With Democrats outnumbered in Congress, a coalition of blue state attorneys general has emerged as the strongest resistance to Donald Trump’s conservative agenda, according to an article published by Bloomberg Businessweek.

“Together they’ve notched back-to-back victories against Trump’s two attempts to instill a travel ban against several Muslim-majority nations. They now hope to build on that success to form a united front against Trump’s expected efforts to roll back financial and environmental regulation, plus the GOP’s planned repeal of Obamacare,” says the article, written by Erik Larson, Esmé E Deprez and Kartikay Mehrotra.

They quote Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who teaches political science at the University of Southern California, who says that by notching wins against Trump, state AGs can help make up for Democrats being in the minority in Congress

Read the Bloomberg Businessweek article.

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Reuters is reporting that more than 100 institutional investors opposed efforts by the U.S. securities regulator to delay a rule requiring companies to disclose a ratio comparing their chief executive’s pay with their workforce median.

The letter, signed by representatives of more than 100 unions, pension funds, activist investors, state treasurers and consumer advocacy groups urged Acting U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Michael Piwowar not to delay the implementation of the rule, writes Sarah N. Lynch.

The requirement went into effect in January and could result in disclosures in many companies’ 2018 proxy statements unless the rule is delayed.

Piwowar said earlier this year that the SEC was accepting public comments on the rule, with an eye possibly to delaying implementation.

Read the Reuters article.

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Omega Advisors Inc. founder Leon Cooperman must face a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the billionaire investor reaped more than $4 million in illegal profits after conversations with a company insider, a judge ruled in rejecting his request to throw out the case, according to a Bloomberg report.

A federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that the SEC had produced a “plausible claim for insider trading” and set a trial for November. The judge also dismissed claims that Cooperman failed to file required reports about his beneficial ownership of stocks of eight public companies.

Reporters Chris Dolmetsch and Patricia Hurtado write that the case will ultimately test the SEC’s novel theory that outsiders are liable for trading on inside tips even if they received the information before agreeing not to use it.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Shareholder activists are pushing back against a major business trade group’s request that the White House use its influence on the U.S. securities regulator to make it harder to get governance, political or environmental issues onto corporate ballots, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Reporter Sarah N. Lynch writes that existing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules have “given shareholders an important voice,” and should not be changed, the five investor groups said in a March 15 letter to the White House’s National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.

SEC rules now allow shareholders to submit proposals to corporate ballots if they own $2,000 or 1 percent of a company’s outstanding stock. The SEC can override a company’s objections if the proposal meets certain legal standards and should be on the ballot, Lynch explains.

Read the Reuters article.

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A Dallas attorney says Texas may have to ask for permission to change election laws after a panel of federal judges ruled the maps drawn for three congressional districts violate federal statutes, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

The judges found the maps used for the congressional districts covering parts of South and West Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters by either violating the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.

Constitutional law attorney David Coale of Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst says the decision means that Texas may face a rare remedy referred to as a “bail-in,” which could lead to requiring prior federal approval of any changes to district lines.

“The issue here is not so much what the court said about these districts, since none of them were actually used in an election. It’s whether Texas’ process for drawing districts was so flawed that the federal government has to take over.”

Texas can appeal the ruling before early May, but that will mean more uncertainty and added delay to an already complicated case, adds Coale.

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Reforms in the U.S. tax code proposed by President Donald Trump and Republican Congressional leaders could have significant implications for the energy industry in the U.S., and worldwide, according to an article published on the website of Hogan Lovells.

Authors of the article are Washington partners Jamie Wickett, John Stanton and Robert Glennon.

“Full expensing of capital expenditures and a reduction in the U.S. corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to 20 percent or 15 percent will on balance significantly reduce the tax cost of doing business in the U.S.,” they write. “On the other hand, the loss of the deduction for net interest expense proposed in the Blueprint — will raise the cost of debt in the U.S.”

Also, “The ability for U.S.-based corporations to repatriate profits from foreign subsidiaries on a tax free basis (after paying a one-time tax on all accumulated earnings and profits of foreign subsidiaries) should significantly increase the incentive for these companies to repatriate cash and use it to make U.S. investments (or perhaps to pay down debt or pay dividends).”

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Only months after the Environmental Protection Agency first contacted thousands of oil and gas companies demanding detailed information regarding methane releases from gas production facilities and related equipment, it has announced that the companies are “no longer required to respond,” reports Akin Gump in its AG Deal Diary.

in 2016 the EPA announced that it planned to send requests for information to approximately 15,000 oil and gas companies involved in onshore production, gathering and boosting, gas processing, transmission, storage and liquefied natural gas import/export. The agency wanted the information to “help the agency determine how best to address methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, including through rulemaking to reduce emissions.”

