Portland Business Alliance The Portland Business Alliance and Downtown Portland Clean & Safe released its State of the Economy and State of Downtown & Central City reports. These reports were produced in partnership with ECONorthwest and presented by Bank of America, along with the Value of Jobs coalition including Greater […]

By Oregon Small Business Association Foundation According to the Oregon Office of Econoimic Analysis, 21 percent of Oregon renter households in the state were living in poverty, and 44 percent of rental households spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. Fifty-four percent of renters do not have […]

US Attorney Office, Oregon District Press Release, PORTLAND, Ore.—A federal grand jury in the District of Oregon returned an indictment today charging four founders of Forsage, a purportedly decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrency investment platform, for their roles in a global Ponzi and pyramid scheme that raised approximately $340 million from […]

March 2, 2023 By Missy Oakley Barran Liebman LLP On February 22, 2023, the United States Supreme Court found that an employee who earned more than $200,000 a year was entitled to recover overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hewitt, […]

By National Restaurant Association   The National Restaurant Association recently submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the proposed multi-year biofuel fuel volumes included in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program. The Association stressed the negative impact increasing biofuel volumes would have on the price and availability of […]

Oregon Attorney General Press Release, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum co-led a lawsuit with Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and joined by 10 other Attorneys General, against the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for unnecessarily singling out the medication abortion drug, mifepristone, for excessive regulation. Despite evidence that the drug is […]

By Oregon Business and Industry With the Feb. 21 release of its annual Value of Jobs report, the Portland Business Alliance provided yet more evidence of the competitiveness crisis affecting Oregon, and particularly the state’s economic, political and cultural center in Portland. Contributing to this crisis are rapidly escalating state […]

February 23, 2023 By Ed Choi Bullard Law A new Supreme Court ruling serves as a useful reminder to employers that they must pay employees on a “salary basis” in order to avoid overtime requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), even for highly compensated individuals. In this case, […]

By NFIB, The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index increased 0.5 points in January to 90.3, remaining below the 49-year average of 98. Down six points from last month, 26% of owners reported inflation was their single most important problem in operating their business. Owners expecting better business conditions over the […]

The End of the Round-Up? Oregon Federal Court Takes Issue with Employer Rounding Practices By Sean Ray & Blayne Soleymani-Pearson Barran Liebman Law Firm, Fear not—despite the clickbait title, the rodeo is safe. However, the practice of employers rounding employees’ work time to calculate pay may not be. Rounding has […]