Brand(is) Awareness: Ethena’s General Counsel shares what’s on her mind

If there’s one thing we’re familiar with here at Ethena, it’s gray areas. (Have you seen our flagship Harassment Prevention course? Tricky, hard-to-categorize situations are pretty much our bread and butter.) But one gray area we haven’t historically talked much about is the gap between when a new law is announced and when it kicks in. 

Once the proposed legislation takes effect, of course, we aim to make sure it’s front and center: you’ll see it in our content (when relevant), you’ll hear about it in emails from Ethena, and we’ll highlight some key information to help you determine exactly how it impacts your organization — and how we can help.

But starting now, we’ll also give you some insight into what’s on the horizon, courtesy of our very own General Counsel, Brandis Anderson. 

Brandis has a well-established routine at Ethena of dropping random links from law firms and other online resources into Slacks with her colleagues, often with a note like, “You probably already saw this, but…” when we have absolutely not already seen it. And since these resources are so helpful to us as we shape our content and product, we’ll be sharing them with all of you as well, at a semi-regular cadence.

Come for (thrilling! compelling!) sneak peek into what’s on the compliance horizon, and stay for Brandis’s occasional reality TV hot takes. 

As a reminder, none of this is or should be taken as legal advice. It is for general informational purposes, and is simply…Brand(is) Awareness. 

Federal

• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has released new rules surrounding Cybersecurity risk management. Specifically, the SEC now requires companies to disclose material cybersecurity incidents not just as they occur, but also to annually disclose details about their org’s processes for cybersecurity risk management, strategy, and governance.

• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has updated its Visual Disabilities in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act technical assistance document. This document sets guidelines for when employers may ask employees and applicants about vision impairment, possible accommodations, safety concerns, or harassment prevention.

• First introduced in May 2022, The American Data Privacy Protection Act is the latest attempt at a federal privacy law. Currently, it seems likely to make it out of committee, but may not have the bipartisan support necessary to move much further or pass into law. We’ll keep our 👀on it.

States

• Colorado recently signed the Protecting Opportunities and Worker's Rights (POWR) Act into law, which imposes changes to Colorado’s existing anti-discrimination legislation. There are a number of changes worth noting, but the most pressing is that several law firms believe that the new law creates a de facto training mandate for harassment prevention and are recommending proactive training. The POWR Act went into effect on August 7th, 2023. 

• Oregon has passed a new data privacy law, which comes into force July 2024. It’s called the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act, and its adoption makes the Beaver State the eleventh in the U.S. to enact consumer privacy legislation.

• California approved an amendment to its Employment Regulations Relating to Criminal History, modifying the ways in which employers are allowed to investigate a job applicant’s criminal history. Most notably, the amendment expanded the definition of “employer” to potentially include a background screener conducting a background check on an employer’s behalf. The newly-amended regulations will go into effect on October 1, 2023.

• The California Senate has voted to clarify language within its anti-discrimination law to ensure that “caste” is included as an element of “ancestry,” which would make caste a protected characteristic. If enacted, this would constitute the first state-wide ban on caste discrimination.

Elsewhere

• Although Brandis is not yet current on the latest iteration of The Real Housewives of New York, she enjoyed the first few episodes. Always reticent to offer anything resembling a recommendation, Brandis did acknowledge that she “might like” Ubah and Jenna but says it’s ultimately too early to tell.