On July 12, 2006, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed amendments to Regulation SHO governing short sales. The comment period extends until September 19, 2006. The proposing release (34-54154) explains that the "proposed amendments are intended to further reduce the number of persistent fails to deliver in certain equity securities, by eliminating the grandfather provision, and narrowing the options market maker exception."

This Employee Benefits Report is the fourth of a series being issued regarding the Pension Protection Act of 2006 ("PPA").

The PPA provides for new "qualified automatic enrollment contribution arrangements" intended to increase plan participation. The new rules generally apply to 401(k) plans and 403(b) annuity contracts and are effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 2007. Some rules are generally applicable to plans with automatic enrollment features, even those that chose not to adopt "qualified automatic enrollment contribution arrangements."

On September 12, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger approved legislation that will raise the state's minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.00 per hour, making it the highest state minimum wage in the nation.  The governor signed Assembly Bill No. 1835, which increases the state's minimum wage to $7.50, effective January 1, 2007, and to $8.00, effective January 1, 2008.

Business method patents have been the source of controversy ever since their formal recognition by the Federal Circuit in the late 1990's.

Thelen LLP’s Chapter 7 trustee on Tuesday sued former equity partner James R. Bridges, saying he was overpaid in 2008, while the firm was insolvent, and has failed to return the funds to the fallen firm’s estate.

As has been widely reported in both the financial and trade press, on Friday, June 23, 2006 a federal appeals court in Washington, DC invalidated the SEC’s hedge fund manager registration rule, calling the controversial rule "arbitrary." The rule, which sought to redefine the meaning of the term "client" as used in the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, was passed in late 2004 by a deeply divided Commission.

Yann Geron was quoted in The Wall Street Journal article "New York’s High Court Considers Fees From Defunct Law Firms."

After 13 years of drafting and debating, China finally passed its first comprehensive Anti-monopoly Law (Law) on August 30, 2007. Please refer to our prior China Watch: "The New Antimonopoly Law and its Impact on Foreign MA Transactions" (AML Article) for the contents and our analysis of the Law.

In a case of first impression, a California Court of Appeal (Sixth Appellate District) recently ruled that the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 ("CDA") affords an employer immunity from liability based upon an employee's use of its internal computer system to communicate threatening messages. Delfino v. Agilent Technologies, Inc., 06 C.D.O.S. 11380 (Cal. App. December 14, 2006).

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently held in two decisions that a number of fairly commonplace employee handbook provisions violated the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA").

The 2006 session of the California Legislature produced several new bills which will impact the state’s private sector employers in the coming year. Below is an overview of the bills, signed by the Governor, which we view as the most significant.

San Francisco voters recently approved a ballot measure mandating that employers provide paid sick leave to employees, including part-time and temporary workers, who are employed within the city's geographic limits.

Section 1221 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides for adoption of procedures designed to facilitate expansion of the national electric transmission grid where needed to relieve congestion.

If 2005 was the year of "hedge fund activism," 2006 promises to be the year of SEC hedge fund enforcement cases.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act does not require plan sponsors or service providers to disclose revenue sharing fee information to participants, according to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. In a June 20 memorandum opinion dismissing a lawsuit against John Deere, Inc. and two subsidiaries of Fidelity Investments, the court held that ERISA's statutory provisions contain limited and finite disclosure requirements that are not supplemented by ERISA'

The 2006 session of the California Legislature produced several new bills which will impact the state’s private sector employers in the coming year. Below is an overview of the bills, signed by the Governor, which we view as the most significant.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) have recently extended their quietly publicized pilot Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program.

In what the concurring judge and a member of the NLRB called a "somewhat peculiar" outcome, a divided D.C. Circuit recently held that undocumented workers are considered "employees" under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), even though it is unlawful for companies to employ such workers.

In the first Court of Appeal decision following the Supreme Court's recent decision in Prachaseisoraedj v. Ralphs Grocery Co., Inc., 42 Cal.4th 217 (2007), the Second District upheld a compensation plan that allowed an employee to direct his employer to purchase shares in the company's stock on his behalf with a portion of his cash compensation.