MBELR Online

On April 29, 2018, Sprint and T-Mobile announced an agreement to merge the two companies. Though this is exciting news, we have been here before. On-and-off discussions between Sprint and T-Mobile have been ongoing for over four years. The most recent set of discussions took place in the fall of 2017. However, on November 4, 2017, they announced they had

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”), human error causes 94% of serious vehicle accidents.1 In response, the latest vehicles have implemented driver assistance technologies that use sensors, cameras, and computers to identify safety risks and reduce error-caused accidents.2 While still in development, automated vehicles that “can see more and act faster than human drivers” are purported to

In December 2017, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry proposed a new rule that sent shockwaves through the energy industry. In response to the financial struggles and potential early retirement of some of the United States’ coal and nuclear power plants, the Department of Energy (“DOE”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) to

Stating exaggerated claims at the beginning of a lawsuit can be a standard practice in litigation; however, a recent climate change lawsuit filed by seven California municipalities should remind litigators that unsupported exaggerations can cause collateral damage. The essence of the cities’ case is a public nuisance claim filed in California state court against several large U.S. oil producers including

On March 23, 2018, President Trump signed the CLOUD Act–which was attached to the omnibus spending bill–into law. The CLOUD Act is a necessary update to the United States’ laws concerning issued warrants to businesses located in the United States for data stored overseas. The CLOUD Act modifies the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”). When the ECPA was passed, Ronald Regan

The Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling could be a significant step towards eliminating gender pay discrimination in the workplace. The federal Equal Pay Act of 1963 attempted to eliminate gender wage discrimination by prohibiting employers from paying male employees higher wages than female employees for the same work.1 There were four exceptions to the general rule of the Act: if the employer