Hunton Retail Law Resource

As reported on the Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives blog, the ongoing opioid epidemic is causing employers to consider the best ways to ensure a safe workplace, but companies should be careful when addressing employees’ prescription drug use. Recent court filings and settlements by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) illustrate the potential pitfalls employers face when attempting to implement a drug-free workplace.

Earlier this month, Canada’s transport minister announced that a drone had collided with a commercial aircraft, the first confirmed collision of its kind in North America. Thankfully, the aircraft sustained only minor damage and was able to land safely. But this recent incident, which many commentators believed was inevitable given the proliferation of consumer and commercial drones, highlights the potential risks associated with drone operations.

On October 23, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission issued a policy enforcement statement providing additional guidance on the applicability of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (“COPPA Rule”) to the collection of children’s audio voice recordings. The FTC previously updated the COPPA Rule in 2013, adding voice recordings to the definition of personal information, which led to questions about how the COPPA Rule would be enforced against organizations who collect a child’s voice recording for the sole purpose of issuing a command or request.

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have devastated portions of Texas, Louisiana and Florida. For retail insureds in particular, the losses due to property damage and business interruption will be staggering. In an article published September 12, 2017, in South Florida’s Daily Business Review, Hunton Insurance lawyers Walter Andrews and Andrea DeField explain why it is critical that policyholders act fast to maximize insurance recovery for their hurricane-related losses. They also provide a checklist to guide policyholders through the claim process and to ensure maximum recovery for any property damage and business interruption losses. As Andrews and DeField explain, business interruption and related coverage endorsements may cover loss resulting from (1) an inability to open for business; (2) reduction in business income when the business remains open but cannot operate at full capacity; (3) civil authority orders barring access to an insured business; and (4) service and utility outages effecting business interruptions — an important coverage in light of Florida’s ongoing power outages.

Coastal areas in Texas have already begun evacuating as Hurricane Harvey heads for the Gulf Coast. Weather experts anticipate that the windstorm will reach Category 3 or Category 4 status by the time it makes landfall on the Texas coast late Friday night or early Saturday morning, making it the first Category 3+ storm to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Wilma hit South Florida in October 2005.

Commercial general liability policies typically provide coverage to insureds for losses resulting from property damage caused by an “occurrence,” usually defined in the policy as “an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same harmful conditions.” Specific product recall insurance policies and contamination policies also typically require that the insured’s loss be caused by accidental or unintentional contamination or impairment. In the context of product recalls, however, the exact cause of damage or contamination may be unknown. This creates uncertainty, and in turn, a coverage dispute over whether the cause of damage was indeed accidental, and thus a covered “occurrence” or “event” under the policy.

As reported on Hunton's Employment and Labor Law Perspectives blog, over the past eight years, the NLRB has been unusually aggressive with its policymaking. Hunton & Williams' Labor and Employment partners Ryan A. Glasgow and Kurt G. Larkin discuss the current state of labor law, the NLRB and how it might change under the current administration.

Private equity investors face unique challenges when procuring or renewing their liability insurance programs. For example, investors typically must complete lengthy applications or sign warranty and representation letters from their prospective insurers that inquire into knowledge by any potential insured as to any acts or omissions that could potentially give rise to a claim. These overly broad, and often vague, inquiries are problematic for private equity investors who would theoretically have to interview every employee, manager or director at every subsidiary, fund ...

The FDA has announced that it will officially delay the compliance date for its Menu Labeling Rule (the “Rule”) to May 7, 2018, in order to consider how to further reduce the regulatory burden or increase flexibility while continuing to achieve regulatory objectives. Among other concerns, the FDA notes that retailers have raised concerns that the Rule lacks flexibility to permit the provision of meaningful nutrition information to consumers in innovative formats.

Product recalls are on the rise in many industries. As regulatory and consumer protection standards get tougher, product supply chains are becoming more complex. This increases the risk of errors, defects and contamination at all levels of operation. Too often, these problems do not manifest themselves until after a product hits the market. All of this can lead to staggering expenses for food and product manufacturers facing the risks and realities of product recalls.

Providers of technology products and services are consistently innovating to grow their offerings to retailers. These new products and services present significant opportunity for retailers to more effectively reach customers, generate sales and grow revenue. But while these new offerings present a great tool to grow sales in this challenging market, they also can present significant cybersecurity risks.

After a long and unconventional campaign, we finally know the election results: early next year, businessman Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, supported by a Republican Congress. What the election results mean for the nation’s retailers, however, remains an open question. Trump, as a candidate, staked out bold policy positions on issues with potentially significant effects on retailers. Both positive and negative developments on a wide range of issues are possible over the next four years. Once sworn in, Trump will have considerable latitude to implement his policies through executive branch agencies and their enforcement priorities. In other instances, however, he will require support from the 115th Congress, and in some instances his actions could be constrained by the effect of appointments and policy choices made by the Obama administration and the 114th Congress.

As reported in the Hunton Insurance Recovery blog, a federal judge in Alabama ruled Tuesday that a grocer could not rely on its legacy business insurance policies – including an “electronic data” coverage extension – to protect against third-party claims after customer data was compromised by a point-of-sale cyber attack. The decision in Camp’s Grocery, Inc. v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Company is another reminder to retail policyholders to ensure that their cybersecurity programs include both adequate cybersecurity safeguards and appropriate first-party and third-party cyber/crime insurance coverages. Failure to maintain either may jeopardize coverage for resulting cyber losses.

