
Industries Real Estate
A Pennsylvania municipality cannot deny a landowner permission to build a warehouse because it advertised a new zoning map before a land development application was filed, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled on October 27, 2022. What You Need to Know: The Pending Ordinance Doctrine is not applicable to land development applications filed prior to adoption of an ordinance. The timing of the advertisement of the new ordinance has no bearing, provided that the land development application was file before ordinance adoption. ​Greene Township, located near Gettysburg, PA, wrongly denied a...
Videos
Published 10/31/2022
Industries Video Gaming and Esports
In the final “Lawyers With Game” episode of the season, host Darius Gambino from Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Video Gaming and Esports Practice talks with Aggroed (Aggy) Lighthacker, the CEO of Splinterlands. Splinterlands is one of the most popular and successful Play To Earn (P2E) crypto games in the world, and Aggy provides unique insights on how he launched the game less than five years ago, and how he got to over two million registered users and 500,000 daily active users today. P2E games allow users to earn cryptocurrency just for playing the game, and Darius and Aggy talk about...
Alert
Published 10/27/2022
Services Environmental
On October 17, 2022, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) published interim soil remediation standards (Interim SRS) in the NJ Register (54 N.J.R. 1980(a)) for four per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) compounds: perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA); perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA); perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS); and hexafluoropropylene oxide dimer acid and its ammonium salt (HFPO-DA or GenX). The Interim SRS took effect immediately upon publication. Thus, for sites that had not received a site-wide response action outcome (RAO) as of October 17, 2022, the Interim...
Blog Post
Published 10/26/2022
By Lisa M. Koblin
Article
Published 10/25/2022
Services White Collar and Government Enforcement
Alert
Published 10/25/2022
Services Consumer Financial Services Litigation
On October 19, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit dealt a severe blow to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) enforcement authority, finding the CFPB’s “self-funding” mechanism unconstitutional as it violates the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution. While the 5th Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas’s decision (a) that payday lenders may not obtain pre-loan authorization to make numerous withdrawals from consumer bank accounts, (b) upholding CFPB director removal provisions, and (c) validating Congress’s...
Videos
Published 10/24/2022
Industries Video Gaming and Esports |Higher Education
College esports programs are growing more and more each year. In this episode of “Lawyers With Game” hosts Darius Gambino and Amy Piccola from Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Video Gaming and Esports Practice talk with Professor Jeffrey Levine from Drexel University about the current state of esports on campus. Professor Levine discusses the Esports Business undergraduate degree program at Drexel, his role on the Drexel Varsity Esports Taskforce, and his soon to be released Title IX study regarding equal opportunities for women in video games and esports. They also discuss some legal issues...
Podcast episode
Published 10/19/2022
In this episode, host Jonathan Havens, co-chair of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Food, Beverage and Agribusiness (FBA) Practice, speaks with Stewart Lindsay, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability at Campbell Soup Company. They explore Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) trends, from consumer interest in the sustainability of food and agriculture, to the availability of technology to measure and monitor value chains, to the development of environmental markets, and beyond. Stewart discusses Campbell’s ESG framework, noting key initiatives such as emissions reduction goals in its own operations, sourcing key commodities from farmers engaged in sustainable agriculture programs, and engaging with local communities on school nutrition. He also provides a glimpse into Campbell’s Corporate Responsibility Report, and offers some best practices for agribusiness and food companies creating and deploying an ESG framework for the first time.
Article
Published 10/17/2022
Industries Health Care
Videos
Published 10/17/2022
Industries Video Gaming and Esports
Services : Labor and Employment
In this episode of “Lawyers With Game” host Darius Gambino from Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Video Gaming and Esports Practice sits down with his colleagues Ruth Rauls and Lisa Koblin from Saul Ewing’s Employment Group to talk about the state of the workplace in the esports and video game industries. Ruth and Lisa cover recent litigation involving major game developers, and ongoing efforts to field all female esports teams and tournaments. They also cover the key laws prohibiting discrimination and harassment in the workplace, discuss the concept of equal pay, and suggest some best...
Blog Post
Published 10/11/2022
By Jonathan A. Havens, Seth Gitner
Videos
Published 10/10/2022
Industries Video Gaming and Esports
In this episode of “Lawyers With Game” hosts Darius Gambino and Leah Leyendecker from Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr’s Video Gaming and Esports Practice sit down with Hakeem Onafowokan, Vice President of Corporate Legal at the Oklahoma City Thunder to talk about how new laws and technologies are impacting traditional sports models. They discuss Name Image and Likeness (NIL) rights for college athletes, the emergence of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as an investment vehicle for athletes, and the Thunder’s initiatives surrounding esports. If you are a basketball fan, or an NBA fan, this is the...