Now the EPA has announced: ““EPA has withdrawn the 2016 information request for the oil and gas industry, effective immediately. If you received a letter requiring you to fill out a survey, you are no longer required to respond.”

Akin Gump’s David H. Quigley, Christine B. LaFollette and Charles L. Franklin wrote the article.

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Reuters is reporting that Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp has agreed to pay $892 million and plead guilty to criminal charges for violating U.S. laws that restrict the sale of American-made technology to Iran and North Korea.

“A five-year investigation found ZTE conspired to evade U.S. embargoes by buying U.S. components, incorporating them into ZTE equipment and illegally shipping them to Iran,” explains reporter Karen Freifeld. “In addition, it was charged in connection with 283 shipments of telecommunications equipment to North Korea.”

“With this action, we are putting the world on notice. Improper trade games are over with,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters Tuesday. According to a CNBC report, he called ZTE’s actions “a brazen disregard for our laws.”

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Reuters is reporting that a U.S. Justice Department probe into a phony accounts scandal at Wells Fargo & Co. is asking whether executives hid details from the company board and regulators as the problem grew over years, sources familiar with the review said.

Patrick Rucker reports that the move could result in criminal charges against bank employees involved.

“Officials are seeking to find out if executives shared everything they knew about the phony accounts to the Wells Fargo board of directors and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the lead regulator for national banks,” Rucker reports. “Even if executives are not charged with criminal misconduct, they could face civil penalties including fines or a ban from the banking industry. Wells has already fired some executives and clawed back portions of their pay.”

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Companies looking to waive class action rights of employees may instead be waving goodbye to provisions in their employment contracts, warns David Heck in Proskauer Rose’s Minding Your Business blog.

He discusses two recent decisions in California — one administrative and one in the 9th Circuit — that recently found that class action waivers in employment contracts were unenforceable as a matter of law and public policy, resulting in the removal of entire or partial contractual provisions.

“Together, these rulings make clear that class action waivers in employment agreements are subject to a high level of scrutiny, even if such waivers are not explicit and signing of the agreement was voluntary,” Heck writes.

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Bloomberg BNA is reporting that a package of far-reaching bills to overhaul the civil litigation process, long cherished by business and derided by consumer groups, is likely to win approval from President Trump if it reaches his desk.

Republicans are moving a batch of business-friendly bills through the House. An example is legislation calling for business-backed litigation measures, colloquially known as “tort reform.” Sherman “Tiger” Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, told Bloomberg BNA that prospects for enactment fo the legislation are “certainly better than they’ve been since 2008.”

But backers of such legislation caution against reading too much into Trump’s comments on the bills, writes reporter Bruce Kaufman.

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Healthlaw Publishing announces the upcoming release of Healthcare and the False Claims Act, 2016 Survey. Registration is available now for free downloading of the survey report.

Healthcare and the False Claims Act, 2016 Survey summarizes the important laws, regulations, pronouncements, and cases of the past year, to inform healthcare providers and healthcare attorneys on this crucial statute in the healthcare industry.

On Dec. 14, 2016, the United States Department of Justice announced the recovery of more than $4.7 billion in False Claims Act (“FCA”) settlements and judgments. It was the third-highest total in history, and more than $2.5 billion came from the healthcare industry. During the eight years of the Obama Administration, the Department of Justice recovered more than $31 billion in FCA settlements and judgments, taking more than $19.3 billion from healthcare providers and other participants in the healthcare industry.

2016 was a pivotal year for the FCA. It was the year of a tremendously important Supreme Court decision that could expose healthcare providers to whole new areas of FCA liability based upon state and federal regulations. The penalties were more than doubled to a minimum of more than $11,000 per claim and a maximum of more than $22,000 per claim, massively increasing both the risk of litigation and the likelihood of settling FCA cases even in the absence of wrongdoing. And it saw a new focus on the investigation and even the criminal indictment of individuals involved with entities sued under the FCA. 2016 also saw new regulations and new court interpretations of laws first put in place in 2009 and 2010 to turbocharge the FCA and encourage greater participation by whistleblowers.

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Navex Global will present a complimentary webinar titled “Managing Workplace Harassment: Trends and Objectives under the New Administration” on Wednesday, Feb. 22. The event will begin at 9 a.m. Pacific time/noon Eastern time.

On its website, Navex says incidents of prejudice and discrimination are increasing in today’s polarized society—including harassment in the workplace. How do you mitigate this risk while tensions continue to flare?

