Regulation

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Buying a franchise can be a great path to business ownership for your clients. Unlike starting a business from scratch, they will be able to leverage the benefits of an established brand and a proven operating plan. But how to decide which franchise to buy?

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While there are not currently any laws in the United States forbidding employers from gleaning information from social media ' whether during the hiring process or at any point in the employment relationship ' improper use can get them into trouble.

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Section 409A applies to any arrangement that postpones payments of compensation to subsequent years. The Notice spells out what is and is not deferred compensation, Single-person Plans, "defined benefit" non-qualified plans, Supplemental Executive Retirement Plans (SERPs) and arrangements for non-employees (directors, trustees and independent contractors).

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We know the consumer-industry stories of hackers infiltrating Target and, more recently, Home Depot. Law firms are now at the center of the storm because they store some of their clients' most sensitive business information and are viewed by criminal elements as a less-defended path to that data. Firms must take care to understand and respond to evolving security trends with response strategies.

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Automated signing solutions are all around us: at the supermarket checkout; when we receive a package; at the doctor's office. Despite this, paper-based signing still finds its way into our regular operations, and too often remains there unquestioned.

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Much has been written about the so-called "monkey selfie" and the dispute about whether nature photographer David Slater owns a photo snapped by a macaque monkey. As entertaining as that story is, there are more practical and far-reaching consequences that arise out the Copyright Office's overhaul of its standards and practices. This is especially true for the type of digital and Internet-based businesses and technologies that operate on the entertainment industry landscape.

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The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has made discrimination against pregnant workers a focal point of its enforcement priorities over the past few years, ratcheted up its pressure on employers by publishing a new "Enforcement Guidance on Pregnancy Discrimination and Related Issues."

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Recent government action has shown that the White House and Congress are keenly aware of the potential data security benefits of robust information sharing between and among the private sector and the government. In recent years, information sharing bills have been introduced regularly in both the Senate and the House in an effort to encourage the flow of cyberthreat data between the private sector and the government.