Corporate Transparency Act
This is big reminder for every small business owner.
Under U.S. Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), most corporations, limited liabilty companies and other legal entities, including homeowners’ associations (HOAs), condominium associations, and co-op associations, are required to file Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) with the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) by no later than January 1, 2025. Every U.S. business must register and file this report.
Insurance Coverage for BIPA violations.
Businesses across Illinois are facing serious challenges in securing insurance coverage for lawsuits brought under the Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). And a recent decision by the federal court in Chicago – Westfield Insurance Company v. UCAL Systems, Inc. – dealt yet another blow to corporate policyholders. This ruling is just the latest in a series of legal setbacks that make obtaining coverage for BIPA claims under standard Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies an uphill battle.
What Is BIPA, and Why Does It Matter?
Chicago Paid Leave Ordinance
Employers physically located within the City of Chicago need to be ready as of July 1 to implement the new Chicago Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave Ordinance, which stipulates that covered employees can earn up to 40 hours of paid sick leave and 40 hours of other paid leave usable for any reasons per 12-month accrual period.
Covered employees are those who work at least 80 hours within a 120 day period. Immigration status is irrelevant. The benefit year can be defined the same for all employees or entirely individually, and can be tied to the calendar year, fiscal year, tax year, contract year or anniversary date of employment.
AI & Content Creation
Businesses using generative AI programs like ChatGPT to create any content—whether for blogs, websites or other marketing materials, and whether text, visuals, sound or video—need to ensure that they’re not inadvertently using copyrighted materials in the process.
Clearly, the times they are a changing….and businesses need to adapt to the changes. Employers should promulgate messages to their employees and contractors updating their policy manuals to ensure that communications professionals and others crafting content are aware of the risks of using AI-generated materials, which go beyond the possibility that they are “hallucinated” rather than factual—although that’s worth considering, too.
How Can Generative AI Assist Your Business?
What is generative artificial intelligence, embedded in applications such as ChatGPT? How could it help your business? What pitfalls should you avoid. What policies should you craft around it?
This is no longer science fiction. AI has become a reality and every business will be impacted by its use and application and your business must get on board with dealing with it and using it.
Transit Benefits Required for Illinois Employers
Another wrinkle for employers in the Chicago area.
Businesses located in the six-county Chicago area near public transit routes operated by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) that have at least 50 employees will be required as of Jan. 1, 2024, to provide their full-time employees with pre-tax public transit benefits.
Supreme Court Ruling on Religious Reasons
Small businesses and other employers are likely to find it more difficult to refuse requests for religious accommodations after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in a recent case, Groff v. DeJoy, which concerned a postal worker who unsuccessfully requested to be off-the-clock every Sunday—when the post office still makes deliveries for Amazon—citing his Evangelical Christian faith.
Gerald Groff, a Pennsylvania man, nonetheless kept being put on the schedule for Sundays and disciplined for not working while his co-workers were stretched thin attempting to cover his routes. He resigned, sued, lost his case and lost again on appeal—but the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling in June established a higher standard for employers who claimed they would face an “undue hardship” to make religious accommodations.
You Can, But Should You?
To begin with, employers thinking about using AI such as ChatGPT during hiring and selection need to familiarize themselves with the technology at a conceptual level, and then look closely at—and understand well enough so they can explain to others—how AI integrates with their recruiting tools and practices.
A key piece of state legislation in Illinois pertaining to the use of AI is the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act (820 ILCS 42/1), which lays down various stipulations for the recording of video interviews and subsequent use of AI while evaluating said recordings.
Are Non-Competes Really Enforceable?
Most non-compete agreements between employers and employees violate the National Labor Relations Act, according to a May 30 memo from Jennifer A. Abruzzo, general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. Such agreements, which bar employees from taking certain types of positions or running certain types of businesses after leaving their current positions, specifically run afoul of Sections 7 and 8(a)(1) of the act, she wrote.
Section 7 provides that employees have a “right to self-organization, to form, join or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection,” Abruzzo noted. As such, under most non-competes, employers engage in an unfair labor practice that violates Section 8(a)(1) because they “interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in [S]ection 7.”
The pros and cons of accepting Bitcoin and other online payments for small businesses
What are the risks of small businesses taking payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies? What are the rewards?
But first, for the uninitiated, what are cryptocurrencies in the first place? They are decentralized digital exchange media that enable buyer-to-seller transactions to take place without a bank or other third-party processor involved. No matter how small your business is, you can take payments over this medium, as more than 30% of U.S. small businesses now do, according to data from Skynova. Bitcoin and Etherium are among the most commonly used.
Chicago Business Attorney Blog