Introduction
In December 2020, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra was
announced to be President-Elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr. s
pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. The
California Attorney General s Office is the second largest
Justice Department in the United States, second only to the U.S.
Department of Justice, and California Attorney General Xavier
Becerra was the first Latino Attorney General in California s
history. Before becoming the Attorney General of California,
Becerra had a 24-year career in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
1 In 2017, Governor Jerry Brown
appointed Becerra to the last two years of Kamala Harris s term
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On December 22, 2020, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry ( METI ) proposed a draft of cabinet order ( Cabinet Order )
1, implementing regulations ( Implementing Regulations )
2 and guidelines ( Guidelines )for the Act
3 on Improving Transparency and Fairness of the Specified Digital Platforms ( DP Act ). They are seeking comments from the public by January 20, 2021.
In accordance with the June 2018 and June 2019 cabinet decisions on preparing rules for digital platforms, the Headquarters for Digital Market Competition ( Digital Headquarters ) were established on September 27, 2020 under the Cabinet s organization in order to implement competition policies for promoting competition and innovation in the digital market in a timely and effective manner. Under the Headquarters, the Digital Market Competition Council and the Digital Market Competition Working Group were established to discuss specific issues, includ
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Every so often, the extent of state laws providing for the licensing of collection agencies needs to be re-examined. As every state, including two of the most prominent states, California and New York, historically had not licensed collection agencies,
1 the state licensing of collection agencies has not been given as much attention as has been given to the state licensing of other consumer finance activities. This changed in September 2020, when the California legislature, shortly before adjournment, enacted Senate Bill 908 to license debt collectors under a new law called the Debt Collection Licensing Act (the “DCLA”).
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On December 2, 2020, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and the Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) of the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) published in the
Federal Register companion final rules that present significant changes to the regulatory framework of the federal physician self-referral law (commonly referred to as the “Stark Law”), the federal health care program’s Anti-Kickback Statute (“AKS”) and the federal civil monetary penalties (“CMP”) law.[1] The final rules are the culmination of the agencies’ efforts in connection with the Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care, an HHS-led effort to remove potential regulatory barriers to care coordination and value-based care that are inherent in the historical framework of the AKS and Stark Law that kicked off with the publication of proposed rules by CMS and OIG in October 2019.
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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the United States economy in a profoundly negative manner. Retail stores, restaurants and other direct-customer-facing businesses have been especially hard hit. Throughout the U.S., most states and municipalities have at various points throughout the pandemic issued “shut down” orders to businesses in order to mitigate the spread of the virus. Businesses complied and suffered tremendous losses as a result. As we forecasted, many businesses subsequently filed claims with their commercial liability insurers, typically claiming that their losses are covered under the “business interruption” or the “civil authority” provisions of their policies. Those provisions are generally intended to provide coverage as follows: