Posts by blrme

By: Cooper D’Anton On March 16, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) added discrimination to the list of factors evaluated under its unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices (“UDAAPs”) examination procedures.[1] The Dodd-Frank Act (“The Act”), which makes it unlawful for consumer financial services providers to engage in unfair, deceptive or abusive acts…

By: Sarah Benjamin Many shoe companies, famously including Nike and Adidas, are continuously ripping off designs from other shoe companies to keep up with the demand of consumers.[1] Because of the demand for fast fashion, companies such as Zara have created their business models off of minorly adjusting or changing designs from other brands, then…

By: Elizabeth Sloop In a revenue-based financing (“RBF”) transaction, a business raises capital by paying investors a percentage of the gross margin in exchange for their investment.[1]  RBF differs from both debt and equity financing and is generally considered to be a hybrid between these two traditional methods of raising capital.[2]  Because RBF is uniquely…

  By: Isabel Thelen Copyright infringement in song lyrics and composition has started to become ever-present in recent years.[1] Oftentimes, when an artist is asked about their songwriting process, the artist attributes it to a melody that suddenly came to them while dreaming, grocery shopping, or some other mundane daily activity.[2] However, what happens when…

By: Rafael Andino As of the beginning of September 2022, NBA superstar Luka Doncic has been in a trademark dispute with a rather unlikely party: his mother, Mirjam Poterbin.[1] The Dallas Mavericks guard has made an effort to register a new trademark, his name and a “Luka Doncic 77” logo through the United States Patent…

By: Cooper D’Anton In a discrete no-action letter last fall, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) staff applied the disclosure Rule 15c2-11 (“15c2-11” or “Rule”) to fixed income securities – including those in the $5 trillion Rule 144A (“144A”) private placement market – for the first time in the Rule’s 50-year history.[1] Staff intends to…

By: Scarlett Keane SPACs are the hottest IPO tool available for corporations today.[1]  SPACs, or special purpose acquisition vehicles, are shell companies designed to issue an initial public offering before acquiring a target company to bypass much of the regulation in accordance with an IPO for an existing company.[2]  Within a few months of the…

By: Annie McEnaney Two weeks ago, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) addressing the standard for determining an employer’s joint employer status under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”).[1] The NPRM purports to replace the old, “direct and immediate control” rule that took effect on April…

By: Isha C. Biswas   The Great Recession of 2008 still influences jurisprudence in a myriad of ways, even fourteen years later. Most recently, a Federal Circuit panel has been questioning whether a small distilling company, Tiger Lily Ventures Ltd., should be allowed to use the Lehman Brothers name on their whiskey bottles.[1] Barclays acquired…

By: Brendan Glynn Robinhood is an online stock-trading application with a user base of over 10 million people.[1]  On March 2, 2020, all of those users were unable to access the platform, allegedly due to Robinhood’s failure to adequately prepare itself for a surge in the number of users, and thus the userbase was taken…