Tagged: Coronavirus

Organizations Commit to Share Their Intellectual Property to Support the Fight Against the Coronavirus

The Open COVID Pledge calls on organizations around the world to make their patents and copyrights freely available to combat the coronavirus. The Pledge was developed by the Open COVID Coalition (“Coalition”), an international group of scientists and lawyers, seeking to accelerate the rapid development and deployment of diagnostics, therapeutics, medical equipment, and software solutions to this urgent public health crisis. Many major technology companies and academic organizations have “signed onto” the Pledge. The Pledge, however, does not appear to be as popular with biopharmaceutical companies. Am I eligible? How do I make the Pledge? Anyone who holds intellectual property rights is eligible by either issuing a public statement making the Pledge or issuing a press release and notifying the Coalition. What IP is covered? Pledging parties may share any of their intellectual property rights, including patents and copyrights relating to the coronavirus pandemic. The Pledge does not cover trademarks or trade secrets. How do I implement the Pledge? The Coalition has published three standard licenses. A pledging party may adopt one of these standard licenses, adopt its own compatible license, or adopt an alternative license. What are some of the key terms of the standard licenses? Grant: Simply stated, the standard licenses grant a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use and commercialize the intellectual...

The National Labor Relations Act and COVID-19

One law that has not received much attention in the midst of COVID-19 is the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The NLRA is a federal law that governs labor relations for most private sector employers in the United States. The statute is enforced and interpreted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which is headquartered in Washington, DC and has regional offices throughout the country. The NLRA provides employees with various rights, including the right to engage in protected concerted activity, the right to join and to refrain from joining a labor union, and the right to have a union collectively bargain their terms and conditions of their employment. As recent developments demonstrate, both union and non-union employers should keep the NLRA in mind when conducting their workforce planning. Protected Concerted Activity The NLRA protects employees who engage in protected concerted activity. Generally speaking, this means that employees have the right to band together to demand better working conditions with or without a union. Concerns that employees raise about health and safety issues at work, which very well may include COVID-19-related concerns, could constitute protected concerted activity entitling employees to protection. See, e.g., Contemporary Cars, Inc. v. NLRB, 814 F.3d 859 (7th Cir. 2016) (concern employees raised with manager about coworker’s failure to wash hands...

New Jersey Further Expands Family Leave and Temporary Disability Benefits in the Wake of COVID-19

On April 14, 2020, Governor Phil Murphy signed into law Senate Bill S2374, which further amends the New Jersey Family Leave Act (FLA) and the New Jersey Temporary Disability Benefits Law (TDBL), including the Family Leave Insurance program (FLI), expanding on prior amendments signed into law on March 25, 2020 (included in Senate Bill 2304), as part of the state’s initial response to the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. These amendments are effective immediately and apply retroactively to leave taken on or after March 25, 2020. As the pandemic has continued, so too have the Legislature’s attempts to address its impact on New Jersey citizens, which have included efforts to protect New Jersey employees who are in need of temporary leave and/or income replacement benefits as a result of circumstances caused by COVID-19. Prior to the COVID-19 related amendments, eligible employees working for covered employers could, under the FLA, take up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave in any 24-month period for the following three reasons: The birth of a child, including a child born pursuant to a valid written agreement between the employee and a gestational carrier The adoption or foster care placement of a child Caretaking for a family member with a serious health condition As discussed in our prior blog post,...

Is Everything Negotiable? Anticipating Legal Issues for the “Reopening”

In the early 1980s, a book entitled You Can Negotiate Anything spent nine months on the New York Times bestseller list. The book may have a resurgence in the coming months, as one thing is for certain right now: After the state’s reopening, every contract, lease, and agreement is likely to be subject to negotiation. While much attention has been focused on force majeure provisions in contracts and potential bankruptcy filings, the practical effect of survival of the fittest will dictate necessary legal needs. Certainly there will be a time lag for the courts to be clogged with new cases. The retail, leisure travel, and entertainment sectors, while arguably most impacted by the recent closures and restrictions, will surely not be the only areas where businesses and individuals by necessity will renegotiate virtually every existing agreement. As New Jersey deals with the enormity of the COVID-19 pandemic, legal issues are emerging that were previously never contemplated. In an instant, the world has changed, and all negotiated contracts are potentially at risk. The question becomes: How do businesses protect their futures? To start, anticipate legal issues. Documents and Agreements Likely to Be Subject to Renegotiation It is prudent to develop a reopening legal plan consisting of the following steps: Review your existing agreements. Are they still...

Beyond Force Majeure: Government Quarantine Orders May Themselves Excuse Contract Non-Performance

The coronavirus pandemic is reverberating throughout commercial sectors, and countless contract obligations are going unperformed—shipments are not being made or accepted, payments are being missed, and contract milestone dates are lapsing every week that the pandemic and business shutdown continues. Those typically rare force majeure provisions are now being scrutinized. (For more on those topics, see previous entries in our COVID-19 “The Coronavirus Pandemic and Your Business: How We Can Help” client alert series, including “Litigation Issues That May Arise.”) And, in New Jersey, the precise language of such a clause is key, as courts in this state have held that they should be “narrowly interpreted as contemplating only events or things of the same general nature or class as those specifically enumerated.” Seitz v. Mark-O-Lite Sign Contractors, Inc., 210 N.J. Super. 646 (N.J. Sup. Ct. Law Div. 1986). With only some force majeure clauses including explicit references to pandemics, or broadly-worded “catch-alls,” the success of a force majeure defense is not necessarily certain. But before (or in addition to) attempting to invoke that force majeure provision, consider whether a court would ultimately determine that contractual non-performance is due to an “Act of God” or rather is being caused by the governmental orders quarantining segments of the population and/or shutting down whole swaths of the...

