On June 30, 2021, the House Committee on Appropriations (the “Committee”) issued a report accompanying a bill making appropriations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), and related agencies for fiscal year 2022.

The report includes the Committee’s review and direction as to the FDA’s work. While most of this guidance was focused on drug-related regulation, the Committee offered some specific directives on food and beverage regulation that may guide the FDA’s future work. The topics of interest in the report related to the ...

Q: I have handled a number of health and safety receiverships. A city I have worked with before asked me to look at a property and prepare a proposed remediation plan, so they could have me appointed receiver under Health and Safety Code §17980.7(c). The court denied the city’s motion, saying it knew where the property was located and the cost of remediation was not worth it, given the property’s value. Can the court do that?

A: No. Under Health and Safety Code § 17980.7(c) there are only two requirements for the appointment of a receiver. First, “the court shall consider whether ...

On July 14, 2021, the Small Business Administration (“SBA”) will officially close its Restaurant Revitalization Fund (“RRF”) portal. This move raises questions about whether the RRF funds will be replenished, despite pending congressional action.

The SBA stopped processing fund applications on May 24, 2021, after a huge influx of applications, seeking nearly double the funds available.

As of June 30, 2021, the SBA reported that the RRF program received more than 278,000 submitted eligible applications representing over $72.2 billion in requested funds, and ...

On June 29, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (“FDA”) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and Office of Food Policy and Response released a list of draft and final guidance topics that are a priority for the FDA Foods Program to complete during the next 12 months. 

The FDA anticipates publishing guidance for many of these documents by June 2022. The FDA stated that the agency “is taking this action to provide stakeholders increased transparency and additional insights into the foods program priorities. Guidance documents represent the FDA’s current ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued updated guidance regarding providing incentives to employees to encourage COVID-19 vaccination, examining various scenarios under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Discrimination Act of 2008 (GINA). The updated guidance can be found here under items K.16 - K.21.

The guidance confirms that under the ADA, as long as the incentive is not so substantial as to be coercive, an employer may provide an incentive (which may include both rewards and punishments) to employees for ...

The much anticipated Restaurant Revitalization Fund (RRF) was deluged with applicants. According to Restaurant Dive, more than 362,000 applications were received in the first three weeks of the program for a total of $75 billion in funding. The SBA has since closed its portal to new applicants. The portal website states: “After an overwhelming response to the Restaurant Revitalization Fund, the application portal is now closed for new applications.”

On June 8, 2021, a bipartisan group of Senators and U.S. Representatives introduced the Restaurant Revitalization Fund ...

On June 3, 2021, AB-257, the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act (the “FAST Act”) was defeated in the California Assembly, coming up three votes short of the 41 votes needed. 

The FAST Act would have established a Fast Food Sector Council (the “Council”), comprised of 11 members appointed by the Governor, Speaker of the Assembly and Senate Rules Committee. Under the proposed bill, that Council would have been tasked with conducting a full review of the adequacy of fast food restaurant health safety and employment standards, and establishing industry-wide ...

On June 24, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that it would be holding the first of a series of open meetings. Members of the public are invited to listen to the FTC’s discussion and submit public comment.

The initial agenda includes the following:

• Made in the USA Rule: The FTC will vote on whether to finalize the Made in the USA Rule.
• Section 18 Rulemaking Procedures: The FTC will vote on whether to streamline the procedures for Section 18 rules prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices.
• “Statement of Enforcement Principles Regarding ‘Unfair ...

On June 23, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to limit the amount of non-tip producing work that a tipped employee can perform when an employer is taking a tip credit. 

According to the DOL, the proposed rule “clarifies when an employee is working in a tipped occupation and when a worker has performed such a substantial amount of non-tipped labor that an employer can no longer take a tip credit and must pay the full federal minimum wage to the worker.” 

Under the proposed rule, if a tipped employee spends either more than 20 percent of their ...

Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit reversed approval of a class action settlement, finding several indications that the proposed settlement was the result of collusion between the parties and did not adequately serve the class. The case, Briseño et al. v. ConAgra Foods Inc., Case No. 19-56297 (9th Cir.), originally filed in 2011, centers around allegations that defendant ConAgra Food Inc., then-owner of Wesson Oil, falsely advertised its oil as “100% Natural” when in fact the oil contained ingredients made from GMOs.

After several years of litigation, plaintiffs ...