Last week, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the US Department of the Treasury announced that the Paycheck Protection Program will reopen next Tuesday, January 19, 2021 to all lenders. The SBA this week began opening the program in phases so as to better reach underserved and minority-owned small businesses with community financial institutions, minority…
Read More »President-elect Biden, who will be inaugurated as the nation’s 45th President on Wednesday, last night outlined another new COVID relief package which he will ask Congress to approve within hours of taking his oath of office. The proposal he is submitting will include $2000 stimulus checks for qualified Americans as well as automatic extensions of…
Read More »The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced that collections for the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 Data that was postponed in 2020 will begin in April 2021. In light of the coronavirus pandemic and the accompanying business shutdowns, data collection was postponed last year. In addition, a study was contracted for by…
Read More »Notwithstanding continuing unfulfilled promises of business liability shields from COVID lawsuits at the federal level, a number of additional states are now considering implementing their own liability shields at the state level. Currently, both Indiana and Florida are considering bills filed for the new legislative sessions that would provide a level of immunity from potentially…
Read More »Although they may not be offering immunity, a number of other states are offering additional business assistance programs and loosening their purse strings with more funds for business relief. In that vein, New Jersey governor Phil Murphy signed legislation last week that provides up to $14 billion in corporate tax relief to businesses in the…
Read More »Concluding a long two-decade endeavor by Ohio business interests, Governor Mike DeWine this week signed House Bill 352 into law in the Buckeye State. The legislation, which has been strongly pushed for years by the defense bar as well as business advocates, reduces the statute of limitation on complaints of discrimination within the workplace. Previously,…
Read More »We pleased to announce a couple of new webinars have been scheduled that you may want to attend. DDIFO will host another very timely webinar sponsored by the Coalition of Franchisee Associations (CFA) on Tuesday, January 26 from 3:00 – 4:00 PM EST. Updates to Labor and Employment Law will feature attorney Rob Bernstein, a…
Read More »When Massachusetts enacted Paid Family and Medical Leave, it also created a whole new bureaucracy to manage the new benefit, the Department of Family and Medical Leave. And as we know too well, with each new bureaucracy comes a plethora of regulations, red tape and reporting deadlines. It is in that vein that we want…
Read More »We noted some weeks back that congratulations are in order for a former Dunkin’ employee, but other news precluded us from getting to it sooner. Former northeast regional vice president for Dunkin’ Bill Bode has been promoted to the position of Chief Operations Officer at New Hampshire-based fitness franchise Planet Fitness. Elsewhere, we took note…
Read More »It seems a worthy exercise time and again to reflect on the wisdom of those giants who’ve come before us. Considering all we’ve experienced as a nation in the past year (without even mentioning the pandemic) from riots . . . to political upheaval . . . to the great divide we continue to see…
Read More »