Posted by Shane Luczak

At the time of writing this article, over the last two weeks Russia has begun their invasion of Ukraine. It has made the headlines worldwide, as citizens across the globe have voiced their opinions on the conflict. My heart goes out to those on both sides of the conflict, but this piece’s purpose is not to reflect on the politics or social impacts of the situation, but instead the economic impact of these events. One thing that I feel is being overlooked by the general public is the impact this conflict is having on Russia’s currency and their economy as a whole.

As it pertains to the Russian currency (ruble) it has been a disastrous first week since the initial invasion. The ruble has fallen 30% against the dollar, now making one ruble less than one cent (US). This is partially due to Russia’s banks being temporarily blocked from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) essentially disabling them from making transactions with other countries. As their currency may continue to weaken, this opens the door for inflation which will anger Russians who have saved up large amounts of rubles. This would also increase the cost of living, increase foreign goods and travel, and in turn anger innocent Russian citizens even more.

Another action that has recently happened was that the U.S. Department of Treasury barred Americans from conducting business with Russia’s central bank, in turn further decreasing the demand for the ruble. The actions made by countries across the globe including the United States, are seen as crushing by many economists. Due to these actions, Russia’s GDP is expected to decrease by 5% this year. Russia knows where their economy is headed, in the sense that if they do not turn it around soon, they may face hyperinflation. Russia’s response to the decreasing value of their currency was to raise interest rates from the current rate of roughly 8% all the way up to 20%. This move will potentially help stop the bleeding for now, but in the future if they are still unable to access currencies such as the Euro or the US Dollar, they may have to resort to printing more of their own currency. Those in the US know what that means all too well, and if Russia has to resort to that plan, inflation will be inevitable regardless of the interest rates. This will lead to many innocent Russian citizens losing large amounts of value from their savings, checking, and retirement accounts. Nobody knows when the conflict will be resolved but if it goes on too long, the impact will be felt by the Russian economy and their citizens for decades.

Shane is a Finance student at Seton Hall University, Stillman School of Business, Class of 2024.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-ruble-sanctions/

Posted by Ethan Friedman.

With all of the chaos occurring in the world, it is important for the world to recognize and be aware of the Russian invasion on Ukraine. This important task to spread important world news is made responsible by news sites, tv channels, journals, etc. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, recently brought up a censorship law that rescricts the press’s ability to spread information to the public. In the article, “BBC, CNN and others are suspending operations or halting their broadcast in Russia after Putin pushes ‘fake news’ law” written by Yelena Dzhanova of Business Insider, it talks about how this law can impact news companies and journalists due to putting out invalid news about Russia.

According to The New York Times, the journalists who said that the invasion by Russia to Ukraine was a “war” would face jail. This caused big news companies such as CNN, ABC, and BBC to stop their broadcast from Russia and caused The Washington post to remove writer recognition from specific articles to protect staff from potential punishments. In the article it says, “Under Putin’s new law, which could go into effect as early as Saturday, anyone who spreads what the Russian government considers to be “fake” news about the country’s military operations could face up to 15 years in jail, according to The Committee to Protect Journalists”(paragraph 3, Dzhanhova). The quote is saying that Putin’s new law states that if the Russian Government considers any of the news to be fraud of “fake” could face up to 15 years of jail time. 

In my opinion, I dont see this as being a main issue in the world right now considering there is a lot of conflict going on all around the world. The news should be able to cover whatever it wants due to having a big platform and making people aware of what is happening and what could happen. The news’s job is to make the world aware of everything around the world and everything that could potentially impact the world in the future. I dont see how the news companies are wrong here by making people aware of what Russia is capable of and what they could potentially do. Now these news companies can’t do their job due to not covering important information about the world because they can potentially get locked up in jail for it. This law is just protection by Putin to hide warning information to the world, which makes Russia an event bigger problem in the world.

https://www.businessinsider.com/news-outlets-cnn-bloomberg-bbc-suspending-operations-russia-putin-law-2022-3

Ethan is a business major (undecided), at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2025.

Posted by Jason Lyons.

 Financial analysts are forecasting up to seven rate hikes in 2022, an increase from five hikes. We can anticipate the first rate hike, a 50 basis point increase to the Federal Funds Rate during the March FOMC meeting. Why has the Fed become “hawkish” recently?

Quantitative easing during COVID and supply chain crises have led to record inflation. Consumer price index (CPI) data for 7.5% year over year increase, hitting a forty year high. The Federal Reserve has two goals: unemployment and price stability. With the stock market and real estate markets hitting record highs, as well as a strengthening labor market, the Fed can shift from its unemployment goals to curbing inflation. The Forbes article argues that the Fed is “lags” inflation and should have taken “decisive action last year” (Conerly). The Fed waited until inflation got “hot” before reacting where they should have acted while stimulating the economy to prevent the current situation, we are in.

Why seven rate hikes? The Fed has eight FOMC meetings per year, and recently concluded that inflation is no longer transitory, and the purchasing of Treasuries and Mortgage-Backed Securities will end in March (was originally ending in summer 2022). We could see the remaining seven Fed meetings to have a 25-basis point increase, and the article argues a larger 50 basis point move is not out of the question. By raising rates, debt becomes more expensive and increases yields which stops the economy from overheating and lowers inflation. The long-term Fed inflation goal is 2%. Seven rate hikes would help maintain this 2% goal. The second half of 2022 may see moderately higher than normal inflation only if the Fed takes these actions. On the other hand, if the Fed does not act quick enough, inflation can get out of hand, and we may see double digit inflation.

