On October 6, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk issued a statement in which he announced the public release of the draft text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) by the ACTA parties, after the conclusion of what the statement termed “the final round of negotiations” in Tokyo on October 2. The statement also noted that […]
On October 1, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) issued a statement of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiating partners about the recent round of ACTA negotiations in Tokyo. The statement noted, in part, that “[p]articipants in the negotiations constructively resolved nearly all substantive issues and produced a consolidated and largely finalized text […]
On October 1, at a public meeting, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a first series of proposed regulations pertaining to derivatives, pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. One proposed rule would establish financial resources requirements for derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) and systemically important DCOs (SIDCOs). The CFTC also […]
On October 4, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) announced the appointment of 18 Senior Fellows, including six former ACUS Chairmen and 12 other individuals with substantial prior service as ACUS government or public members. The appointments include Justice Antonin Scalia (a former ACUS Chairman) and five former Chairs of the ABA Administrative […]
On September 30, the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Senior officials of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency testified about their […]
On September 30, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, issued a proposed rule “that would require certain banks and money transmitters to report to FinCEN transmittal orders associated with certain cross-border electronic transmittals of funds (CBETFs).” The proposed rule also would require all banks to file […]
Recently, the American Journalism Review published an online article by Jodi Enda decrying the fact that “most parts of the federal government–the very offices that write the rules and execute the decisions of Congress and the president–remain uncovered or undercovered by the mainstream media.” The article includes a highly informative interactive chart and spreadsheet detailing […]
On September 28, the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) announced its intention to appoint 40 public members. The list of public members includes numerous distinguished practitioners, law professors, and deans, including four former Chairs of the ABA Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section (Russell Frisby, Philip Harter, Ronald Levin, and Randolph May), the […]
On September 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in Wilderness Society v. Rey, No. 06-35565, dismissed as nonjusticiable a challenge by The Wilderness Society and other environmental groups (TWS) to revised regulations by the U.S. Forest Service under the Forest Service Decisionmaking and Appeals Reform Act (“ARA”). In 2003, according to […]
On September 22, the European Parliament, by a vote of 328 to 245, approved a report on intellectual property rights (IPR), calling on the European Commission (EC) “to propose a comprehensive strategy on IPR which will remove obstacles to creating a single market in the online environment and adapt the European legislative framework in the […]
The September 27 issue of the New Yorker featured an article by Jeffrey Toobin on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and his work on the Court. An abstract of the article noted that “as a scholar and a judge, Breyer has been most interested in the less glamorous field of administrative law, which is […]
On September 16, the United Kingdom Competition Commission (CC) and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) jointly issued Merger Assessment Guidelines. This document, which supersedes various prior OFT and CC guidelines, “explains the approach of the OFT when considering whether or not to refer a merger to the CC for further investigation and the approach […]
On September 14, the European Court of Justice held, in Akzo Nobel Chemicals v. European Commission, No. C-550/O7 P, that the legal professional privilege did not apply to e-mail communications between a corporate oficer and a corporate in-house lawyer. The decision stemmed from a 2003 investigation by Commission oficials into alleged anticompetitive practices involving two […]
For those interested in commodities issues, the Financial Times has put out a special report on the subject with a variety of articles and analyses. This post was originally published on the legacy ABA Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Notice and Comment blog, which merged with the Yale Journal on Regulation Notice and […]
On September 7, the Canadian Competition Bureau announced that “it will hold a series of roundtables to explore the merits of revising the Merger Enforcement Guidelines.” Those Guidelines, which were issued in 2004, set out the framework that the Competition Bureau uses to evaluate the potential competitive effects of mergers. The announcement also stated that […]