Disclosure - Settle

[Annemie]

Allergy Associates of Hartford, P.C. (Allergy Associates), has agreed to pay $125,000 to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and to adopt a corrective action plan to settle potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency today announced a settlement that resolves federal Clean Air Act and other environmental claims against True Manufacturing Co., a maker of commercial refrigeration equipment in O'Fallon, Mo., near St. Louis.

True has agreed to reduce its emissions of ozone-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by more than 94 tons per year after settling a Clean Air Act civil complaint. The reductions include more than 44 tons per year of hazardous air pollutants that can be harmful by themselves. The company has also agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine and to spend some $1.9 million on supplemental environmental projects designed to reduce VOC emissions from its plant. True will be reducing emissions even more than required by law and regulations.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas L. Sansonetti said, This case addresses VOC emissions, which pose a danger to the ozone layer of earth's atmosphere. It also demonstrates that EPA and DOJ will pursue Clean Air Act violators and require them to reduce harmful emissions.

The settlement resolves a lawsuit filed by DOJ on behalf of EPA. EPA Region 7 Administrator Jim Gulliford, in Kansas City, Kan., said, This settlement will help give residents of the O'Fallon area cleaner, healthier air to breathe.

Scientific evidence indicates that certain levels of ozone not only affect people with impaired respiratory systems, such as asthmatics, but healthy adults and children as well. Ozone is responsible for several billion dollars of agricultural crop yield loss each year in the United States alone.

True will replace all of its solvent-based ink presses with presses that use ultraviolet light to cure ink, install three silk-screen cleaning machines that are enclosed systems with solvent recovery, and install a water filtration system. The company's silk screening operation uses large amounts of VOCs, which combine with nitrogen oxides to create ground-level ozone that harms human health and the environment.

The lawsuit alleges that True failed to obtain permits and install controls required by the Missouri State Implementation Plan. The plan, devised by the state and approved by EPA, is designed to ensure that the state meets federal air quality standards. O'Fallon is in the St. Louis area, which was designated an ozone non-attainment area at the time that True installed and operated the equipment.

True self-disclosed violations of the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the federal Clean Water Act at its O'Fallon plant. The company must complete an integrated contingency plan for the plant as part of the settlement. It must include a hazardous waste contingency plan and an Occupational Safety and Health Plan. It must also include a storm water pollution prevention plan and a spill prevention control and countermeasure plan under the Clean Water Act.

Music producer and rapper DJ Khaled and boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. settled allegations brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that they failed to disclose the payments they received for promoting investments in initial coin offerings (ICOs).

On Thursday of last week, the Attorney General of Washington State filed a lawsuit against Convergent Outsourcing, Inc., which alleges that the debt collector engaged in unfair and/or deceptive practices under the state's Consumer Protection Act and Collection Agency Act. The allegations revolve around letters sent to consumers for the time-barred debts.

The complaint, which can be found here, alleges that the defendant sent over 75,000 collection letters on time-barred debts that specifcially used the terms "settlement" and "settle." The letters, the AG claims, did not include a time-barred debt disclosure.

By including the terms "settlement" and "settle" in the letters without a time-barred debt disclosure, the AG accuses defendant of "impliedly threatening that consumers could be sued if they did not pay."

But would the term "settle" be fine if a time-barred debt disclosure is provided? E.D. Missouri says yes, even if the time-barred debt disclosure doesn't provide a revival dislcosure. But that calculation gets murky, if you ask D. Maryland, depending on which state's statute of limitations laws apply, and the answer is not always clear.

And let's not forget the whole "will not sue" versus "cannot sue" conundrum. D. Utah expressed that providing a settlement offer might be fine with a time-barred debt disclosure, but they said that a time-barred debt disclosure that states "will not sue" could be an FDCPA violation because it implies that not suing is a choice. At the same time, the CFPB's proposed disclosure from its time-barred debt SNPRM includes the "will not sue" language.

What about if the term "settle" is not used to reference a settlement offer, but instead just informs the consumer that their account "will be considered Settled in Full" after a final payment is processed? C.D. California says that's fine.

N.D. Alabama kinda agrees with the Wash. AG, but found that the terms "resolve" and "satisfaction" when related to a settlement offer are a-okay. But are those terms okay in other jurisdictions? Who knows.

Tech giants Facebook and Google will pay Washington state more than $450,000 to settle twin lawsuits filed by Attorney General Bob Ferguson accusing the companies of failure to abide by state laws on political advertising transparency.

Ferguson's office filed the lawsuits in June, citing longstanding state law that requires media companies to collect and make public detailed information about political ads. Those requirements have long applied to television stations, newspapers and billboard owners, but the state's lawsuits said Facebook and Google had failed to comply.

"This resolution sends a powerful signal to the industry that you are accountable to Washington state laws. You must follow them," Ferguson said in an interview Tuesday, adding that his office will monitor the companies' behavior going forward.

The move to make the tech firms fully comply with Washington's disclosure laws arose after an editor for Seattle publication The Stranger asked the firms to provide the ad information required by state law in 2017, but was rebuffed.

Edwards also questioned whether Ferguson should have recused himself from the cases, pointing to past political donations to Ferguson's election campaigns, including $5,300 from Facebook and $5,800 from Google.

Ferguson said he stopped taking all corporate contributions in January 2017. He said he takes Edwards' criticisms "with a grain of salt" and that the size of the settlements was proper given the allegations. Ferguson added: "If there is not full and complete disclosure going forward, Facebook and Google will hear from my office again."

The lawsuits have already had some effect, as Google stopped accepting political ads for state and local races in Washington days after the complaint was filed in June. In stopping those ads, the company cited emergency rules issued by the state Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) that clarified that the state law applies to digital firms, which must make information about political ads available as soon as they are published, including viewership data and the geographic areas targeted.

"At that point, we paused accepting election advertising in Washington because our systems weren't built to comply with these new requirements. We've rolled out several features this year to ensure transparency in U.S. federal elections and we are looking at ways to bring these tools to the state level as well," said the statement supplied by company spokeswoman Alex Krasov.

Meanwhile, Facebook has continued to accept political ads in Washington, with the company pointing to its voluntary efforts to disclose more information even while its attorneys argued the state regulations were pre-empted by federal law.

"We're working hard to protect election integrity and prevent foreign interference. We believe all ads should be transparent on Facebook and aren't waiting for legislation to authorize political advertisers and house these ads in a public archive," Gautier wrote in an emailed statement. She said the company is still looking at how to address Washington's disclosure requirements.

While the bulk of political-ad spending still goes to television, cheaper online ads have proliferated in recent years. Political committees and candidates in Washington reported more than $5 million in payments to Facebook and $1.5 million to Google related to advertising, Ferguson's office said, citing documents filed with the PDC.

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OUR TAKE: When charging a client any fee or expense, assume that the regulators will retrospectively scrutinize the transaction. Always ensure full disclosure and consider foregoing the fee if disclosure cannot be made fully transparent.

In a move to improve transparency and consistency regarding environment, social and governance disclosures for private companies and credit investors, a group of alternative asset managers have launched a template for ESG disclosure. [Source]

The group behind the template says it was designed to be completed by borrower companies and shared with their lenders. Companies can access the template themselves or share it with their lenders or the arranger in a syndicated loan. The group also said the executive committee spearheading the project will review the template and make any necessary updates on an annual basis.

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