Fed up with USEPA’s “sue and settle” rulemaking tactics, the regulated community’s complaints have resulted in increased scrutiny of the practice by members of Congress and state officials and has even resulted in recent litigation.  Our prior article details the specifics of USEPA’s “sue and settle” rulemaking practices, but in essence, it is where USEPA has been sued (or…

As with prior posts about oil and gas leases in bankruptcy (located here and, on Porter Wright’s Banking & Finance Law Report blog, here), this post presents another thorny issue — namely, “Is an oil and gas lease a lease at all?”

Whether an oil and gas lease is a “lease” is significant in the bankruptcy context, because the Bankruptcy Code has several provisions regarding the treatment of leases.

This post considers two cases that interpret 11 U.S.C. § 365(d)(4), which provides that unless the bankruptcy court orders an extension, “an unexpired lease of nonresidential real property under which the debtor is the lessee shall be deemed rejected, and the trustee shall immediately surrender that nonresidential real property to the lessor, if the trustee does not assume or reject the unexpired lease by … the date that is 120 days after the date of the order for relief [(typically, the commencement of the case)]….” The Code further provides that “the rejection of an … unexpired lease of the debtor constitutes a breach of such contract or lease … immediately before the date of the filing of the petition.”

On 25 July 2013, the Coroner’s Rules 1984 were replaced by:

  • The Coroner’s (Inquest) Rules 2013
  • The Coroner’s (Investigations) Rules 2013
  • The Coroner’s Allowances, Fees and Expenses Regulations 2013

The changes were facilitated by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

The new regime will apply to any inquest not completed by 25 July 2013. The…

“Pumping,” or expressing breast milk, is now protected under Title VII. In a matter of first impression, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal recently held that an adverse employment action taken against a female employee because she was expressing milk constituted sex discrimination in violation of Title VII. See Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Houston…

Overnight going “green” became a more attractive option for businesses and manufactures. How?  The Obama administration increased the social cost of carbon (SCC). This increase will impact every industry that deals with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regardless of size.  The SCC is a monetary value agencies use to perform cost/benefit analysis to quantify the benefits…

Löfstedt report and cutting red tape

One of the key recommendations of the Löfstedt report, published back in November 2011, was for the Government to implement a review of existing health and safety regulations.  Employers, increasingly fearful of a burgeoning “compensation culture”, felt that over-compliance was rife with health and safety legislation as a…

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a jury verdict awarding $26.2 million in compensatory damages and $18.2 million in punitive damages for trade secret misappropriation of software that enabled oil and gas companies to “plan, procure and pay for complex services” online. See Wellogix, Inc. v. Accenture, LLP, Case No. 11-20816 (5th Cir. May 15, 2013). The Fifth Circuit stated: “Had we sat in the jury box, we may have decided otherwise. ‘But juries are not bound by what seems inescapable logic to judges.’ Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 276 (1952).”

The case highlights the importance of taking steps to protect the secrecy of confidential and proprietary business information, including securing confidentiality agreements before sharing such information with other parties such as investors, customers and marketing partners. Because the plaintiff — Wellogix, Inc. — established that it had disclosed its proprietary software and technology to the defendant subject to a confidentiality agreement, it was able to meet its burden of showing that it had taken sufficient measures to guard the secrecy of its software and that the defendant had improperly relied on Wellogix’s software to pursue another business opportunity in breach of the parties’ confidential relationship.

Almost four years after the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) certified an environmental impact report (EIR) and approved a five million gallon a day desalination plant project, the Court of Appeal, First District, in a published opinion (N. Coast Rivers Alliance v. Marin Mun. Water Dist. Bd. of Dirs. (2013) 2013 Cal.App.LEXIS 401), reversed…