Over the last several years, there has been growing concern within the financial and trade regulatory communities about the use of shell companies to evade anti-money laundering laws, economic sanctions, and other laws. Congress has found that malign actors have “exploited State formation procedures to conceal their identities” when forming these companies in the United States, in turn using the entities to “commit crimes affecting interstate and international commerce.” In response to this concern, Congress…
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we have blogged about the judicial decisions that have been rendered addressing parents withholding visitation from the other parent as a result of the pandemic. When the courts are presented with an application seeking to enforce visitation while simultaneously faced with the health concerns surrounding Covid-19, they have to take into consideration the facts and circumstances of the individual case. For example, the court may consider if there are health concerns…
If you have been following along with our blog posts, you will know that we recently posted about adultery. Luckily for us, five (5) days after our adultery blog was published, the Appellate Division, Second Department published a decision discussing this exact topic. In Agulnick v. Agulnick[i], the Second Department was presented with a case in which the wife alleged that the husband committed adultery with their children’s babysitter.
You might ask,…
On December 28, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 (the “Act”), which, among other things, implements certain requirements and restrictions on residential foreclosures in New York. The Act does not apply to certain commercial foreclosures or to vacant and abandoned properties that were listed on the statewide vacant and abandoned property electronic registry before March 7, 2020, and remain on the registry.…
Before the new year, New York’s COVID-19 leave law received less attention than its federal counterparts, the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (“EPSLA”) and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (“EFMLEA”). However, because paid leave under EPSLA and EFMLEA expired on December 31, 2020, New York’s law is now the subject of renewed attention.
We blogged about the New York law when it was first enacted in March 2020. By way of background,…
The governing principle of this blog is to be useful to the general public. One way to accomplish this goal is to avoid the use of jargon; another way is to avoid reporting on the minutiae of the practice by rehashing the recent decisions from the courts. (Attorneys have many outlets for such shoptalk.)
In this entry, we offer a modest proposal or two on ways of making estate planning and practice easier and less…
As previously discussed here, LIBOR (the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate) is an interest rate benchmark that is used as a reference rate for a wide range of financial transactions. It is typically offered as a floating rate interest option for corporate borrowers in the US loan market. Corporate borrowers may pay interest on their loans based on LIBOR (typically, LIBOR plus a spread, or applicable margin).
ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA), the administrator of LIBOR,…
Parties regularly enter into contracts for the purpose of achieving a desired result. Sometimes there is an absolute requirement to achieve the result; sometimes merely an agreement to try to achieve the result. Included in this spectrum of commitment is a trio of phrases that are commonly used but not so commonly understood: “best efforts”, “reasonable efforts”, and “commercially reasonable efforts.” What do these terms require of a party that agrees to use such efforts?…
Governor Cuomo recently announced the creation of New York’s Green Energy Program aimed at building New York’s green economy. Urging that the program will combat global climate change while stimulating New York’s COVID-19 stressed economy, the Governor’s proposal includes the development of the largest offshore wind program in the nation, upgrades to five dedicated port facilities (in Albany, Coeymans, South Brooklyn, Port Jefferson and Port of Montauk Harbor), and the construction of a “green energy…
On December 15, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law sweeping changes to New York’s General Obligations Law governing powers of attorney (“POA”). The new law is effective on June 14, 2021.
The new law is intended to: 1) simplify the current POA form, which is prone to improper execution; 2) allow for the execution of a POA containing language that substantially conforms to the law, because the current law’s exact wording requirement is unduly…