It’s no surprise that start-ups and small businesses are mindful of their budgets. Occasionally, however, cost-consciousness can lead a company to question the need for a contract or contract review, particularly when a transaction involves a small dollar amount or simple service offering. By assuming a lower risk of liability in these situations, the cost of hiring a lawyer to write, or review, a contract can seem unnecessary. This is a misconception.

The GDPR goes into effect on May 25th. In this ACC Docket article, Lakshmi Sarma Ramani, a member of our Washington D.C.-area team, reviews its applicability to nonprofit organizations.

On March 6, 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) announced a new pilot program – the Payroll Audit Independent Determination (“PAID”) – which allows employers to self-report inadvertent overtime and minimum wage violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) without risk of litigation or enforcement proceedings. The new six-month pilot program is expected to launch in April 2018.

On July 27, 2017, Massachusetts’ Governor Charlie Baker signed into law the Massachusetts Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which applies to employers with six or more employees. The PWFA makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee due to pregnancy or a condition related to pregnancy, including, but not limited to, the need to express breast milk for a nursing child.  The PWFA also provides needed and reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers.

The Massachusetts Act to Establish Pay Equity (“MEPA”) takes effect on July 1, 2018. The goal of the new law is to reduce pay differentials among men and women doing comparable work. The penalties for violating the new law include back wages (double the amount of the unpaid wages for up to three years), other compensation, and attorney’s fees. The new legislation also lengthens the statute of limitations for filing a claim to three years, and plaintiffs may choose to go directly to court to file suit or to file a claim with the Massachusetts Attorney General. 

Lakshmi Sarma Ramani, a Member with our Washington D.C.-area team, reviews the main issues a charity should consider when accepting a gift of virtual currency in her recent ACC Docket article, "Virtual Currency and Charitable Donations."  

How to review support terms for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or Online Subscription Services

Most online subscription services or SaaS agreements include provisions regarding support, maintenance, uptime and repairs. These terms cover how often the services work, how often they might experience “downtime” or unavailability, and what to do when that occurs (who do you contact, how quickly must they respond, etc.). These terms are often in a separate document or exhibit, typically called a Service Level Agreement or SLA. 

Optimize the value of licensed content by including auditing and reporting rights in outbound content license agreements

The owner/licensor of digital content is typically in the driver’s seat when it comes to structuring the terms of a content licensing arrangement. To that end, licensors will be better served using their own form of agreement, rather than relying on that of the licensee. Licensors can determine everything from the scope of use and amount of control they retain over their content to the terms of compensation. With respect to the latter, compensation is often a variable amount based on either a percentage of advertising revenue earned on pages containing the licensed content, or some other metric such as the number of clicks, unique visitors or page views.