New England Biz Law Update

Reporting an alleged violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) does not qualify as a “protected activity” under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), according to a ruling from a federal appeals court. In Baker v. Smith & Wesson, Inc., a ...

Attorney-client privilege recognizes that, in order to provide sound legal advice, an attorney must be fully informed. The privilege doctrine enables clients to be open and transparent with their legal counsel. In some cases, attorney-client privilege can be used to ...

An aesthetician at a medical spa who opened her own business after being terminated could sue the spa over its actions in attempting to enforce an allegedly void restrictive covenant, a Massachusetts trial court judge has held. The covenant purported ...

Americans’ support of unions is on the rise, and the number of union petitions has gone up as well — including petitions involving big, well-known companies like Starbucks and Amazon. For many years, membership in unions in the private sector ...

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, told its employees not to engage in open discussion of abortion, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. In an internal memo obtained by the New York Times, Meta said ...

When employees have been subjected to discrimination and unfair labor practices, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issues remedies. Historically, those remedies included backpay, reinstatement, and postings in the workplace. However, new guidance from the NLRB has urged their regional ...

While they had pleaded bias claims “conceptually consistent with Title VII,” Whole Foods employees disciplined for wearing Black Lives Matter face masks had not established viable discrimination or retaliation claims, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed. The ...

A gay employee who filed a discrimination lawsuit against his employer won’t be getting his day in court. A federal appellate court upheld a summary judgment, finding there was insufficient evidence of an adverse employment action for the case to ...

A number of “take home COVID-19” lawsuits have been filed across the country. These suits involve cases in which employees are believed to have caught COVID-19 at work and then brought it home to a family member who was adversely ...

A habit of discriminatory language could help an employee’s claim of a hostile work environment when generalized harassment is coupled with more specific ties to an employee’s protected class, a Massachusetts trial court judge has decided. In the case of ...