Artificial Intelligence and Your Business: What Founders Should Know Before Making Representations and Warranties

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer just a buzzword; instead, it’s a practical business tool that companies of all sizes are integrating into operations, products, and services. From automating routine tasks to generating insights from data, AI is transforming how entrepreneurs build and scale their businesses. But with great opportunity comes important legal and strategic considerations, especially when it comes to what founders say about AI in contracts, pitches, and marketing. I have already seen representatives and warranties regarding the usage of AI in real-life contracts in my practice! I guess the world really evolves FAST (I still remember the time when I used a flip phone and dictionary)!

Hot Off the Press: Court Issues Reprieve to the CTA Compliance Deadline of January 1, 2025!

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know we’ve been posting about the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) for a while. Our first post detailed what you needed to know all the way back in August of last year. A refresher, the CTA is a new federal rule that went into effect on January 1, 2024, with a compliance deadline (for companies formed prior to that date) of January 1, 2025. In our most recent CTA-related post a couple of months ago, we recommended that reporting companies might want to hold off on compliance until the fourth quarter of this year, just in case there were any changes to the CTA. Well, those changes are here!

To Do or Not to Do: That Is No Longer the Question (at Least in 2024) – Time to File Beneficial Ownership Information Reports (BOIR) Under the Corporate Transparency Act

For those familiar with the beneficial ownership information (“BOI”) reporting rules under the Corporate Transparency Act of 2021 (“CTA”), you may be aware that on March 1, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama issued a ruling in the case of National Small Business United, d/b/a the National Small Business Association (“NSBA”) v. Yellen. The court concluded that the CTA exceeds the Constitution’s limits on Congress’s power and issued an injunction against the Department of the Treasury and FinCEN, preventing them from enforcing the CTA against the plaintiffs. The Justice Department, representing the Department of the Treasury, filed a Notice of Appeal on March 11, 2024, and the litigation is ongoing.

Gender Diversity in Management. How? That’s the Question.

In a recent viral video, pedestrians were asked a simple yet telling question: name a female CEO. Astonishingly, most struggled to come up with an answer, a dilemma I, too, encountered. Only two names surfaced consistently: Whitney Wolfe Herd, co-founder of Bumble Inc., and Cathie Wood of ARK Investment Management.

As a female attorney deeply immersed in the entrepreneurial realm, this revelation stirred a mix of surprise and disappointment. It underscores a stark reality: women remain conspicuously underrepresented in upper echelons of corporate leadership worldwide. But amidst this sobering reality, there is a glimmer of hope. Consciousness regarding gender disparity in management is on the rise, prompting legislative action in certain jurisdictions aimed at fostering gender diversity on corporate boards, albeit with mixed outcomes.

Hot off the Press: Changes in Reporting Deadlines for New Companies Formed in 2024

Frequent readers of entreVIEW know that, just a few months ago, I wrote this post detailing what entrepreneurs need to know about the reporting obligations of the Corporate Transparency Act. While that prior post detailed the “final rule” implementing beneficial ownership rules effective January 1, 2024, just late last week the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) adopted an extension to the beneficial ownership information (“BOI”) reporting deadline for companies formed next year. The extension provides that reporting companies formed or registered in 2024 (and in 2024 only) will have some breathing room –90 calendars days, instead of the 30 calendar days, after receiving notice of their creation or registration to file their BOI initial reports!

What You Need to Know About the Corporate Transparency Act

On September 29, 2022, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a final rule (see 31 C.F.R. § 1010.380) to implement the beneficial ownership information reporting rules of the Corporate Transparency Act of 2021 (CTA). The Rule will take effect on January 1, 2024. The relatively new legislation is aimed at preventing and combating money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption, tax fraud, and other illicit activity.

When the rule was first announced, there were many questions and concerns regarding how broad its impact might be and what changes it would bring to the disclosures of entities and their beneficial owners, as well as a number of privacy issues. For entrepreneurs, when you are faced with existing and/or potential investors/owners who are worried or confused about how the rule will impact them, you will want to give them a high-level introduction, and the abstracts below could be a helpful quick guide for you!

Book Review: Bill Aulet: Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

Like many people, I have dreamed about being an entrepreneur and having my own business venture. But when I really think about the concrete steps of starting a business, it is a headache: what kind of products or services do I want to provide? How do I target my potential clients? What are the marketing channels that I should focus on? How do I do the pricing? All those question marks in my head just led to cold feet.

There are indeed a lot of entrepreneurship-related online courses available, but most are either long or focus on a particular aspect of entrepreneurship. If you are, like me, looking for entrepreneurship 101, a comprehensive preview of all kinds of questions you need to think about in different stages of an enterprise, and a roadmap of how to start your own business, Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to A Successful Startup, by Bill Aulet, might be just what you are looking for!