Client Alerts

On March 15. 2020. Governor Whitmer signed Executive Order 2020-8, which temporarily imposes enhanced restrictions on the excessive pricing of goods, materials, emergency supplies, and consumer food items.

As we all adapt and continue to face the fluid nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important that you, our clients and friends, know that we are taking measures to ensure our continued attention to your legal needs.

As the Butzel Long Non-Compete/Trade Secret group has informed you in the past, there has been a renewed attempt at the State and Federal level to consider whether changes or even outright prohibitions against non-competes should be considered. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), recently held an “FTC Workshop on Non-Competes” on January 9, 2020. It was reported at the time that the FTC was considering rules related to the use of non-compete agreements for certain workers.

In an attempt to reduce the spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has declared that  travel to and from Canada will be limited at 12:01 a.m. EDT, beginning on March 18, 2020.

By now, you’ve probably heard that the judicial system is scaling back operations during the declared state of emergency over the coronavirus. Much of the attention has been on trial courts, which have been adjourning civil trials and hearings and limiting criminal cases to those where clients are in custody. There seems to be a general expectation that courts will accommodate extensions of time for filing.

Two separate divisions of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (“HHS”) issued notices that further enable healthcare providers to treat their patients through remote technologies that are readily available, rather than through traditional telehealth means.

The U.S. Consulates serve a vital function in administrating the immigration laws of the U.S.  Included among many of the duties they perform, the U.S. Consulates interview visa applicants, process visa adjudications, and, where appropriate, issue visas to foreign nationals so that they may be admitted to the U.S. for a variety of purposes from vacation to business visits to work-related activities. As part of the U.S. Government’s effort to address the outbreak of Coronavirus, we have learned that the following U.S. Consulates will be suspending services. 

With a declaration of a national emergency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) can waive certain federal program requirements to help ensure that health care services are available as needed, and that providers can be reimbursed as appropriate and exempt from certain sanctions.

The COVID-19 outbreak is forcing employers to consider alternative workplace plans, and one common plan involves employees working from home. 

On March 11, 2020, President Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation that suspends the entry into the U.S. of certain foreign nationals, who have been present within the Schengen Area in the 14 day period prior to their entry into the United States.

Nissan terminated a worker for absenteeism after he had difficulty recovering from a kidney transplant; his antirejection medication caused side effects that made it difficult for him to work in the same physically demanding way that he had for the 14 years before the transplant. The worker proposed accommodations, and Nissan initially worked with him. 

Current events are worrisome enough without having to be on the lookout for cybercriminals (and just plain bad actors) taking advantage of concerns over the spread of COVID-19. Yet, we must continue to be vigilant.

All of us have recently been inundated with information about the coronavirus, in particular, its impact on industries and companies, plans and procedures for dealing with it, and recommendations for preventing it from spreading. 

Business interruption and other losses due to the global spread of coronavirus are projected to total in the billions of dollars. Business interruption insurance, sometimes called income loss insurance, is intended to protect businesses against revenue losses sustained as a result of their operations.  

On February 14, 2020, an Illinois federal jury awarded Motorola Solutions, Inc., (“Motorola”) $764.6 million in a trade secret theft and copyright infringement case against its Chinese rival company, Hytera Communications, Corp., (“Hytera”).  

On March 6, 2020, the President signed into law the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 (H.R. 6074, the “Act”), bi-partisan legislation that promotes telehealth services for Medicare patients and provides additional emergency funding for fiscal year 2020 to combat the ever-increasing spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) at the federal, state and local levels.

In November 2019, the Federal Circuit (the Court of Appeals for patent litigation cases) decided a case known as Columbia Sportswear N. Am. v. Seirus Innovative Access., Inc., 942 F.3d 1119 (Fed. Cir. 2019) in such a way that makes the analysis identifying design infringement in the fashion industry much more difficult.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) warned Americans last week that it is not a question of whether COVID-19 will spread in the United States, but when it will spread. The CDC followed up the warning with a tweet advising Americans to start preparing for the spread of COVID-19.  Just as individuals, families, schools, communities, and hospitals must prepare, employers must also prepare.

The outbreak of Covid-19 (“coronavirus”) in China has interrupted global supply chains. Factory lockdowns, labor quarantines, and transportation suspensions are impacting downstream commerce. 

The hopes of many steel and aluminum importers of a judicial termination of President Trump’s broad authority to impose tariffs were diminished on Friday, February 28, 2020.