New Jersey has officially announced the 21 members of its COVID Taskforce. The group will include 16 members and 5 ex-officio members from the Murphy administration. It will be co-chaired by Merck Chair and CEO Ken Frazier and former Princeton President Shirley Tilghman.
To read the full text of this post by Duane Morris partner Brad Molotsky, please visit the Duane Morris Project Development/Infrastructure/P3 Blog.
The COVID-19 pandemic impacts all aspects of our daily life. Government authorities around the world impose various measures to reduce the physical contacts among people, including travel ban and movement restriction (i.e. stay-at-home order). Nevertheless, transactions can still be performed by electronic means, including electronic communication/transmission and execution by e-signature at this point of time. To be in trend with the digital age, Myanmar also allows electronic signature documents to be exhibited as evidence in Myanmar Courts as well as recognizes the legal validity of electronic signature inserted onto commercial documents.
To read the full text, please visit the Duane Morris & Selvam COVID-19 Resource Blog.
On April 23, 2020, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker announced that he is extending the state’s stay-at-home order with modifications. This new order will go into effect on May 1, 2020, and continue through May 30, 2020.
To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.
On April 27, 2020, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced statewide protocols for businesses to reopen in phases starting on May 1, 2020, the date when the current stay-at-home order for Ohio expires. In the press conference announcing the plans, Governor DeWine identified the following dates when operations that are not permitted under the current order may resume: (1) May 1 for elective medical procedures not requiring an overnight hospital stay; (2) May 4 for manufacturing, distribution and construction and office businesses; and (3) May 12 for consumer, retail and service businesses.
To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.
The Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission has withdrawn its April 16, 2020, emergency rule that would have established that all first responders and front-line workers asserting a workers’ compensation claim before the commission based on exposure to COVID-19 would be rebuttably presumed to have been exposed to the virus through their work.
To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.
In our April 9, 2020, Alert, we analyzed the San Francisco Public Health Emergency Leave ordinance (PHELO), approved unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on April 7, which requires private employers with 500 or more employees to provide up to 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave consistent with the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).
On April 17, 2020, Mayor Breed signed an amended version of the PHELO. In addition, the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement (OLSE) published a workplace poster, detailed guidance for employers in the form of FAQs (updated April 24, 2020) and a complaint form to be used by employees to address violations of the PHELO. The PHELO became effective on April 17, 2020, and will expire on June 17, 2020, or upon the termination of the COVID-19 public health emergency, whichever occurs first.
To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.
Georgia was one of the last states to order nonessential businesses to close in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On April 24, 2020, the state became one of the first to allow many nonessential businesses to reopen, including gyms and salons. Starting April 27, the state is allowing most other businesses to reopen to the public.
To read the full text of this Duane Morris Alert, please visit the firm website.
In an April 28th letter authored by the American Trade Association for Cannabis and Hemp (ATACH) and the Policy Center for Public Health and Safety, 24 state-level cannabis trade associations from across the country called on Congress to end the Small Business Administration’s exclusion of cannabis businesses from COVID-19 federal funding relief.
To read the full text of this post by Duane Morris partner David Landau, please visit the Duane Morris Cannabis Industry Blog.
A client is prudently engaging with its bank to put in place a credit facility to address working capital needs which it anticipates might grow due to the Covid-19 isolation measures causing its customers to reduce requirements for its services and to pay more slowly than during less distressed times. As the motivation for this client to enter into the facility was its potential exposure to the risks to general economic conditions arising from the pandemic, the client was understandably concerned about the lender’s insistence on the inclusion of a “Material Adverse Change” or “MAC” representation and event of default.
The client’s question to us, after vain attempts to remove the language and tepid protestations from its relationship manager that such clauses “are rarely relied upon”, was whether it had any reason to be concerned.
To read the full text of this post by Duane Morris partner Drew Salvest, please visit the Duane Morris London Blog.
COVID 19 is having a massive impact on supply chains and business continuity and, post lockdown, questions will be asked about who pays for this. The knee-jerk response of many businesses is that the pandemic is a unique, unforeseeable “Act of God” and that businesses which have furloughed staff or been forced to close during the lockdown or have had difficulties with their own supply chains or customers reducing purchase volumes, have no liabilities to or remedies against others for the consequent losses sustained. The reality is that on a case by case basis, businesses already adversely affected by this pandemic may find that contractual claims are being made against them or that they have a route to mitigate their losses by looking at their own contractual or statutory rights.
To read the full text of this post by Duane Morris partner Susan Laws, please visit the Duane Morris London Blog.
