The Government Accountability Office ("GAO") has taken note of significant lapses in ethical and procurement integrity in Department of Defense ("DOD") contracting.

On December 22, 2006, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued Order No. 679-A, essentially reaffirming on rehearing its July 20, 2006 Final Rule that, pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 2005, promotes transmission investment by establishing incentive-based rate treatments for electric transmission by public utilities. Various entities had argued that the Final Rule was too permissive in offering rate incentives.

On October 12, 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published several announcements in the Federal Register.

A recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision giving U.S. customs agents nearly unfettered ability to search electronic files should have businesses rethinking what risks employees create by taking electronic devices and files with them on international trips.

Spurred by a recent Inspector General’s audit of the Smithsonian Institution, Congress took an aggressive step to demonstrate its intolerance of perceived abuses by Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small.

On September 26, 2008, President Bush signed into law the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, thereby enacting legislation designed to reverse a series of employer-friendly U.S. Supreme Court opinions interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 ("PPA"), which was signed into law on August 17, 2006, made many significant changes to laws affecting defined contribution plans. This Client Alert briefly describes the PPA changes applicable to defined contribution plans that plan sponsors should consider now for implementation in 2007.

The passage last month of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 ("Act") marked the first step in a long road toward moving from voluntary to mandatory electricity reliability standards. Voluntary national reliability standards were created after a massive power outage in the Northeast during 1965 left millions in the dark.

On April 19, 2007, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s petition for a declaratory order approving CAISO’s proposed financing mechanism for the construction of interconnection facilities to connect location constrained resources, such as wind power resources, to the CAISO transmission grid.

Under the common-law evidentiary rule known as the "fiduciary exception" to the attorney-client privilege, certain fiduciaries who obtain legal advice during the execution of their fiduciary obligations may not thereafter assert the attorney-client privilege against their beneficiaries. The fiduciary exception arose in American case law during the 1970s where it was adopted in two distinct contexts-trust administration and shareholder suits.

Recently, a potential investor was ordered to pay $80 million for breaching a confidentiality agreement, alerting investors that they need to consider carefully before entering into what may seem like a routine, benign confidentiality agreement

The IRS has begun its compensation audits for executives of nonprofit organizations. These "soft-contact" audit letters are being sent to 2,000 organizations. Organizations started receiving the letters in late March 2005. A copy of one of the letters has become public, and the questions that are listed in the letter are illustrative of the focus of the IRS in these ongoing audits.

On April 26, 2007, the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division of the Internal Revenue Service released informal guidance to supplement revised instructions for IRS Form 990 for 2006. Form 990, the tax return submitted on the 15th day of the 5th month after an organization's accounting period ends each year by tax-exempt and non-profit organizations, provides the public with financial information about such organizations, and is often the only source of this information.

On July 29, 2008 the Delaware Chancery Court decided the case of Ryan v. Lyondell Chemical Company and found that despite a shareholder stock price well above the market rate, independent directors could be held to be personally liable for their role in approving a cash merger.

New transmission infrastructure can increase reliability and also reduce the costs of transmission congestion. To address the national problem of underinvestment in transmission, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to provide incentives for transmission of electric energy in interstate commerce.

On November 16, 2007, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued three orders approving requests by Southern California Edison (“SCE”), Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. (“BG&E”) and Pepco Holdings, Inc. (“Pepco”), for transmission investment incentives, as follows:

Carried interest, or the percentage of profits equity fund managers and general partners earn for managerial services, is currently taxed at the capital gains rate of 15%.

On August 12, 2008, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the case of “United Operating, LLC”. The case sets forth the standard for preserving post-confirmation litigation under a plan of reorganization.

On August 11, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted extensive amendments to its disclosure requirements for executive and director compensation that will apply to the upcoming proxy season (first quarter 2007 for 12/31 fiscal year-end companies). As a result, companies and their directors – especially compensation committee members – need to understand the implications of these new requirements now and consider how they will affect executive compensation disclosures.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC";) accepted a joint proposal by ISO New England ("ISO-NE) and the New England Power Pool Participants Committee to basically cut in half the lag time for posting Demand Bid and Supply Offer data on ISO-NE’s website.