Employers nationwide have waited anxiously following the Biden Administration’s September 9 announcement that a new set of rules would be forthcoming governing vaccination for employers with large workforces. On November 4, 2021, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration ended the suspense by issuing an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), requiring all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated to the extent possible, and requiring regular testing and other safeguards for those employees who are not vaccinated.

Harris County, Texas – home to the City of Houston – was formerly considered a relatively conservative jurisdiction compared to the rest of Texas. However, Harris County has become increasingly problematic for corporate defendants in personal injury litigation. A recent Harris County nuclear verdict solidifies this fact and places corporate defendants on notice that there may be no safe haven anywhere within the State of Texas when it comes to defending catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death claims from the “Reptile” strategy.

Clayton Act Section 7 is a statute private companies often overlook when seeking to combat mergers that are likely to degrade competition and, in the process, impair a company’s ability to participate as a market supplier or consumer. A Fourth Circuit case reminds us, however, that private parties directly can use the statute in the right circumstances to level the playing field where they operate.

Since Governor Gavin Newsom first signed Assembly Bill 51 (AB 51) into effect on October 10, 2019, there has been an ongoing battle as to the legal enforceability of this ban on arbitration as a condition of employment. In December 2019, the Chamber of Commerce challenged the law and was awarded a preliminary injunction. In September 2021, a divided three-judge panel partially reversed the injunction. On October 20, 2021, the Chamber filed a petition for a rehearing of its case en banc.

The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has requested comments, by November 22, 2021, on proposed revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. The proposal is Phase I in a two-phased approach that will eventually undo a final rule, effective September 2020, that updated NEPA regulations to reflect decades of agency experience and caselaw interpreting the 1969 Act.

In late September 2021, the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a Sample Letter providing guidance to companies on how their climate disclosures will be analyzed for compliance with material risk reporting obligations. The Sample Letter precedes the SEC’s issuance of mandatory climate-related disclosure rules anticipated by year-end and signals a greater focus on specific information used to support securities filings, a development that businesses should take seriously.

Previously, all large employers (those with 250 employees or more) were required to report new hires to a state registry. Florida has now expanded that reporting obligation to all employers regardless of size AND added a reporting requirement for independent contractors. Effective October 1, 2021, all Florida companies must report to the State Directory of New Hires all newly hired or rehired employees, as well as independent contractors, who are paid $600 or more per calendar year for services.

Businesses across the country will soon face challenging new requirements to disclose the presence in their products of, and worker and environmental exposure from, an enormous set of chemicals that have been used for years in products, including cooking pans, furniture and carpets, food wrappers, apparel, paint, automobiles, machinery, and a vast array of other products. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to finalize these new regulations soon.