Updates to Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order and Empire State Development Guidance

On Saturday, March 21, the Governor issued his latest executive order, which formally adopts the 100% workforce reduction for nonessential businesses.  This executive order also tolls until April 19, 2020 any specific time limit “for the commencement, filing or service of any legal action, notice, motion, or other process or proceeding, as prescribed by the procedural laws of the state, including but limited to the criminal procedure law, the family court act, the civil practice law and rules, the court of claims act, the surrogate’s court procedure act, and the uniform court acts, or by any other statute, local law, ordinance, order, rule, or regulation, or part thereof.” 

Further, this executive order suspends the requirement that company boards hold in-person shareholder meetings, prohibits evictions/foreclosures for 90 days and extends driver’s license and vehicle registrations for the duration of the order.  The text of the executive order can be found here.

In addition, Empire State Development (ESD) updated the guidance for determining whether a business was essential or non-essential.  Some of the updates including adding funeral homes and laundromats to the list of essential businesses.  We anticipate that this guidance will continue to be updated, and we will send you those updates as we receive them.  The guidance can be found here.

As a reminder, for businesses that are unclear regarding their classification as essential, ESD has established an online form that can be submitted to receive an individual designation.  The form can be found here.  The form must be submitted by an individual business and cannot be submitted by an Association on behalf of a particular industry.

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