This fall, Husch Blackwell hosted a series of industry roundtables featuring local and national leaders representing a wide variety of industries. Each of the roundtables focused on key challenges and opportunities facing specific industries at the local, regional, national and international levels.
The roundtables were moderated by The Business Journals, who also provided coverage of…
Employers in sectors such as manufacturing, energy and agriculture faced with significant shortages of skilled labor, received a major boost from Congress last week. The long-awaited job training program reform bill “Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act” received bipartisan approval. President Obama has expressed support for the legislation and is expected to sign it into law later this week.
Next Monday, June 2nd is the deadline for all companies subject to the SEC’s conflict minerals rule to file their Form SD and, if necessary, their conflict mineral report. We surveyed the filings made through May 28 and this blog highlights some of the good examples, and some less than optimal disclosure. A number of filings were made early today after our review, but if you are not one of the early filers, we hope you find our analysis helpful.
Yesterday a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held the Conflict Minerals Rules’ requirement that a company that issues stock disclose if its products are not “DRC conflict free” violated the First Amendment.
In an effort to de-finance parties engaged in violence and human-rights abuses related to the extraction of gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten—so-called “conflict minerals”—from Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congress, through rules promulgated by the Securities Exchange Commission, required companies to disclose not “DRC conflict free” in reports filed with the SEC and on the company’s website if they determine upon due diligence that their products contain such minerals. On appeal of the district court’s ruling in National Association of Manufacturers v. Securities and Exchange Comm’n upholding the law, the Association challenged the SEC’s disclosure requirement as unconstitutionally compelling speech in violation of the First Amendment.
Demonstrating the comeback of manufacturing and the future it holds for all Americans, the National Association of Manufacturers has issued a new video, What Does Manufacturing Mean to You?
Joe Orlet participated in an American Chemistry Council (ACC) and Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA) panel discussion. He spoke on consumer product class actions applicable to value chain chemical assessment and procurement tools and marketplace initiatives. ACC and SOCMA’s GlobalChem conference was held in Baltimore March 3-5, 2014. View Joe’s presentation here.
Here is the good news, more than ever manufacturers are looking at reshoring manufacturing jobs to the U.S. A few years ago only 14% were looking at reshoring as a viable option. That number has climbed to 21% of large manufacturers actually reshoring or preparing to do so, according to a recent article in the Financial Times. As we recently informed you, executives are looking at onshoring due to rising wages in developing countries, shipping costs, more direct communications between design teams and manufacturing operations, and less money tied up in finished goods as they are transported to their markets.
On January 22, 2014, Husch Blackwell sponsored the Missouri Association of Manufacturers’ (MAM) Annual Meeting in Springfield, Missouri. Catherine Hanaway, Cynthia Cordes and Lowell Pearson led a breakfast panel: “What Every CEO Needs to Know About Interacting with the Government.” Jeff Jensen and Matt Schelp presented “2014 Enforcement, Regulatory & Compliance Trends” as part of MAM’s “On the Horizon” session.
Contractual forum selection clauses—i.e., provisions selecting specific courts for subsequent related litigation—abound in technology, manufacturing, and transportation commercial agreements. Oftentimes, manufacturers, suppliers, vendors, service-providers, and the like designate particular courts to lessen the costs of future litigation, as well as the likelihood of judicial error.
There was a time when the decision to offshore manufacturing operations to an emerging market was an easy business decision. However, the past decade has many companies questioning that business model. Rising labor costs, uncertain supply chains, labor unrest and the costly and lengthy delivery time for manufactured goods coming from Asia has exponentially increased the cost to offshore manufacturing.
