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States Loosening Occupational Licensing Laws In an effort to boost their workforces, states are advancing legislation to loosen their occupational licensing laws. For example, the Louisiana House passed...
ME House Passes Restrictive Data Privacy Bill Maine’s House narrowly approved a bill ( LD 1977 ) that would impose restrictions on the digital information that companies can collect. Businesses...
By many if not most people’s standards, Heidi Clayton was a clear victim of workplace harassment . A member of the Atlantic City Police Department, Clayton was asked out on dates by a lieutenant...
MD Drug Affordability Board Weighing Caps on Eight Drugs Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board could soon impose price limits on up to eight drugs on state-run health insurance plans...
MD Passes Major Data Privacy Bills With the approval of a pair of bills last week, Maryland joined a handful of other states, including California, Connecticut, Texas and Utah, that have passed both...
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission voted to increase oversight of special-purpose acquisition companies, which have taken hundreds of companies public in recent years. The SEC’s new rules will require more disclosure about conflicts of interest, equity dilution, fees, and insider compensation in SPAC deals, as well as prevent SPACs from benefiting from a legal safe harbor limiting their liability for forward-looking projections. SEC Chair Gary Gensler said the rules are aimed at bringing SPAC oversight in line with that of traditional IPOs, which are the more common method of taking a company public. (LAW360)
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) released a bill (D 5408) to state legislative leaders last week that would prohibit state fiduciaries from putting environmental, social and governance concerns ahead of financial returns when investing public pension funds. The House passed a bill (SB 507 [2023]) last year that would have imposed a state boycott on companies that engaged in ESG investing, but that measure failed to reach the Senate floor. (CENTER SQUARE, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)
Florida’s sky-high insurance rates are hindering prospective home buyers’ ability to obtain a mortgage and may be negatively impacting real estate sales in the state. Florida homeowners pay $6,000 a year in insurance premiums on average, the highest rate in the country and nearly four times the national average of $1,700. Meanwhile, the number of home sales in Miami-Dade County has declined 39% since 2021, while the median home price in the county has risen 15% in the last year. (NEWSWEEK, INSURANCE JOURNAL)
Florida’s Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill (SB 1276) that would require full disclosure of third-party funding of lawsuits and bar those lenders from influencing the litigation. Such financing has become a major issue for corporations and insurers nationwide, and similar measures have been passed in other states. (INSURANCE JOURNAL)
—Compiled by SNCJ Managing Editor KOREY CLARK
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