Business Litigation
BlogQualifying Parties May Now Have to Face Personal Liability for Construction Company’s ObligationsFebruary 11, 2021
Last year’s changes to the contractor’s licensing laws opened the door to personal liability for qualifying parties (“QP”).  The Legislature added Section B to A.R.S. § 32-1127.  Section B reads: “While engaged as a qualifying party for a licensee, the qualifying party is responsible for any violation of this chapter by the licensee.”
What are “any violations of this chapter”? A few examples are:

• Liability to pay subcontractors and material suppliers;
• Lability for conversion of payments received for work performed;
• Liability for payments

…
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New Tax Incentive for Development in Low-Income Communities, Part IAugust 16, 2018

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), enacted on December 22, 2017, includes a provision that provides tax benefits to investors that develop in Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZs), which were created to stimulate economic development and job creation in distressed communities.
Part I of this seven-part series on QOZs provides an overview of the enactment of the TCJA, and defines QOZs, Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs), and Qualified Opportunity Zone Property (QOZP).
Enactment of TCJA
TCJA is tax legislation that affects individuals, businesses, and…
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Website Accessibility Lawsuits: 5 Things Every Arizona Business Should KnowAugust 19, 2019

After an 18 month hiatus, ADA accessibility lawsuits are once again being filed in Arizona’s federal courts. Unlike previous ADA lawsuits (which focused on physical barriers to accessibility), this new wave of lawsuits alleges that business websites and mobile apps are not accessible to those with hearing and/or visual impairments.
Here are five things that every business owner should know.
1. What is the ADA and who does it apply to?
The ADA is a federal law that was enacted in 1990. It requires all…
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Business Litigation
BlogFATCA and FBAR: The IRS is discontinuing its Offshore Voluntary Disclosure ProgramMarch 30, 2018

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced last week that it will terminate its Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program as of September 28, 2018. Taxpayers who have not reported foreign bank accounts and income now have only six months to do so.
In the mid-2000s, the IRS began aggressively pursuing foreign financial institutions for information concerning deposits held by those institutions on behalf of U.S. taxpayers. That effort has resulted in an unprecedented period of world-wide intra-governmental cooperation to identify unreported accounts and untaxed income. The…
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Jennings Strouss Wins Unprecedented Arizona “Lemon Law” LawsuitSeptember 2017

Phoenix commercial trial attorney Christopher D. Lonn won a favorable verdict in a three-year “lemon law” litigation against  BMW of North America (BMW N.A.). This is the first known verdict in Arizona (and possibly the United States) where a jury found that excessive brake noise is a defect under a governing “lemon law” statute.  Mr. Lonn represented Dr. Jason Nordean and his wife against BMW N.A.
In 2012, while residing in Oregon, Dr. Nordean and his wife took delivery of a custom ordered 2013 BMW M6 coupe, a…
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Businesses Beware: Don‘t Get Hooked into Paying for Forms You Don’t NeedMarch 22, 2017

Practice Area: Business Litigation

Over the years, I have come across what appear to be “official” correspondences from companies portraying themselves as state-related representatives. Their purpose is to “scare” a business into hiring them to prepare form corporate documents, stating that all corporations must file annual reports with the Arizona State Corporation Commission; however, many businesses, such as limited liability companies, are not required to file annual reports. In addition, the letters offer to prepare annual director and shareholder meeting minutes at fairly significant…
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Do You Know Where the Data Is?February 22, 2017

Practice Area: Business Litigation

Even with new rules governing proportionality and relevance, preserving and collecting electronically stored data remains an issue in many litigations. Virtually all modern communication is electronic; not just conversations, but all facets of business and personal exchanges.  And the sources of that electronic data continue to evolve.
Just when the eDiscovery industry got a handle on collecting Outlook Exchange Servers, the tech savvy corporations migrated toward cloud based solutions and put another wrench in the preservation and collection processes necessary for litigation. Recent estimates show that…
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Beware of Caller ID “Spoofing” ScamFebruary 19, 2016

Practice Area: Business Litigation

Attorneys and their clients have joined the ranks of victims affected by a new scam that attempts to obtain personal and financial information for fraudulent use.
The process is referred to as Caller ID “spoofing.” It allows callers to deliberately falsify the information transmitted to Caller ID displays, effectively disguising their real identity. Spoofing is used to trick someone into giving out personal or financial information so that it can be used in fraudulent activity or sold illegally. Most types of spoofing are prohibited by U.S.
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Business Litigation
BlogPersonal Representatives of the Estate of a Vulnerable Adult Need to be Aware of Arizona’s Adult Protective Services ActNovember 23, 2015

A personal representative of a decedent’s estate has a statutory duty to serve the best interests of the successors to the estate. One such duty is to take possession and control of the decedent’s property for purposes of administering the estate. A personal representative is also expected to identify any person who is believed to have concealed, embezzled, conveyed, or otherwise disposed of, any property of the decedent in an unlawful manner. If the decedent was a…
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