Articles

08.01.12

Regulatory: Do You Need a Consultant or a Lobbyist?

As the interactions between business and government become more complex and fall under a wider and wider net, the need to hire government affairs specialists has increased proportionally. The influence of government is not just on politics, it is on policy and specifically, the policies that impact ...


08.01.12

Lessons From Project HealthDesign: Strategies for Safeguarding Patient-Generated Health Information ...

Leveraging the power of new technologies, researchers funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Project HealthDesign, to which Manatt attorneys and advisors serve as regulatory and policy counsel in partnership with the Center for Democracy and Technology, are encouraging patients to track ...


07.31.12

Blurring Lines and Increased Regulatory Risks for Data Brokers

The data broker industry is very much on the radar of regulators. In various forms, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made it clear that entities that collect and aggregate consumer information on a large scale from various sources are one of its highest priorities. This position was made very ...


07.25.12

Repeal Healthcare Law? Forget About It

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office added another reason to drop the politics and get down to the hard work of health care reform. The nonpartisan organization released a report that finds the cost of repealing the reform will balloon government deficits by $109 billion between 2013 and ...


07.23.12

10 Reasons Why Sustainable/Energy Retrofits of Commercial Buildings Will Be the Next Big Thing

According to the US Department of Energy, commercial buildings account for 35 percent of US (and 40 percent of global) electricity consumption. Existing commercial buildings on average spend 30 percent of their operating budgets on operating costs and account for close to 20 percent of all global ...


07.16.12

Here Comes the Sun

For those who have been watching from the sidelines, the solar industry has had its ups and downs over the past few years. For those who have been playing the game, it has been an exhilarating and terrifying rollercoaster ride that seems to have no end in sight. Regardless of your perspective on ...


07.13.12

CMBS Concerns

Are securitized loans worth the trouble? Since becoming popular in the 1980s, commercial mortgage-backed securitization promised commercial real estate borrowers access to more loan capital, often at the most competitive interest rates. The trade-off was more complexity in loan structure and ...


07.09.12

Calling All Data Brokers: The FTC Is Watching You

In the beginning of 2012, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has made it clear that the collection and dissemination of consumer data is a high priority. Companies in the direct response industry that collect and sell consumer data to third parties are well advised to review their practices to ...


07.05.12

Regulatory: What Clients Still Need to Know About the Affordable Care Act

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Act) resolves the uncertainty about the constitutionality of the Act. With the exception that states have the option to forgo participation in an expansion of Medicaid without losing existing federal funding, the ...


06.28.12

Using Fairness Hearings in Mergers to Avoid SEC Registration

Following President Obama's signing of the "Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act" (the "JOBS Act"), private bank holding companies ("BHCs") can now avoid registration under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), so long as ...