Insights Search
As we previously discussed and in alignment with the U.S. Treasury Department’s previous announcement, on March 21, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) issued an interim final rule that dramatically narrows the reporting requirements for beneficial ownership information (“BOI”) under the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”).
V&E CTA Update
A series of recent actions undertaken by President Biden, near the end of his term, and President Trump, in the early days of his presidency, have called into question a key issue under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (“OCSLA”) — whether the President can revoke a previous President’s withdrawal of areas of the United States Outer Continental Shelf (“OCS”) from oil and gas leasing.
V&E Environmental Update
On February 27, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) announced a suspension of enforcement actions related to the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”).
V&E CTA Update
On February 26, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced the formation of a Joint Labor Task Force aimed at addressing deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive practices impacting labor markets.
V&E Antitrust Update
On February 19, 2025, the Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”) released a pre-publication version of an interim final rule (the “Interim Rule”) to rescind all of CEQ’s previous and current regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) alongside a memorandum (the “Memo”) to federal agencies providing guidance on how agencies should revise their individual NEPA regulations and how they should manage NEPA reviews in the meantime.
V&E Environmental Update
In his first two days in office, newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump signed a flurry of Executive Orders, including several aimed at supporting the traditional energy industry.
V&E Environmental Update
For more than twenty years, the North American Free Trade Agreement (“NAFTA”), and later, the United States‑Mexico-Canada Agreement (“USMCA”), have facilitated cross-border trade and investment among the United States, Mexico, and Canada through the elimination of virtually all financial barriers to trade.
V&E Energy Update
Published by Energy Intelligence and Hart Energy, March 2025
On January 23, 2025, the Supreme Court granted the government’s motion to stay a nationwide injunction that was issued by a Texas federal judge in the case Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc. v. McHenry.
V&E CTA Update
On January 13, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued its Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, an Interim Final Rule revising the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to expand controls on advanced computing integrated circuits, commonly called microchips (“ICs”) and impose new licensing requirements for artificial intelligence (“AI”) model weights (the “AI Diffusion Rule”).
V&E Export Controls Update
Although coined in approximately 2004, the term “ESG” — short for Environmental, Social, and Governance — did not receive widespread adoption until the mid 2010s.
V&E ESG Update
Published by Thomson Reuters/Westlaw on January 22, 2025
The Department of the Treasury (“Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) have released final regulations designating so-called “basis-shifting” transactions among related parties as “transactions of interest.”
V&E Tax Update
As Donald J. Trump prepares to begin his second presidential administration on January 20, 2025, many Department of Justice (“DOJ”) priorities and policies are likely to change.
V&E Government Investigations & White Collar Update