Articles Tagged with Chicago Small Business Lawyer

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Holiday Business Parties

With the holiday season in full swing, workplaces often become the site of parties, gift exchanges, and other festive activities.  These activities foster camaraderie among coworkers and allow teams to celebrate their accomplishments.  Unfortunately, though, they can also sometimes lead to inappropriate behavior, including sexual harassment, which may lead to problems for the unweary business owner.

Employers can take proactive steps to ensure everyone feels safe and respected during these events.  Here are five suggestions to creating  a safe and positive environment for holiday celebrations.

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Conditional Gifts?

A recent decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has sparked interest across legal circles.  In a case centered around a $70,000 engagement ring, the court ruled that an engagement ring must be returned to the purchaser if the marriage does not take place, regardless of who may have been at fault. This ruling aligns Massachusetts with the majority of jurisdictions, where an engagement ring is considered a conditional gift—given with the expectation of marriage and thus, contingent upon the marriage actually happening.

While Illinois follows similar principles, this ruling offers a chance to examine how Illinois contract law views the conditional nature of engagement gifts and what factors courts might consider in similar cases.

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Neural Data: What Illinois Business Owners Need to Know

California enacted an Amendment to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that adds neural data to the list of protected personal sensitive information. For Illinois business owners—especially those conducting business in California or utilizing neurotechnology—this development is worth understanding, as it marks another step in the expanding landscape of data privacy laws. Neural data, often collected through non-invasive neurotechnology tools, is now considered sensitive and will be protected under the same stringent requirements as other personal information like genetic, biometric, and geolocation data.

What is Neural Data and Why is it Important?

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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.

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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.

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Corporate Transparency Act

While Congress might have had worthwhile purposes in passing the Corporate Transparency Act, a section of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, it’s nonetheless unconstitutional, according to a federal judge’s summary judgment ruling in an Alabama case brought by the National Small Business Association (NSBA).

The Act requires most entities incorporated under state law to provide the U.S. Treasury Department’s criminal enforcement arm with significant personal information about their stakeholders, in an attempt to prevent money laundering, tax evasion and other financial crimes that often make use of shell corporations.

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Long-Term Temps to be Paid Like Employees

Both Illinois employers that contract with temporary labor service agencies, and those agencies themselves that do business in the state, should review staffing contracts and ensure compliance with relevant policies and procedures under amendments to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker, which took effect immediately.

The amendments to HB 2862 hold that temporary workers assigned to a third-party client for more than 90 days are entitled to wages and benefits—or the cash equivalent of benefits—equivalent to the lowest-paid employee at that client who performs the “same or substantially similar” work. If no such person exists, temp workers must be paid the same as the lowest-paid employee with the closest seniority level to the temp.

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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.”

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