On November 13, 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) amended several Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), including numbers 61-65, 68, 69, and 102-104. OFAC also published two new insurance-related FAQs, which are 1199 and 1200. Below please find a summary of these new and amended FAQs.

On December 3, 2024, Judge Amos L. Mazzant of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted a request for a nationwide preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from enforcing the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and its implementing regulations. The injunction stays the new law’s compliance deadline of January 1, 2025, for all reporting companies.

The California Court of Appeal recently reversed a summary judgment ruling in favor of a geotechnical engineering firm that had conducted a brief inspection of a residential construction project's footing trench for $360. The case arose when homeowner Cheryl Lynch experienced significant property damage after her home's foundation failed and the structure began subsiding into a slope. Lynch sued Peter & Associates for professional negligence and nuisance, despite having no direct contractual relationship with the firm, which had been hired by her contractor to perform the geotechnical inspection.

A recent Delaware Court of Chancery opinion addressed the not infrequent situation where a distressed company is sold or merged but only the preferred stockholders receive consideration — and the common stockholders receive nothing. In Jacobs v. Akademos, Inc., Del. Ch., C.A. No. 2021-0346-JTL (Del. Ch. Oct. 30, 2024), a scholarly work of art, the court conducts an analysis of the fiduciary duties of the directors who approved the deal.

In response to President Biden’s October 2023 Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, on October 17, 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) published its long-awaited guidance on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and Worker Well-Being. The DOL guidance provides a roadmap to ensure that employers’ use of artificial intelligence enhances job quality and safeguards, rather than undermines workers’ rights and well-being. Although the DOL notes that this guidance is neither binding nor intended to modify or supplant existing law, regulations, or policies, employers should take note because the DOL’s guidance is a blueprint for best practices to follow across all sectors and workplaces.