Connecticut’s law imposes a contribution and solicitation ban on state contractors, prospective state contractors, and their principals. A few, but not all, of the principals now covered under the law are as follows: Members of the company’s Board of Directors; Individuals owning 5% or more of the company’s stock; Individuals at the company living or … Read more »
Year: 2009
New Jersey’s Pay-to-Play Law
New Jersey enacted the Campaign Contributions and Expenditure Reporting Act, N.J.S.A. 19:44A-20.13 et seq. (“Chapter 51”) to limit abuses of pay-to-play. Among other things, Chapter 51 prohibits a State agency from awarding a State contract whose value exceeds $17,500 to a business entity that contributed more than $300 to the Governor, a candidate for Governor, … Read more »
States With Pay-to-Play Laws
Twelve states have some variant of a pay-to-play law: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. Regardless of where you are doing business, if it entails contracting with, attempting to contract with or otherwise providing goods or services to a governmental entity, you need … Read more »
Registration Disclosure for Illinois Entity Registration
Illinois has a new business entity registration for procurement law in place to counteract “pay-to-play” in state contracting. As part of the registration process, you must register the company as well as any “affiliated entity” and any “affiliated person.” Both of these terms are defined in Section 50-37 of Illinois Procurement Code. “Affiliated person” means … Read more »
Illinois Business Entity Registration for Procurement
On January 1, 2009, two “pay-to-play” measures went into effect in Illinois. Public Act 95-971 (.pdf) requires any business whose state contracts and/or bids on state contracts exceed $50,000 annually (“Covered Entity”) to register with the Board by January 31, 2009. The registration includes the Covered Entity’s name and address; the name and address of … Read more »
Data Breach Costs $202 per Customer Record
PGP Corporation and Ponemon Institute issued their fourth annual U.S. Cost of a Data Breach Study. The study examined 43 organizations across 17 different industry sectors with a range of 4,200 to 113,000 records that were affected. According to the report, data breach incidents cost U.S. companies $202 per compromised customer record in 2008, compared … Read more »
Report of Congressional Oversight Panel on Regulatory Reform
Modernizing the American Financial Regulatory System: Recommendations for Improving Oversight, Protecting Consumers and Ensuring Stability (.pdf) In response to the escalating crisis, on October 3, 2008, Congress provided the U.S. Department of the Treasury with the authority to spend $700 billion to stabilize the U.S. economy, preserve home ownership, and promote economic growth. Congress created … Read more »
Using the Attorney-Client Privilege to Protect Drafts of SEC Filings
Mintz Levin published a client alert about the Roth v. Aon case I mentioned a few days ago: Draft SEC Filings Can Be Protected From Discovery. The lawyers at Mintz have these recommendations: Disclosures that involve legal judgments, discussions of pending litigation, and business matters that the company must disclose for compliance purposes should be … Read more »
A Simple Strategy to Avoid Paying a Bribe
Alexandra A. Wrage writes on the WrageBlog about Simple Strategies to avoid paying a bribe: “Our informant carefully prepared himself to meet with a notorious bribe-demanding functionary for the first time. He scripted his approach to the exchange: (a) Stand quietly at the functionary’s little window until the functionary looked at him, (b) Smile confidently, (c) … Read more »
Investigating Complaints of Harassment
E. Jason Tremblay of Arnstein & Lehr LLP in Chicago put together an article in the ABA’s Business Law Today on how to limit a company’s exposure by Properly Investigating Complaints of Harassment. jason points out that an ineffective investigation can turn simple workplace humor into an expensive harrassment of retaliation complaint. He inserts a … Read more »