One of the collateral impacts of employee anxiety due to COVID-19 has been an increase in whistleblower reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the Division of Enforcement, the SEC received 35% more tips, complaints and referrals for investigation between mid-March and early May 2020 than during the […]
Penalties associated with a City of Dallas sick leave ordinance that was rolled out last August were scheduled to become effective on April 1, 2020. The penalties have been the subject of much discussion since the striking down of a similar Austin ordinance and the subsequent filing of a federal lawsuit seeking to prohibit enforcement […]
Chapter 20 of the Dallas City Code entitled Earned Paid Sick Time went into effect August 1, 2019. The provision requires employers to provide paid sick leave to workers. It applies to any private business (governmental employers are exempt) that employs at least one person either full or part time at a minimum of eighty […]
In September 2018, Dallas Basketball Limited, which operates the Dallas Mavericks, released a 43-page report of an internal investigation of alleged sexual misconduct in its business office. The investigation was conducted by outside counsel and found numerous instances of sexual harassment and other improper workplace misconduct spanning almost twenty years. The Mavericks are not the […]
Employment law has seen two recent major developments that affect employers. The first involves nondisclosure limitations in sexual harassment settlements. The second rewards employers who conduct internal wage and hour audits. Recent Development #1: New Tax Law Nondislosure Limitations One of an employer’s primary motivations in resolving an employment claim is to obtain the employee’s promise […]
That flowery email from a Nigerian Prince who can’t spell has been supplanted by a far more dangerous phish — the Business Email Compromise (“BEC”). According to the FBI, in the past two years over 8,000 businesses, small and large, have been victimized by BEC attacks for combined losses of over $1.2 billion. What is […]
A federal court in Texas has ruled that there is a substantial likelihood that a proposed new DOL rule that increases the threshold salary for exempt employees violates the law. Earlier this year, the Department of Labor published new rules, one of which raised the threshold salary for exempt employees from $23,660 to $47,476. The […]
The U.S. Department of Labor has published historic changes to the overtime rules that will make approximately 4.2 million currently exempt employees eligible for overtime pay. The new rule increases the salary threshold for employees who are exempt (not eligible to receive overtime) from $23,660 to $47,476. To comply with the new regulations, employers either […]
The Affordable Care Act is a federal statute that creates new responsibilities for employers. Employers who have fewer than 25 “full-time equivalent” employees can qualify for a small business health care tax credit if they pay at least 50% of the employees’ health insurance premium costs and offer coverage through the Small Business Health Options […]