Next week will be a committee week in the European Parliament.  Members of the European Parliament (“MEPs”) will gather virtually and in person in Brussels.  Several interesting votes and debates are scheduled to take place. On Tuesday, MEPs of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs (“LIBE”) will have their first debate with the European Commission on its proposal for ‘vaccinations passports’ to enable easier cross-border travel within the EU.  Under the Commission…

The American Rescue Plan, signed into law last month, includes $1.9 trillion in economic stimulus, healthcare, and related funding.  And just last week the Biden administration released an infrastructure proposal, the American Jobs Plan, that includes $2.3 trillion in transportation, connectivity, power, and other critical infrastructure investments.Contractors are right to view these plans as massive opportunities — but should be cognizant of the regulatory strings that often attach to government spending.  In general,…

Like many companies in other sectors, oil and gas companies are increasingly confronted with the need to address Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) imperatives in their businesses.  Traditionally viewed as ‘license to operate’ issues—effectively ensuring that companies continued to have ‘social permission’ to operate—these considerations have assumed an ever-greater importance as companies face both an accelerating energy transition and increased shareholder activism and government regulation. But, whilst many companies are keen to demonstrate their ESG…

In coordinated action on 22 March 2021, the EU, US, Canada and the UK imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials accused of complicity in human rights violations in Xinjiang. The Chinese responded by imposing sanctions on a group of MEPs, European academics and think-tanks on 23 March and followed these announcements by imposing retaliatory sanctions on Canadian and US officials.  The speed of the Chinese response indicates Chinese concerns at the coordination between authorities in…

On March 13, 2021, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) approved the outline of the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan, covering the period 2021-2025. The plan’s economic and social development targets provide critical signposts that companies—both foreign and domestic—would be wise to heed when determining their own plans for the coming months and years in the Chinese market. The full text of the plan can be accessed here in its original Chinese. This article will be updated…

Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Facebook v. Duguid, adopting a narrow interpretation of a key definitional term in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and resolving the circuit split we previously described here and here. In effect, the Supreme Court’s opinion means that to qualify as an “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under the TCPA, a device must use a random or sequential number generator; a device that calls a…

When the United States government decides to intervene in False Claims Act litigation after initially declining intervention, it is not “déjà vu all over again.”  Instead, as one court has recognized, the “government is getting on a moving train,”[1] and it can only be permitted to “intervene at a later date” if it can show “good cause” for doing so.  See 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(3).On February 24, 2021, a Tennessee federal district court offered…