News & Publications

In 2021, two Circuit Court of Appeals, held diametric positions regarding penalties for taxpayers who non-willfully failed to file a Report of Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR): The Ninth Circuit concluded that the penalty was $10,000 per untimely filed FBAR, while the Fifth Circuit concluded that the penalty was $10,000 per account on each untimely filed FBAR. On February 28, 2023, the Supreme Court resolved this conflict, ruling that the penalty is calculated on a [...]

On February 15, 2023, a federal appeals court blocked a California law that prohibited employers from requiring their workers to resolve legal disputes in private arbitration. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in a 2-1 decision held that the law cannot be enforced because it conflicts with federal arbitration law. This ruling hands an important victory to business groups and employers across the state. The 9th Circuit [...]

Yesterday, a three-judge Ninth Circuit panel revisited its own 2021 order and finally struck down California's anti-mandatory employment arbitration law, Assembly Bill 51 ("AB 51"). In an opinion drafted by the former dissenting judge, Judge Sandra Ikuta, the new majority declared AB 51 was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act ("FAA"). The statute in question, signed into law by Governor Newsom in 2019, was California legislators' third attempt to side-step the FAA. Two prior legislative enactments had [...]