Category: Forum

PDF Available By Marcel Ruzan* When Apple Computers released its infamous “1984” commercial during Super Bowl XVIII it was intended...

PDF Available By Markus Benavidez *           Jangle Vision, a design house based in California, has...

PDF Available By Shelby Respicio*             On August 12, 2021, the Supreme Court denied a request by students at Indiana...

PDF Available By: Brandon Taylor* In May 2021, a Dutch trial court found that Royal Dutch Shell (“RDS”) had contributed...

PDF Available By: Courtney Kamauoha* Eighty-six percent of civil legal matters reported by low-income Americans receive no or inadequate legal...

By: MICHAEL SHAW Foreign taxpayers may have a new avenue to avoid gain recognition from U.S. businesses and real estate: distressed American neighborhoods.

By: Raynee Cooper In February 2021, a New York federal judge rejected Citibank’s attempt to recover $504 million erroneously transferred to lenders. Citibank intended to make a loan interest payment on behalf of Revlon, Inc., but instead paid the full outstanding amount of $900 million. Some recipients returned the money, but $504 million remained unreturned and the contention of the case. The court relied on Banque Worms v. Bank America Int’l, 77 N.Y.2d 362 (N.Y. 1998) which held that a creditor can keep payment erroneously made by a third party if the creditor did not realize it was sent in error and did not make any misrepresentations. Here, the court determined that the lenders were not on constructive notice of Citibank’s error. Despite this ruling, Citibank argues that they are entitled to their funds and intends to appeal the court’s decision.

By: ANNA SASAKI Vote counting is underway for the biggest push towards unionization of Amazon employees since the company’s founding in 1995. 6,000 workers in Bessemer, Alabama voted on a collective decision as to whether the warehouse employees should formally unionize and bargain for a contract with Amazon through the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. The last attempt to unionize was in 2014 at an Amazon warehouse in Delaware, where the 30 workers ultimately turned it down. While the employees in Bessemer only represent a fraction of Amazon’s more than 500,000 front line workers, the decision to unionize will likely provide momentum for other Amazon employees to begin collectively bargaining.

By: Tim Hamilton In February 2021, Texas experienced extraordinary winter weather for four days. As a result of the freezing temperatures, Texans faced rolling blackouts across the state. Current reports estimate that over sixty percent of Texans lost power at some point during the winter storm. Public outrage was severe, and lawmakers vowed to pass new regulations to ensure the power supply will not be impacted by winter weather again. Other states will certainly study what went wrong in Texas to ensure their electric grid is able to withstand winter weather.

By: Malcom Giles Recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may soon provide investors the opportunity to gain exposure to bitcoin without needing to custody the digital asset, allowing investors to execute trades through their existing brokers. A New York-based investment firm, Skybridge Capital, joined several other companies in filing for bitcoin ETFs in recent months. Several major financial services firms submitted applications in the hopes of offering bitcoin ETFs, including Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, and VanEck. While many of these firms filed to offer the ETFs, none completed the process by filing the requisite 19b-4 form needed to kick off the SEC review process until recently. The investment management company Van Eck Global recently filed the 19b-4 form, which kicks off a 45-day review period where the SEC has to decide whether to approve the application. If the SEC approves the ETF application, investors would be able to participate in this new digital asset class without having to endure the process of setting up digital wallets or transferring portions of their investment portfolios onto complicated crypto exchanges. Theoretically, if approved, investors could buy and sell bitcoin investments much like traditional stocks.