Our team of Administrative Law practitioners has the experience to help you and your business navigate the most challenging, complicated and adversarial regulatory problems at the federal, state, or local level. Our depth of experience allows us to focus on working with government agencies to avoid problems before they arise at the agency level and, if problems do arise, remedy or minimize them quickly and efficiently. In those situations in which it is necessary to turn to the courts to correct governmental action, our litigators have the experience and understanding to protect your interests through all phases of the litigation and appeals process.
Our team has a comprehensive understanding of the legal principles governing how agencies make rules and regulations and the processes they use to resolve disputes with businesses and individuals. Such understanding is critical not only when representing a client in a proceeding before a government agency, but also when mounting a challenge to an adverse agency decision in court or defending a favorable agency decision against a challenge in court by others. Our team’s depth of experience gives our clients the benefit of going to an administrative proceeding or court with lawyers who are knowledgeable about the industries and fields in which our clients do business, the substantive regulatory laws affecting our clients and a full understanding of the legal doctrines that apply to the agency decision-making process -- each of which is essential to success.
Since January, multiple fundamental developments have dramatically altered the Title IX landscape, signaling a seismic shift in its interpretation and enforcement. These developments include a rapidly escalating and public feud between the Trump administration and the Maine Department of Education over Maine’s refusal to ban transgender girls from participating in school athletic competitions designated exclusively for girls. These interpretation and enforcement developments implicate issues of constitutional law, states’ rights and practical politics, and it is critical for those working in education and receiving federal funding to understand and navigate the changes.
In a major victory for nursing homes and long-term care industry advocates, on Monday, April 7, 2025, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the US District Court for Northern Texas struck down a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) rule mandating certain staffing standards for nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid (the “Rule”). Under the Rule, among other updates, nursing homes would have been required to maintain a registered nurse (RN) on staff 24/7 and to provide specific, minimum hours of direct care by RNs and nurse aids per resident, per day.
On February 20, 2025, Virginia’s General Assembly voted to pass Virginia House Bill 2094, the “High-Risk Artificial Intelligence Developer and Deployer Act” (the “Act”). The Act is currently awaiting Governor Glenn Youngkin’s signature. If enacted, this legislation would become effective on July 1, 2026, and would be only the second of its kind among states thus far, second to Colorado. The Act aims to protect “consumers” from “algorithmic discrimination,” described as the “use of an artificial intelligence system that results in an unlawful differential treatment or impact that disfavors an individual or group of individuals on the basis of actual or perceived age, color, disability, ethnicity,” or other protected characteristics.
On her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced several changes to the standards governing the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, charging decisions, plea negotiations and sentencing recommendations.
On January 23, 2025, the Fourth Circuit upheld an Advisory Opinion issued by the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services (“OIG”) that found a proposed drug subsidization program could violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.
For companies whose operations are subject to strict federal regulations – and particularly those that are facing or may be facing enforcement actions – take note. The U.S. Supreme Court may have just leveled the playing field. On Friday, June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court overturned a long-standing legal precedent that instructed courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws they administer. Instead, federal laws will be interpreted by the courts. Federal agencies will need to prove their cases, including enforcement actions where an arguably ambiguous statute is at issue. This is good news for businesses in the U.S.
On December 22, 2023, President Biden signed into law the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (“FEPA”). FEPA is aimed at the “demand” side of foreign corruption and bribery, making it unlawful for any foreign official to demand a bribe from a U.S. issuer or domestic concern or to make such a demand within the United States. FEPA is intended to serve as a complement to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”), which for decades has made it unlawful for a U.S. issuer to offer a bribe to a foreign official in order to obtain an improper business advantage. While the FCPA already addressed the payment of bribes to foreign officials, FEPA now criminalizes the request from foreign officials as well.
As one of the authors noted in a previous alert, “the CARES Act provided that the forgiven amounts of Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loans would not be includable in a PPP borrower’s gross income at the federal level, and subsequent legislation provided that expenses paid with PPP funds would still be tax deductible.” Recent non-precedential guidance from the IRS’s Office of Associate Chief Counsel, however, has concluded that only properly forgiven amounts will not be treated as gross income by the IRS. In short, the IRS intends to reach its own determination regarding the propriety of the decision of the U.S. Small Business Administration (“SBA”) to forgive PPP loan amounts.
Recently, we’ve been hearing from clients that their Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loans are being reviewed by the Small Business Administration ("SBA") and we are here to help respond to SBA inquiries and requests for information. This Client Alert discusses the Interim Final Rule (“IFR”), effective September 14, 2021, promulgated by the SBA detailing the procedures for appealing adverse PPP forgiveness determinations. Note that these will only become relevant if the SBA formally denies (in whole or in part) a PPP forgiveness application by the delivery of a final SBA loan review decision document.
At a time when contractors are attempting to implement shifting and unclear cybersecurity requirements, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is now promising to wield the False Claims Act when it – in its sole discretion – finds contract performance wanting.
Although few attorneys are likely to get excited over litigating an issue involving “standing,” this is often an important and outcome-determinative hurdle that challengers to a zoning reclassification must overcome. In early 2013, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, in Ray v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, re-examined and distilled the caselaw on this issue in the context of a decision by the Baltimore City Council’s approval of a Planned Unit Development (“PUD”) which would bring a Wal-Mart to Baltimore’s Remington and Charles Village neighborhoods. As explained below, Ray is a critically important opinion for zoning and land-use attorneys, because, although purporting to peg standing as an issue “that it is based on a fact-intensive, case-by-case analysis,” the Court of Appeals – intentionally or not – may have created a bright-line test for proximity that challengers to a zoning reclassification must pass.
On June 25, 2012 -- while Constitutional Law wonks waited with bated breath for the Supreme Court’s decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which came just three days later -- the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rendered an interesting opinion on the relationship between the U.S. government and the States, which basically went unnoticed.
The doctrines of double jeopardy, collateral estoppel, and res judicata, "are different; they apply in different circumstances and they prevent different things." Colandrea v. Wilde Lake Cmty. Assoc., Inc., 361 Md. 371, 390, 761 A.2d 899, 909 (2000). Although they may not sleep in the same bed, they should at least be thought of as residing on the same floor in the dormitory, as collateral estoppel and res judicata are two "branches of a doctrine known as estoppel by judgment," Klein v. Whitehead, 40 Md. App. 1, 13, 389 A.2d 374, 381 (1978), and both res judicata and collateral estoppel are "two of the individual members of a larger doctrinal family, known collectively as the law of double jeopardy."2Burkett v. State, 98 Md. App. 459, 463, 633 A.2d 902, 904 (1993) (internal citation omitted); see Crist v. Bretz, 437 U.S. 28 (1978) ("A primary purpose of [double jeopardy] is akin to that served by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel -- to preserve the finality of judgments."). Further, collateral estoppel and res judicata are based on "the sound and obvious principle of judicial policy that a losing litigant deserves no rematch after a defeat fairly suffered . . . on an issue identical in substance to the one he subsequently seeks to raise." Astoria Fed. Sav. and Loan Ass’n v. Solimino, 501 U.S. 104 (1991). Because the policies underlying the three doctrines are similar, it is not uncommon for litigants to argue more than one of them concurrently.
Dale G. Mullen, a partner in Whiteford’s Richmond office, has been appointed to the Virginia Board of Accountancy by Governor Glenn Youngkin. He was sworn in by Secretary of the Commonwealth Kay Coles James on March 15. The mission of the VBOA is to protect the citizens of the Commonwealth through a regulatory program of licensure and compliance of CPAs and CPA firms. “It is a tremendous honor to serve in this capacity,” Mr. Mullen said.
