Each Friday, PLI offers everyone one week of free access to one web segment or One-Hour Audio Briefing from its catalog of more than 3,500 hours of on-demand offerings. These Free Friday segments are good for one full hour of CLE credit, and can be passed along to clients, colleagues, or anyone in need of training.

Free Fridays are brought to you by the PLI SmartBrief, a free daily e-newsletter that delivers all of the legal news you need (plus Free Fridays!) right to your desktop. Editors handpick key articles from hundreds of publications specifically with practicing attorneys in mind, summarizing the content and linking back to the original sources.  Go here to sign up for PLI SmartBrief.

This Friday, PLI is offering a segment from the 17^th Annual Real Estate Tax Forum.  The segment, Current Developments, will provide an overview of the significant changes to tax law, recent legislation, case law, regulations and rulings over the past year and the impacts they have on your clients.

To view our Free Friday program, you will need to create a PLI account, if you don’t already have one.  Programs will remain free only for one week; be sure to add to your library during this period. Click here and follow the on-screen instructions.

As a reminder, PLI Privileged Members have access to all of PLI’s live programs, Webcasts, and on-demand programs.  

October 9, 2014, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (E.D.T.)

The United States began by imposing sanctions on persons and entities associated with the unrest in the Ukraine, but the sanctions have been expanded to target broader segments of the Russian economy with the adoption of new sectoral sanctions. Please join Stephan E. Becker of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and Corinne A. Goldstein of Covington & Burling LLP for a discussion of topics including:

• The scope of the U.S. sanctions administered by the Treasury and Commerce Departments
• The implementation of sectoral sanctions on the Russian financial, defense and oil & gas sectors
• Recent expansions of the sanctions and potential future changes

Register now and don’t miss this important free briefing!

October 8, 2014, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (E.D.T.)

Both the SEC’s Division of Corporation and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board are engaged in major projects that may significantly change the public company disclosures about financial results, controls and audits. A panel including a PCAOB Board Member, the Chief Accountant of the SEC Corp Fin Division and a former SEC Chief Accountant who now serves on two audit committees, along with leading legal and audit firm partners who counsel clients on disclosure and financial reporting issues will provide a lively One-Hour briefing on the developments you need to know about now.

Topics will include:

• The SEC’s major disclosure review project, now underway
• Latest SEC staff and PCAOB guidance on financial reporting and accounting issues, including revenue recognition
• The current status of PCAOB initiatives to reform the auditor reporting model, to evaluate its going concern standard in light of a recent FASB going concern standard, to provide guidance on fair value auditing and other topics
• PCAOB’s audit committee outreach efforts
• Possible rulemaking in the next six months, including audit committee reporting
• The impact of all of this on audit committees and those who advise them

Moderator:

John F. Olson, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Panel:

Michael J. Gallagher, Managing Partner, Assurance Quality, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Linda L. Griggs, Partner, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Jay D. Hanson, Board Member, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board

Mark Kronforst, Chief Accountant, Division of Corporation Finance, United States Securities and Exchange Commission

Donald T. Nicolaisen, Independent Director, Morgan Stanley, MGIC Investment Corp., Verizon, Zurich Insurance Group

Register now and don’t miss this important free briefing!

October 2, 2014, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (E.D.T.)

On April 21, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) published a rule-making proposal to revise the definition of “waters of the United States,” a key statutory term used to prescribe the extent of federal jurisdiction to regulate a variety of activities under the Clean Water Act (CWA). 79 Fed. Reg. 22188. The current comment period for the proposal expires on October 20, 2014.

This closely watched and highly controversial proposal follows on more than forty years of CWA implementation, three landmark Supreme Court decisions and the issuance of shifting guidance documents by EPA and DOD over the course of the past several presidential administrations. Much of the current debate centers on how the agencies should interpret and apply the Court’s 4-1-4 decision in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006), which generated considerable confusion as to the reach of federal jurisdiction under the CWA. The EPA/DOD proposal aims to clarify matters, and stakeholders have expressed serious doubts as to whether the proposal makes matters better or worse.

A good deal is at stake. Once finalized, the proposal will influence every regulatory program under the statute, from wastewater permitting under Section 402, to discharges of dredged or fill material under Section 404, to oil spill liability and prevention under Section 311, to State obligations to establish water quality standards under Section 303. Each of these programs applies only to “waters of the United States.” Many stakeholders believe the agencies’ proposal would greatly expand the universe of waters to be protected by these programs.

While only a page or so in length, the proposed definition is intricate, and it differs from the existing definition in several key respects. The agencies have defined “tributaries” quite broadly, to include ponds and even ditches in certain circumstances. They have proposed to exert jurisdiction over adjacent waters of all kinds, not merely wetlands as before, and have defined “adjacent” broadly. They have proposed to exert jurisdiction on a case-by-case basis over “other” waters, and have defined this category of waters using a “significant nexus” test put forth by a single Justice in a concurring opinion in Rapanos. And the agencies have proposed specific exclusions from the definition for certain ditches and water features that are used in particular ways.

Please join attorney James T. Banks, leader of the Environmental Practice at Hogan Lovells US LLP as he addresses:

• What regulated parties will need to understand this proposal
• What States and local governments will need to understand this proposal
• The potential need for regulated parties, States and local governments to provide their input to the agencies during the comment period

Register now and don’t miss this important free briefing!