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Labor, Employment and Benefits: Alert - February 6, 2012

The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied an employer’s request for review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which held that tipped employees spending more than 20 percent of their time performing related but non-tipped duties must be paid the full minimum wage for that time, without the tip credit.

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Hospitality Industry: Mediation of Golf Industry Disputes Alert - January 31, 2012

Golf clubs and their developers, owners, builders, operators, managers and members are still taking their disputes to court to duke, or "club" it out. This trend continues even when there are readily available options to full-blown litigation, such as alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

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Securities & Financial News to Note
Bulletin - February 23, 2009
 
In this Issue...
President Signs American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
 
 February 23, 2009
 

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the “Act”). The Act is intended to stimulate the economy through certain tax and spending measures. Among other tax relief measures for corporations, the Act:

    • extends to five years the carryback period for net operating losses generated in 2008 by certain small businesses
    • provides relief to debtors by permitting them to defer cancellation of debt income arising from repurchases and other types of debt workouts; generally, they can defer cancellation of debt income for a period of five years for debt repurchased in 2009 and four years for debt repurchased in 2010

The Act also contains provisions directing the Treasury Department to establish standards regarding executive compensation and corporate governance for entities that have received, or will receive, financial assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), established under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA). The new standards amend the executive compensation provisions that were included in the EESA. Among other things, the new standards will:

    • prohibit the payment of bonuses and incentive compensation to a group of covered employees – the scope of the covered employees depends on the amount of TARP assistance the recipient received
    • prohibit the payment of severance to a TARP recipient’s top five most highly compensated executive officers and the next five most highly compensated employees
    • require each TARP recipient to permit an annual non-binding “say on pay” shareholder vote
    • require Treasury to retroactively review the bonuses, retention awards and other compensation of the senior executives, officers and the next 20 most highly-compensated employees of any TARP participant that received financial assistance before the enactment of the stimulus bill to determine whether any such payments were inconsistent with the purposes of the Act or the TARP or were otherwise contrary to the public interest; if so, Treasury must seek reimbursement from the TARP recipient and employee

The new standards would apply to TARP recipients during the period the recipient has obligations outstanding that arose from TARP financial assistance.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/arra_public_review/

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