[UPDATED 11/21/2022: FinCEN Published Final Rule] Corporate Transparency Act Overview Part 1: Required Disclosures In December 2021, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) released a notice of proposed rulemaking for companies...
Content By Alex E. Jones
Corporate Transparency Act: Compliance Obligations for Small Businesses
Earlier this year, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), which will require certain small businesses to identify and disclose information about their owners. While the purpose of the law is to help stop money laundering (by inhibiting the abuse of...
Shop Safe Act Would Impose Liability on E-commerce Marketplaces for Sale of Counterfeit Goods
Four House members recently co-sponsored proposed legislation, the Shop Safe Act of 2020, that would hold companies like Amazon, eBay and other e-commerce websites liable for counterfeit goods sold on their marketplaces. This comes on the heels of a recent report from...
Time to Update That Privacy Policy: Complying With the CCPA
On January 1, 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (the “CCPA”) went into effect; however, enforcement does not begin until July 1, 2020. The CCPA is a broad-sweeping, comprehensive consumer privacy law (akin to the GDPR passed by the EU in 2016) that...
Three Things to Consider When Implementing a MAP Policy
Increasingly, manufacturers and brands are implementing a minimum advertised price policy (or a MAP policy) for the resale of their products. In its most basic form, a MAP policy is simple – it is a policy that governs the minimum price at which a reseller may...
Amazon May Soon Be Cracking Down on Unauthorized Resellers
The Third Circuit recently ruled that Amazon could be held liable for defective products sold by the third-party sellers on Amazon.com. This is particularly noteworthy because not only does it mark the first court to find Amazon liable for products sold by third-party...
How One Manufacturer Thought Outside the Box to Stop Unauthorized Resellers
A recent federal court decision serves as another reminder to manufactures and brands of the importance and benefits of reseller and distribution agreements. These types of agreements govern the relationship between a manufacturer of goods and the reseller of those...
Gray Market Goods: The Dirty Secret That Could Be Cutting Into Your Profits
We live in a global economy, and companies operate in international marketplaces. As such, brands need to be aware of and monitor the increasing prevalence of gray market goods. Gray market goods – sometimes referred to as parallel imports – are genuine goods...
District Court Deals Blow to Unauthorized Resellers, Confirming First Sale Doctrine Not Absolute
In ADG Concerns, Inc. v. Tsalevich LLC, the Northern District of California found that the defendant’s unauthorized resale of plaintiff ADG Concerns’ products amounted to trademark infringement and unfair competition. The decision is a win for manufacturers...
Protect Your Brand by Protecting Your Domain
Have you ever typed a company’s name in a URL only to be taken to a non-functioning website filled entirely with ads or be re-directed to a website for a competitor of the company? This is likely the work of a cybersquatter. Cybersquatting generally refers to...