Whistleblowing is the act of exposing some act of misconduct within an organization. A recent survey of multinational companies found that many companies do not do enough to encourage whistle-blowers who could help them uncover bad internal behavior. Almost half of...
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Republicans File Lawsuit over Health Care Reform
On November 21, 2014, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Treasury and both Departments' Secretaries, in their official capacity. The lawsuit alleges that the...
Navigating Equity Financing for Privately Held Companies
It is a rare company indeed that is able to start a business and grow it to a profitable enterprise solely on the basis of cash generated from operations. The vast majority of companies require some form of outside financing. That leaves two alternatives: (i) the...
Protect Your Personal and Business Digital Assets: New Law Aims to Help
When your life flashes before your eyes moments before you die, you likely won't be thinking about your tweet count, your Farmville assets, your Bitcoins, your iTunes play-lists, or how many "likes" your last status update received. However, a new law is aimed at...
Insuring Accounts Receivable: A Quick Primer
What do you do when your largest customer goes bankrupt? Panic? Probably. But, once the immediate panic subsides, some smart business owners call their insurance company and put in a claim under their "accounts receivable insurance" policy. Accounts receivable and...
Not The Sweet Kind Of “Cookies”: The New Tax On Vendors Making Internet Sales
Sure, it’s the holiday season, but these cookies aren’t the heart-shaped kind that you give your Valentine. These “cookies” are packets of data that businesses rely on to operate their websites. Cookies allow businesses to identify and track users, then customize...
Weddings are (Still) not an “Agricultural Operation”
The Rhode Island Supreme Court recently had the opportunity to review a 2014 amendment to the Right to Farm Act (the "RFA") in The Gerald P. Zarrella Trust et al. v. Town of Exeter et al., SU #2016-301-A. In that matter, the plaintiff sought a declaration that RFA, as...
DANGER LURKS WITH INCENTIVE-BASED SALES STRATEGIES FOR HEALTH IT PLATFORMS
A wise person learns from the mistakes of others; and recently, the health IT industry was afforded such a learning opportunity by a well-known EHR platform. athenahealth, Inc. (Athena), an industry-leading EHR vendor, agreed to pay $18.25 million to resolve...
A “NATURAL DISASTER” – THE PANDEMIC’S IMPACT ON CONTRACTS
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, we wrote about the legal concept of “force majeure” clauses found in some business contracts. A force majeure clause excuses a party from performing its obligations under a contract based upon some unforeseen and serious event such as a...