Join this webinar to hear:

• What actions constitute discrimination in the workplace
• How to manage workplace harassment
• Appropriate disciplinary measures

Navex also will share strategies for developing training plans for all levels of employment to minimize and avoid workplace harassment from the top down.

Register for the webinar.

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Tolling agreements are a common feature of the energy industry. Through these agreements, a buyer will supply fuel to an electric generator and, in return, the generator will provide power back to the buyer, according to an article posted on the website of Hogan Lovells.

But a court recent ruled that such a tolling agreement, when entered into between companies that intended to merge, violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, leading to the imposition of significant financial penalties against the buyer.

“Parties that have or may have an interest in acquiring the other party to the agreement must be careful to avoid assuming beneficial ownership of the target before complying with the HSR Act’s reporting requirements if HSR notification would be required,” the article says. “Failure to do so may result in the tolling agreement being construed as evidence of gun-jumping and the acquiring person being subject to significant penalties of up to $40,654 per day for noncompliance.”

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Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, outlined proposed legislation to clear away many rules bankers say have hobbled investment and economic growth in a staff memo reported by Reuters.

Hensarling’s plan would roll back Wall Street rules and consumer protections conceived after the 2008 financial crisis, a step that will largely define the financial deregulation debate in the Trump era.

“Under Hensarling’s plan, the largest U.S. banks would face less oversight — though not as little as they had been hoping for – while startups would have easier access to investors,” writes reporter Patrick Rucker.

Read the Reuters article.

A Washington lawyer at a prominent firm was arrested in a disguise while trying to sell a copy of a secret lawsuit involving a company that was under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Bloomberg Law is reporting.

Jeffrey Wertkin immediately lost his job with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP after he was picked up Jan. 31 in the lobby of a hotel in Cupertino, California. The FBI said he believed he was about to collect $310,000 for selling the lawsuit.

Wertkin believed he would hand a copy of a complaint to an employee of the company, which was accused in the complaint by a whistle-blower of falsely billing the government, report Bloomberg’s Jef Feeley, David Voreacos and Joel Rosenblatt.

That employee turned out to be an FBI agent, according to arrest documents unsealed on Feb. 6.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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American Banker asks the question of what will be the immediate impact of President Trump’s executive order  calling for a review of financial regulatory policy, especially the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

The magazine’s conclusion is that the impact likely will be small in the short term.

In the article, Joe Adler writes that the order was framed as “core principles” rather than any immediate policy change.

“The president has very little direct authority to change Dodd-Frank, repeal the fiduciary duty rule or revamp Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result, his orders will urge other parts of the government to make changes,” wrote Jaret Seiberg, an analyst at Cowen Group. “With the possible exception of the fiduciary duty rule, actual changes for the banks are unlikely to occur quickly.”

As for the long-term impact, Adler writes that a complete unwind of the 2010 law is unlikely in the current political environment in Washington.

Read the American Banker article.

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Public-interest advocacy groups say the Trump administration appears to be deliberately structuring the president’s growing roster of business-focused advisory groups in order to avoid becoming subject to a federal transparency law that requires such meetings be formally announced in advance and open to the public, reports Politico.

“A 1972 law aimed at limiting back-room influence by special interests, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, regulates the operation of federal government advisory council,” writes Josh Gerstein. “Normally, the meetings of such groups are announced at least ten days in advance in the Federal Register and the sessions are open to the public.”

Although there have been no official notices of any meetings and no executive orders laying out the duties of the “Strategic and Policy Forum” or any other groups Trump is convening, a White House office insisted the meetings are in compliance with the law.

Read the Politico article.

Thomson Reuters Practical Law developed a legal update containing the full transcript of the keynote address given by Mary Jo White, former Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commssion, at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law’s 44th Annual Securities Regulation Institute.

She began her address with a brief look back over her tenure at the SEC, the agency’s effort to evolve with market technology, evolution with new financial products, evolving with new paths to capital formation, pursuingn strong enforcement and examinations, and a look at the SEC going forward.

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Legal advocacy groups seeking to challenge President Donald Trump in court over alleged conflicts of interest said filing lawsuits is part of a larger strategy to highlight their concerns and put political pressure on the White House, according to a Reuters report.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington contended payments to Trump’s businesses for hotel rooms and office leases run afoul of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, report Andrew Chung and Dan Levine. The clause forbids U.S. officeholders from accepting various gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval.

“The American Civil Liberties Union is also preparing a lawsuit over Trump’s alleged violations of the emoluments clause, said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero,” the reporters write. “Beyond winning favorable rulings, cases can serve to ‘gum up the machinery of the government and rob the Trump administration of momentum,’ he said.”

Read the Reuters article.

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