MBELR Online

By Isaac Houskamp Due to Johnson & Johnson’s recent attempt to use the Texas’s divisive merger process to separate its talc powder tort liability into a separate entity and declare bankruptcy, the process has been under scrutiny in the court of public opinion and in bankruptcy court. This piece will offer a brief inquiry into the purpose of the divisive

By Alexander Johnson On January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a proposed rule that would prohibit the use of non-compete clauses in employment and independent contractor agreements. As written, this rule would render existing non-compete clauses unenforceable and prohibit most employers from attempting to use such clauses in employment agreements. The proposed rule has generated substantial feedback

By Anarelis Ramirez Introduction The gender wage gap has remained relatively stagnant over the past two decades. 1 In 2002, American women were paid 80 cents for every dollar a man earned. 2 Twenty years later, the gap closed by a mere 2 cents with American women earning 82 cents to every man’s dollar. 3 The wage gaps are exacerbated even further across race and ethnicity.

By Jack Weykamp In March 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 into law (“The Act”). 1 The main purpose of the Act was to address the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic by providing direct payments to Americans, extending enhanced unemployment benefits, and by increasing the Child Tax Credit.2 However, the Act also included an amendment to

By Jacob H. Kalphat-Losego The Inside Trader’s Nightmare: Blockchain in the Public Securities Markets Insider trading profits, or profits from the purchase or sale of a security by those in a fiduciary relationship with other holders of the security, have plagued United States regulators since the infancy of capital markets. While some commentators argue that the benefit from access to material, nonpublic information is just another

By Jacob Hankin The DPA has been invoked amidst several recent crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the baby formula shortage. Recently, the DPA has arisen again in the green energy context. This is not outside the scope of the Act, which explicitly declares that national defense preparedness requires “the availability of domestic energy supplies for national defense needs,” and

By Jacob Hebda  The Far-Reaching Impact of the Supreme Court’s Antitrust Analysis in Alston On June 21, 2021, the Supreme Court issued a decision that altered the landscape of college athletics forever.  For decades, the amateur status of college athletes meant few, if any, avenues for compensation.  Whereas professional athletes have historically been free to earn money for playing their respective sports, the

By Michael Pflueger Introduction After the collapse of the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, Congress has been under immense public pressure to pass legislation that regulates the digital asset industries. As of right now, there is no specific agency designated to regulate digital assets. This led several departments to supervise the digital asset industries. With that in mind, we are going to

By Emily Unger When the Sherman Act was enacted in 1890, it is likely that lawmakers did not consider its application to the labor market. The Act, which focuses on broadly preventing behavior that would stifle competition, has mainly been applied on the seller-side as a way to protect consumers. However, with the rise of wage-fixing and no-poach agreements in employment contracts,

By Zack Bloom  Introduction: When one thinks of “assets”, the first things that typically come to mind are tangible items like cash, real estate, cars, or expensive jewelry. Yet perhaps there is one asset that is more powerful and critical then all these combined: data. We live in a data-driven age where everything from the ads we see to the