Legal News

In October 2017, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began enforcing its Crystalline Silica Dust Rules (“Silica Rules”) within the construction industry. As we noted last November, the Silica Rules require all contractors that engage in activities that create respirable crystalline dust by cutting, grinding, or blasting materials (such as concrete, stone, and brick)…...By: Davis Brown Law Firm

On April 12, 2020, Governor Northam signed a series of bills related to the non-payment of wages. New changes to Virginia’s wage payment laws significantly increase potential penalties against employers who fail to properly pay employees wages, and the laws also stack additional burdens on general contractors to ensure that their subcontractors are adhering to the law....By: Williams Mullen

In Mech. Inc. v. Venture Elec. Contrs., Inc., No. 2018AP2380, 2020 Wisc. App. LEXIS 170, the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, District Two, considered whether a party may bring a negligence claim for purely economic damages. In upholding the lower court, the appellate court found that a party is barred by the Economic Loss Doctrine from bringing a negligence claim for purely economic damages....By: White and Williams LLP

COVID-19 has impacted international construction projects in historic and largely unanticipated ways. Construction workforces have evaporated under enforced stay-at-home orders and concerns about worker and societal health and welfare. Projects are slowed by new and unforeseen safety precautions. Supply chains have been disrupted on a global scale....By: Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on construction projects across Canada causing delays, lost productivity, increased costs and lost profits. To mitigate the impact of these risks, it is imperative that parties across the contractual chain implement proactive identification and management steps. Below is a high-level overview of the most common types of claims expected as a result of the pandemic, and practical considerations for mitigating these risks....By: Bennett Jones LLP

The fourth of a six-part series examining six specific and evolving rights plan provisions. As discussed in greater detail in some of our prior articles, a shareholder rights plan is a protective measure used by a public company to deter (though not necessarily prevent) a stockholder from exceeding a specified ownership percentage without prior approval from the company’s board......By: Morrison & Foerster LLP

Most parties on a construction project know that a liquidated damage may be assessed for each day of the delay past a contract completion date. However, in infrastructure and highway contracts, there are many different events that can result in a liquidated damage or stipulated sum charge....By: Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC

In early 2020, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that contractors who have a mechanics’ lien on a residential property cannot recover attorneys’ fees from the sale of the homestead. We explained in a prior blog about how that Supreme Court decision severely limited a contractor’s effective remedies under the mechanics’ lien statute......By: Dickinson, Mackaman, Tyler & Hagen, P.C.

The Brexit negotiations have been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic but certainly not forgotten. Negotiations on the future UK-EU relationship started in March 2020 after the UK's withdrawal from the EU on 31 January 2020 (exit day) at which point the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) came into force. The goal is a new UK/EU agreement to be implemented after the transition period, which is scheduled to end on 31 December 2020. Until that date, the UK remains part of the EU single market and customs....

A number of regulators across the globe responded to recent market volatility by introducing temporary short selling bans and/or market restrictions. Such bans have since expired as of 18 May 2020. Other regulators (including the UK) said that there was no evidence to suggest that short selling had been the driver of recent market falls and emphasised the important role short selling plays in liquidity provision and price discovery, but in some cases nonetheless imposed lower thresholds for...By...