Keeping your business in compliance with legal requirements can prevent you from fines, penalties, work stoppages or lawsuits.
The legal responsibilities for your business depend on the type of business you have and where you operate. You may need to file paperwork and pay taxes with your state or federal government.
Discrimination and Harassment in the Workplace
Discrimination and harassment in the workplace can cause significant harm to an individual, their family and their company. It also perpetuates a power imbalance in the work environment and can lead to unproductive behaviors by employees that create an unsafe and hostile environment for all.
Under state and federal law, discrimination and harassment are illegal. The employer can avoid liability for harassment only if it proves it tried to prevent and promptly correct the harassing behavior.
Harassment is unwelcome conduct that interferes with an employee’s job performance based on his or her membership in a protected class. It must be so severe or pervasive that it creates a hostile work environment.
Harassment can take many forms, and anyone can be impacted by it. If you feel you are being harassed, report it to your supervisor or human resources.
Environmental Issues
The world is facing a number of environmental issues, including climate change and biodiversity loss. These issues can have a serious impact on the environment and affect the health of people living in affected areas.
Moreover, the impacts of environmental crises can also have a negative impact on human rights. Activists and ordinary citizens who challenge environmental abuses often face intimidation, legal harassment and violence.
While there are many ways to combat these challenges, one of the most important is to enact laws and policies that reduce the amount of pollutants in the environment. This can protect people’s health and prevent a variety of health problems and deaths.
As the year progresses, many of these issues will become a focal point in the legal and business compliance world. Some of the issues that will be a focus in 2022 include court rulings, potential Supreme Court hearings, and federal regulations.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is an anti-bribery law that prohibits companies and individuals from paying bribes in order to obtain or retain business. This legislation is enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice.
While the FCPA is primarily enforced in the United States, it extends around the globe to businesses and individuals in other countries as well. The FCPA has two components, anti-bribery provisions and maintaining accurate books, records, and internal accounting controls so bribes cannot be hidden.
The first component of the FCPA is an anti-bribery provision that makes it unlawful for a business to offer, promise, or authorize to pay or receive anything of value to a foreign government official in order to influence a foreign government official’s decision making in facilitating new or retained business. This includes money, but also gifts, samples, interest in business enterprises, loans on favorable terms, offers of employment or tuition payments and other payments to third parties.
Intellectual Property Issues
Intellectual property is a critical component of ensuring that companies and individuals are protected when producing new ideas, inventions and technologies. It protects the time, effort and money that is invested in developing these new items.
As technology advances and economic growth increases, intellectual property rights have become an increasingly critical tool for generating profits. They help to create jobs and increase innovation while also providing solutions to important global problems.
A system of enforceable property rights that meets the needs of different countries is essential for a functioning global economy. A system that allows societies to free-use knowledge without enforcing rights would lead to societies that produce too little new knowledge, and thus stifle economic development.