The Rush to C Corporation that Wasn’t
New Suit by Delta Reminds Everyone About the Importance of Data Security Protection in the Context of Third-Party Service Provider Relationships
In a recent lawsuit filed this month in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Delta Airlines brought suit against its website chat services provider, [24]7, stemming from a 2017 data breach suffered by [24]7 that affected approximately 800,000 of Delta’s customers. Specifically, Delta alleges in its complaint that an attacker gained access to [24]7’s networks and modified the source code of its chat services so that the attacker could “scrape” payment card information from customers as they used the chat feature available on Delta’s website.
New York Continues Expansion of Protections Against Discrimination and Harassment
On August 12, 2019, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation (S.6577/A.8421) that greatly expanded the protections for workplace discrimination and harassment. These additional protections come just a little over one year after the state enacted comprehensive legislation designed to combat sexual harassment.
Still Searching for Meaningful Change Following Massive Data Breaches
Large business data breaches - like the one affecting 100 million Capital One credit card customers and applicants - remain commonplace, so much so that they are becoming accepted as the new normal in today’s climate of consumer dealings. They shouldn’t be.
Update on Gifting: The Clawback Law Has Been Extended to January 1, 2026
As we wrote here earlier this year, Governor Cuomo proposed to extend the “clawback law,” which had expired on January 1, 2019, in his fiscal year 2020 Executive Budget. As a reminder, the clawback law pulled the value of all taxable gifts made within three years of a New York resident taxpayer’s death back into the New York resident taxpayer’s estate for New York estate tax purposes.
New York Raises the Stakes in Relation to Breach Reporting and Securing “Private Information”
Following up on our post from June 7, Governor Cuomo has now signed the SHIELD Act into law. New section 899-bb of the General Business Law, which creates substantive security obligations for all persons or businesses that own or license the defined “private information” of New Yorkers, goes into effect in 240 days, with the rest of the law taking effect within 90 days.
Defense Contractors Get Ready: DoD Close to Unveiling New Cyber Certification Program
The Department of Defense (“DoD”) recently announced that a new cybersecurity standard and certification program for defense contractors, the Cybersecurity Capability Model Certification program (“CCMC”), is currently under development and nearly ready for deployment.
What’s Old is New Again - NY SHIELD Act Passes the Senate
Cybersecurity law moves quickly and what may have been dead in one legislative session can come back in another to change the regulatory landscape in unexpected ways. Case in point, the NY SHIELD Act, S5575A, which passed in the New York Senate this week.
New York Changes Sole Member Rule
Effective July 1, the New York State legislature has modified a key provision of the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law (NPCL) regarding the ability of New York non-profits to establish a sole member structure. This change may require immediate adjustment to legal structures by affected non-profits.
More Paid Time Off to Vote in New York
New York has recently amended its voting leave law to make it easier for all employees to take time off to vote. Effective immediately, all employers in New York must provide employees who are registered to vote with “up to three hours” of paid time off at the beginning or end of a work shift to vote.
What I Learned from Teaching an Exempt Organizations Class
Most of my blog posts focus on current legal developments, however, for this one I thought I would mix things up and share what I learned while guest lecturing on exempt organizations for a recent law school “Law of Higher Education” class.
In November 2017, the IRS released proposed regulations clarifying the estate tax treatment of large lifetime gifts made now, while the federal estate and gift tax exemption is temporarily increased thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. These proposed regulations, if they go into effect as drafted, provide an opportunity for wealthy taxpayers to lock in the temporarily increased exemption by making large lifetime gifts.
In light of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass) New Year’s Eve announcement that she is running for President, thus kicking off not only the new year, but also apparently the formal beginning of the Presidential campaign season, we thought it timely to consider the most recent estate tax proposal of Sen. Warren, and how it compares to the current state of the estate tax.
The IRS has issued preliminary guidance on an unexpected and controversial provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Act”): a new UBIT tax on non-profit employee parking.
In 2016, New York State Department of Labor adopted a schedule of increases to both the minimum wage rate for hourly workers and the minimum salary level for exempt executive and administrative employees. The increases are scheduled to take effect each year on New Year ’s Eve and are specific to the employer’s geographic location and size.