Among the various bills that were amalgamated in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the omnibus appropriations and stimulus funding bill that was signed into law on December 27, 2020) was a modified version of the Save Our Stages Act (the “SOS Act”), a bill first introduced into the Senate by Sen. John Cornyn (TX) on July 22, 2020. The SOS Act can be found in Section 324 of the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Business,…

[Update: This article has been updated since its initial publication on December 31, 2020.] On December 27, 2020, President Donald Trump signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act), an omnibus statute that is comprised of, among other laws, twelve fiscal year 2021 appropriations bills for the federal government and an economic aid package to assist business concerns that continue to face hardships due to the COIVD-19 pandemic.  Title III…

Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, 8 Del. C. § 220 (“Section 220”), permits a stockholder of a Delaware corporation to inspect corporate books and records upon a showing of a proper purpose.  The Delaware courts have long urged stockholders to avail themselves of Section 220 — the “tools at hand” — to inspect relevant corporate documents before commencing plenary derivative litigation.  See, e.g., Grimes v. Donald, 673 A.2d 1207, 1216 & n.11 (Del.…

On December 10, 2020, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued a Fact Sheet clarifying the circumstances under which financial institutions can share information under Section 314(b) of the USA Patriot Act (“Section 314(b)”), 31 C.F.R. § 1010.540.  In a speech on the same day, FinCEN’s director, Kenneth Blanco, urged financial institutions to take advantage of the program.…

This blog post originally appeared as an article in Profiles In Diversity Journal. On September 30, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 979 (AB 979), an act that promises to greatly increase the diversity of the board of directors of a number of California-based publicly-traded corporations.…

On November 19, 2020, Peter Driscoll, director of the Office of Compliance Inspection and Examination (“OCIE”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), gave a speech urging advisory firms to empower their Chief Compliance Officers (“CCOs”).  The speech, made at the SEC’s annual compliance outreach conference, accompanied OCIE’s Risk Alert, issued the same day, identifying notable deficiencies and weaknesses regarding Registered Investment Advisors (“RIAs”) CCOs and compliance departments.  Driscoll’s speech complemented the Risk Alert…