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (“FLSA’s”) white-collar exemptions, an employee must meet both a duties and a salary basis test in order to be exempt from overtime requirements. Currently, the salary basis test requires that the employee receive at least $455 per week in salary. However, under a recent Department of Labor rulemaking, the weekly salary amount is set to more than double to $913 per week effective December 1, 2016. Thus, employers must ensure that any white-collar-exempt employee making less than $913 per week either (1) receives a salary increase to at least $913 per week to continue the overtime exemption or (2) is reclassified to non-exempt and receives overtime when working more than 40 hours in a week. 

On July 19, 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held in Cincinnati Ins. Co. v. H.D. Smith, LLC, No. 15-2825 that a general liability insurer’s duty to defend suits seeking damages “because of bodily injury” was triggered when the state of West Virginia sued a pharmaceutical distributor, alleging it had contributed to an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, causing the state to spend money to care for addicted citizens.

A recent change to the U.S. regulations governing the Cuban embargo has expanded the categories of Cuban-origin products that may be imported into the U.S. Additional textiles and textile articles and, for the first time, coffee, have joined the list of Cuban-origin products authorized to be imported into the U.S. Such products, however, must be produced by Cuban entrepreneurs and the U.S. importer must receive satisfactory documentation of such producer’s independence from the Cuban government.

On June 14, 2016, two lawyers in Hunton’s Insurance Coverage Counseling and Litigation practice, Syed Ahmad and Jennifer White, published an article in Risk Management Magazine about how commercial general liability (“CGL”) policies may help policyholders looking to recover attorney’s fees or fund settlements in trademark infringement litigation. Historically, CGL policies were the wrong place to look for coverage, and insurers raised often successful defenses to covering such trademark infringement cases under CGL policies. Or, policyholders would avoid CGL ...

As reported on the Hunton Insurance Recovery blog, in a June 1, 2016 decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reminded retailers and product manufacturers to look to their insurance coverages when defending against consumer class actions. In National Fire Insurance Co. of Hartford et al. v. E. Mishan & Sons Inc., the Second Circuit required CNA Financial Corporation to defend E. Mishan & Sons, Inc.(“Emson”) – best known for its “As Seen on TV” products – in two class actions alleging a conspiracy to trap customers into recurring credit card charges and that Emson sold private consumer information that it obtained through its product sales.

As reported on the Hunton Insurance Recovery blog, the New York Court of Appeals held that each of several excess liability insurers can be wholly responsible for the entire extent of their policyholders’ asbestos liabilities. The Court further held that “vertical” exhaustion would apply; rejecting the insurers’ attempt to apply “horizontal” exhaustion before upper-layer policies must respond.

Recently, HoneyBaked Foods, Inc., Wornick Foods and Foster Farms have been in the news because of different kinds of contamination claims. Syed Ahmad and Matthew McLellan, attorneys on Hunton & Williams LLP’s Insurance Coverage Counseling and Litigation team, authored an article entitled A Primer On Insurance Coverage for Food Contamination Losses, which provides an overview of insurance protection for food contamination issues that retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers may encounter. The article describes the insurance coverage available under traditional ...

This post has been updated. 

In the midst of the press and politics currently surrounding the issue of bathroom policies and laws with respect to transgender employees, it is helpful to remember that government organizations have been issuing guidance to employers to assist them in dealing with these issues, especially in places where gender identity and expression constitute protected characteristics under anti-discrimination laws.

On April 4, 2016, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced a $10 million whistleblower bounty, its largest to date.

Similar to a program administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), CFTC whistleblowers are eligible for an award worth 10 to 30 percent of an enforcement penalty if they bring original information to the CFTC which leads to an enforcement action that nets more than $1 million in sanctions.

A recent flurry of Texas law changes have local and national retailers considering whether to prohibit customers from openly carrying weapons inside of their stores.

This past January, Texas’s “open carry” law went into effect, allowing gun owners to carry their weapons holstered either at their hip or on their shoulder. The Texas law does have limitations, including an exclusion banning open carry on the premises of restaurants and bars that make more than 51 percent of their gross profits from alcohol sales, and, significant for retailers, a provision that allows businesses to prohibit open carry on their premises, as long as they post certain specified signage alerting customers of the ban.

As reported on the Hunton Employment and Labor Law Blog, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has implemented nationwide procedures which require all EEOC offices to release copies of an employer’s entire position statement, together with all non-confidential documents submitted in support of the position statement, to an employee who has filed a discrimination charge, or his or her representative (including attorneys). These procedures apply to all position statements requested after January 1, 2016. Previously, such disclosures were made in the discretion of the particular field offices or investigators, and practices were inconsistent. As often as not, EEOC investigators might summarize the employer’s evidence and arguments for the employee, in order to solicit the latter’s response.

The recent change in U.S. policy towards Cuba and a “thawing of relations” between the two countries has generated increased interest among U.S. companies in the potential for business in Cuba. Despite this increased interest, companies should proceed cautiously, as recent international investments in Cuba, often in the form of joint ventures, have yielded mixed results and experiences. British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company Unilever plc, for example, formed a 50/50 international economic association with state-owned enterprise Suchel in 1994, but subsequently left the Cuban market in 2012 due to government intrusion and labor issues.