Pennsylvania Issues New Executive Order Mandating Additional COVID-19 Disease Control Measures

On April 15, 2020, the Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued an order aiming to blunt the continued and expansive spread of COVID-19 throughout Pennsylvania (“Order”). The Order, which took effect on April 19, 2020, requires additional disease control measures to further protect workers and customers of any life-sustaining business (“Business”) that has remained open during the COVID-19 disaster emergency. The original list of Businesses can be found here, and includes companies such as healthcare service providers; restaurants offering carry-out, delivery, or drive-through services; food, medical equipment, and chemical manufacturers; and utility and telecommunication companies, among others. The Order requires any such Business, other than a healthcare provider, to implement certain social distancing, mitigation, and cleaning protocols. These measures are in addition to those included in Pennsylvania’s April 6, 2020 building safety measures executive order, which requires covered businesses to clean and disinfect high-touch areas in accordance with CDC guidelines in spaces accessible to customers, tenants, or other individuals, and maintain pre-existing cleaning protocols established in the facility for all other areas of the building, ensure the facility has a sufficient number of employees to perform the required cleaning protocols effectively and in a manner ensuring the safety of occupants and workers, and make sure that the facility has a sufficient number of...

Antitrust Law and the COVID-19 Pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic is having repercussions in all sectors of the legal community, as illustrated in the prior entries in our “The Coronavirus Pandemic and Your Business: How We Can Help” client alert series. Antitrust law is no exception. The Bureau of Competition of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) have put out two joint statements in response to COVID-19, one on March 24 and another just last week. Both contain reminders and useful guidance concerning cooperation among market participants during these unprecedented times. Recognizing that meeting the challenges posed by the pandemic will require collaborative efforts to address pressing health and safety needs, FTC and DOJ highlighted in their March 24 statement certain types of coordinated activity that the antitrust laws generally permit – because they lead to outcomes that are efficiency-enhancing and pro-competitive. These include: Collaboration on research and development, as may be the case with R&D for developing a potential vaccine. Sharing of information regarding technical know-how as opposed to firm-specific data on prices and outputs. Standard setting designed to assist healthcare providers in clinical decision-making. Joint purchasing arrangements among medical providers that aid procurement, perhaps of PPE, and reduce transaction costs. Lobbying of the federal government regarding the passage and enforcement of...

Navigating the Impact of Executive Orders on Shore Rentals and Hotels

With prom season and summer approaching, the COVID-19 pandemic has created challenges and confusion for shore rentals and hotels. Unlike the regulation of most other businesses during the pandemic, the regulation of short-term lodging and hotels has been delegated to municipalities and counties by the state. As a result, there now exists a patchwork of varying regulations on a county-by-county and town-by-town basis. Those who own hotels or rental properties, and thwarted travelers looking for remedies, must undertake a careful evaluation of municipal and county directives in effect for the relevant locations. Executive Orders No. 107 and No. 108 and Administrative Order No. 2020-8 Executive Order No. 107, entered March 21, 2020, expressly closed all “non-essential retail businesses” and all recreational and entertainment businesses. In an effort to standardize restrictions throughout the state, Executive Order No. 108, entered on the same day, invalidated any existing or future restriction by a county or municipality that “in any way will or might conflict with any of the provisions of Executive Order No. 107, or which will or might interfere with or impede its achievement, or the achievement of Administrative Orders issued as authorized by [the Governor’s] Executive Orders.” Executive Order No. 108, however, had an exception for the lodging industry. Specifically, the Governor granted the Superintendent of...

COVID-19 – The “Real World” Market Impact We See To Date

Over the last several weeks, our phones have been ringing – a lot. Landlords and tenants want to know what lease obligations they can temporarily forego and what rights they do or do not have, given all that has been wrought by COVID-19, including mandatory closures, suggested closures, social distancing, and the inability to access government offices or courts, to travel, to obtain inventory, supplies, or materials, and, generally, to conduct business and meet responsibilities as contemplated when the governing document was signed. In the last four weeks, there has been much written about the lease clauses and avenues to pursue that are the most relevant to a technical analysis of the questions posed – the force majeure (a/k/a impossibility of performance) clause; the long-shot condemnation clause; the equitable theories based on impossibility, mutual mistake, or simple fairness; insurance recovery; and bankruptcy. So what’s happening in the “real world”? Here’s what we are seeing in our practice. 1. Everyone is nervous. Although this anxiety is, in large measure, due to the facts that we know, it is also clearly driven in large measure by having to plan for the unknown – how bad, how long, what does the “recovery” look like? 2. Obviously, many businesses have already seen drop-offs – in many instances, precipitous drop-offs...

IRS Extends Deadlines for Section 1031 Exchanges and Investments in Qualified Opportunity Funds

In response to the challenges faced by taxpayers as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS issued Notice 2020-23 on April 10, 2020, which extends many tax filing and payment due dates to as late as July 15, 2020. Notably, this guidance includes deadlines associated with like-kind property exchanges under Section 1031 and investments in Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs) under the Qualified Opportunity Zone (QOZ) regime. A like-kind exchange is a tax-deferred transaction that allows for the disposal of an asset, typically real property, and the subsequent acquisition of another similar asset without generating capital gains tax liability from the sale of the initial asset. QOFs allow taxpayers to invest qualified capital gains into real property or businesses located in QOZs, and to defer and partially reduce taxation on the original capital gain while potentially eliminating all taxation on appreciation while in the QOF. Under Notice 2020-23, any person with a specified federal tax payment obligation or a federal tax return or other form filing obligation that would otherwise be due to be performed (originally or pursuant to a valid extension) on or after April 1, 2020 and before July 15, 2020 is deemed to be an affected taxpayer eligible for the later due date. The Notice also lists time-sensitive actions that may be...