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Seattle’s new minimum wage legislation passed by the Seattle City Council and signed into law by Mayor Murray on June 3, 2014 provides for an increase in the minimum wage in the City of Seattle to $15/hr., phased in over time, beginning April 1, 2015. The minimum wage ordinance has a different schedule for increasing the employees’ pay based upon the employers’ number of employees in the U.S. and whether the employer pays toward its employees’ medical benefits plan.
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The Franchise Tax Board (“FTB”) will begin reviewing California Competes Tax Credit Agreements of all recipient of the credit (except for small businesses) beginning this summer. If FTB determines that credit recipients have failed to achieve the employment and investment milestones set forth in their credit agreements, FTB may recommend that the awarded credits be recaptured. During the course of FTB’s review, it may request from credit recipients any information relevant to the credit agreements, and will have access to all of the information submitted in the course of the recipients’ application for a credit award. Credit recipients and future credit applicants should be aware that FTB is not prohibited from using any of this information for purposes of an unrelated income or franchise tax audit, and that contesting an FTB recommendation to recapture the credit may present unique procedural challenges.

Additional Source: Franchise Tax Board California Competes Tax Credit Review Procedures authored by Paul Casas

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The Nevada State Contractors Board (NSCB) recently issued an Industry Bulletin reminding all licensed Nevada contractors of their responsibility to include specific information when advertising services. Subdivision (3) of Section 624.720 of the Nevada Revised Statutes requires that “[a]ll advertising by a licensed contractor must include the name of the contractor’s company and the number of the contractor’s license.” In its Industry Bulletin, NSCB confirmed that it frequently monitors a number of print and online media, including Angie’s List, Craigslist, online bulletins, local and statewide publications, etc. and that it has begun to see an increase in licensed contractors failing to include their license number in their advertisements.
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Today, Pillsbury attorneys James Lloyd, Vince Morgan, Adam Weaver and Tamara Bruno published their client alert titled USGS’s Increase of Texas’s Earthquake Risk Level: Commercial Real Estate and Insurance Implications. The Alert discusses the increase in seismic activity in the Fort Worth Basin and the likelihood that this increase will lead to a corresponding rise in the official earthquake risk level for the Fort Worth Basin when the United States Geological Survey (USGS) releases an updated earthquake hazard map in the coming months. This map and the USGS’s estimates of seismic risk play a crucial role in determining insurance costs, building codes and lenders’ insurance requirements.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals are encountering and deciding CERCLA (or Superfund) “Arranger Liability” cases in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in the case of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States, 556 U. S. 559 (2009). Earlier this year, the Fifth Circuit held, in the case of Vine Street LLC v. Borg Warner Corp., that CERCLA’s “Arranger Liability” for Superfund cleanup responsibility did not apply to most straightforward business transactions in which an intent to dispose of hazardous waste or hazardous substances in the guise of a business transaction could not be established. On March 20, 2015,a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit reached a similar conclusion in the case of Consolidation Coal Company v. Georgia Power Company, et al. The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling that granted summary judgment to Georgia Power Company in a cost recovery case involving the ongoing cleanup of the Ward Transformer Site, located in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Today, Pillsbury attorney Ray Sweigart published his client alert titled Removal of Arbitrator for Impartiality Doubts under English Arb Act. The Alert discusses the English Court’s removal of an arbitrator under section 24 of the Arbitration Act 1996 in Sierra Fishing Company and others v Hasan Said Farran and others [2015] EWHC 140 (Comm).
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On March 13, 2015, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) issued an important ruling in a Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) enforcement matter. The case is In re: Elementis Chromium, Inc., TSCA Appeal 13-03.
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Yesterday, Pillsbury attorneys John Jensen published their client alert titled GSA May Abolish the Price Reduction Clause. The Alert discusses the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) recently issued proposed rule that could abolish the long-standing price reduction clause (PRC) from the GSA Schedule program. GSA is proposing to eliminate the clause and to use, instead, the submission of “transactional data reporting” to help achieve its goal of fair and reasonable pricing on all orders. The rule would require contractors to report transactional data for orders placed against GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) and other GSA contracts. The proposed rule is designed to improve GSA’s ability to conduct meaningful price analysis and more efficiently and effectively validate fair and reasonable pricing. It is also intended to reduce the burden on contractors imposed by the current GSA PRC.

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On March 13, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking recovery of funds from the president of Environmental Careers Organization (ECO), a defunct Massachusetts non-profit company whose business was to place interns with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ECO received compensation from the EPA for its costs of placing students in agency internships. EPA audited the accounts of ECO and then sought recovery of more than $6 million from it, forcing ECO into bankruptcy.
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On March 10, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an unpublished opinion in Precon Development Corporation, Inc., v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For several years, Precon has been contesting the Corps’ assertion of Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction over Precon’s planned commercial and residential development in Chesapeake, Virginia. At issue is the jurisdictional status of 4.8 acres of wetlands that Precon wants to fill in: Is this land subject to the Corps’ permitting authority under Section 404 of the CWA because the wetlands are “water of the United States” on the basis of Justice Kennedy’s “significant nexus” test, as explicated in the 2006 Supreme Court case of Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. __ (2006)?
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