The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was enacted by the federal government in 2021 to strengthen federal money laundering and tax fraud statutes by improving transparency in business ownership. The CTA is enforced by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). FinCEN requires reporting companies to file with the Department of Treasury a Beneficial Ownership Information Report (BOIR). This filing needs to be completed by January 1, 2025. Any entity created in […]

CMDA congratulates Attorney Linda Davis Friedland on a successful five-day bench trial in the Oakland County Business Court. Ms. Friedland and her team represented a company that was sued by another company with which it had a longtime contractor/subcontractor relationship. Plaintiff sued our client for tortious interference with a business expectancy, claiming it suffered $1,464,240.00 in damages for lost business due to our client’s construction liens, which had been prepared […]

As of February 12, 2024, Michigan workplaces are no longer governed by the Right-to-Work law, as the repeal of the 2012 regulation that banned requirements that workers join unions to receive their benefits. The Michigan legislature became the first state in almost 60 years to repeal its Right-to-Work law. The elimination of the Right-to-Work law only impacts private sector workers. Public sector workers can still opt out of unions because […]

In 2021, Congress enacted the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”), which is intended to strengthen existing federal money laundering and tax fraud statutes by way of improving structural (i.e., ownership) transparency in business entities. While governmental oversight traditionally focuses on big businesses and their related hot-button issues in any given period (e.g., corporate tax inversion), the CTA was crafted with small entities in mind. To wit, the CTA’s ostensible goal is […]

Please join us in welcoming John M. McFarland to the Firm. He brings with him over 40 years of legal experience. Mr. McFarland is a partner in our Kansas City office where he focuses his practice on federal and state court civil litigation, including disputes in the intellectual property, labor and employment, and general tort and business/contract disputes. He has broad and deep experience in a sophisticated and complex business […]

James Taylor, an attorney in our Livonia office, recently attended The International Polymer Colloids Group (IPCG) Conference in Ontario, Canada. The conference is held every two years and aims to bring together the world’s leading researchers from both academia and industry to exchange the latest developments in the area of polymer colloids science, as well as discuss new directions and future challenges. Polymer colloid science is of particular interest to […]

In the course of running our businesses so many things demand our attention and resources that addressing “intellectual property” can be left on the back burner. Patents are among the most important types of intellectual property, yet common misconceptions often lead business owners to mistakenly regard patents as irrelevant or of limited importance in their particular business. This can lead to lost opportunities or expensive problems. In simple terms, a […]

Please join us in welcoming Kenneth M. Gonko to the Firm. He is an Of Counsel attorney in our Livonia office where he focuses his practice on labor law and employment relations in the public and private sector. As a labor and employment law attorney, he regularly appears as an advocate and litigator in disputes before the state and federal courts, the National Labor Relations Board, the United States Equal […]

Ryan Miller, a partner in our Riverside, CA office, recently successfully defended a CMDA client against an $8,000,000 Claim. A female Plaintiff worker claimed she was sexually assaulted by her supervisor. Her supervisor denied the Claim, but he was still sued, along with the Company, by the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff hired three law firms to try her case. The Company vigorously defended the Claim, and Mr. Miller conducted a thorough […]

Rapper Cardi B recently defeated a tort and intellectual property lawsuit for misappropriation of likeness and invasion of privacy for using a picture of a heavily tattooed man, without his permission, as the subject of her album cover picture. The creator of the album cover skewed and altered an innocent picture of Plaintiff Kevin Brophy, where he is simply showing off his tattoo, to create an entirely different scenario. Critically, […]