 I agree that the Fed has been too cautious. However, the Delta and Omicron variants led to uncertainty in 2021 and the possibility of another lockdowns. The Fed did not want to end expansionary policy too quickly in the event we relapse and see a second March 2020 stock market crash. Only hindsight shows whether the Fed was correct or not. One concept I disagree with was the Fed maintaining that inflation is transitory. Car prices and commodities like wood and steel have stagnated since the summer, but energy and food have continued to increase, proportionately affecting lower income families more.

Jason is a Fin-Tech major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2024.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/billconerly/2022/02/11/7-fed-rate-hikes-in-2022-needed-but-unlikely/?sh=44534f633696

Posted by Dominic Molendyke.

Artificial Intelligence has taken over and had an impact on almost all professions and industries. Some more than others, obviously, but looking into law it is really interesting to see its profound effects and to see where it is headed. We see a new revolution taking place before our eyes as the last (Industrial revolution) replaced real hard manual labor and simple things muscle would take care of, this new one replaces decision making and other mental tasks that at one point people thought were safe from being replicated by machines. In the law world, AI has helped streamline a lot of busywork that allows real attorneys to be not only more efficient but more accurate as well as these machines and programs are designed to catch these.

Now, attorneys are not getting fully replaced just yet, as being able to understand the rationale behind AI-derived decisions has not yet been accomplished and would need to be before we start using AI in specific legal contexts. But as of now with what use we do have of AI in the legal world, it has made some attorneys and lawyers superhuman almost. With new startups using services based on AI, we see contracts being reviewed faster and even more accurately than what human lawyers can do. Another part of law AI has affected is conducting legal research with new keyword lookups. It is no longer looking to match words to keywords but rather truly understand the meaning of the words and match them to the large databases attached to them.

What is really cool and different about AI in the legal world compared to others such as the car industry, is the fact a simple mistake by the AI doesn’t result in an injury or have fatal consequences. Rather though, it can show new creative ways to approach things that humans have not yet figured out or thought of using. This leads to shortcuts on many things such as games, cures, or as simple as a new way to express an idea.  But this is also why we can’t fully trust AI as its results or how it gets its results may not be right and could be getting wrong with poor programming or lack of at least. We see this really come into play when deciding legal outcomes and whether people are comfortable with trusting a computer to decide their fate or others. But still, it is slowly and surely being incorporated with advising judges on bail and sentencing decisions.

Dominic is a sophomore, business major (undecided), Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University.

Law Bots: How AI Is Reshaping the Legal Profession

Posted by Connor Nielson.

Ever since March 2020 everyone has been impacted by Covid in some way whether that is either negative or positive. It has been a rough patch for the whole world and it is scary that we do not know when it will end either. Covid has obviously had a huge impact in the business world and any business whether big or small has felt the effects of this pandemic. Businesses were shut down for months and could not generate any revenue during this time which set them back tremendously, a lot even had to close for good. Eventually the vaccine was introduced and New York City was the first major city to require the vaccines indoors. In August of 2021 this mandate started and it affected 184,000 businesses all over the state. This meant needing it to enter all sorts of businesses such as restaurants, movie theaters, and any stores. 

After just over two months New York City mayor Eric Adams has announced that the vaccine mandate will end on Sunday March 7th. New York City is joining the likes of two other major cities who also ended their vaccine mandate, those being Seattle and Boston. Adams is also giving businesses about a week to adapt to this as he made this announcement on February 27th, 2022. He has been waiting for this day to finally come as Adams indicated that he has been eagerly planning for the mandate to end at an economic development press conference on February 23rd. Covid cases have been rapidly dropping in New York City as there has been less than 1,000 new cases a day over the past month. Adams has been meeting with top health experts daily to make sure that ending the mandate is a rational decision. 

Eric Adams realizes that New York City cannot afford to shut down again as it has too big of an economic impact. He said, “We can’t close down again and I’m not going to do something at my anticipation to get back that’s going to jeopardize closing down the city again. Our economy can’t handle it. We don’t have another $11 billion to put back in the economy. We must do it the smart way,’’. This quote shows how much money is lost due to the effects Covid has on businesses. It is obvious though that this pandemic is far from over and health experts urge that spikes are going to come and go. Dr. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine says, “This seems like a move to promote normalcy without there really being normalcy,”. There seems to be some backlash from health experts that feel like this is the correct decision at this time due to the constant uncertainty around Covid. I personally believe that this is the right decision and that there comes a time where we have to live a normal life despite the scares of Covid. Over 96 percent of adults in New York City are at least partially vaccinated which is an extremely high percentage and I feel that this is high enough to justify eliminating the mandate. This announcement is not only huge for businesses in new York City, but for businesses all across the country as this is going to become more and more common. 

Connor is a Business Administration Major, Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2022.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/27/new-york-city-to-lift-vaccination-mandate-for-businesses-events.html

Posted by Christian Finnigan.

In the article Law Bots: How AI is Reshaping the Legal Profession by Matthew Stepka. He goes into how Artificial Intelligence or “AI” is potentially taking away blue-collar jobs because they are more efficient and are more capable of completing inhumanly possible tasks. One of the ways that AI could replace occupations is in the legal area. Such as replacing attorneys. The article states, “In this way, AI is having a profound effect on the practice of law. Though AI is more likely to aid than replace attorneys in the near term” (Stepka). He further goes on to say that they have already started implementing these bots to accomplish certain legal tasks, “it is already being used to review contracts, find relevant documents in the discovery process, and conduct legal research. More recently, AI has begun to be used to help draft contracts, predict legal outcomes, and even recommend judicial decisions about sentencing or bail” (Stepka). Even though these are just a few ways that AI is making its way into the judicial system there still is some skepticism because of AI’s ability to understand rationale and decisions that only humans’ consciousness can understand.

Although AI is not replacing attorneys, they are being used by them. In the article it describes that “Attorneys are already using AI, and especially Machine Learning (ML), to review contracts more quickly and consistently, spotting issues and errors that may have been missed by human lawyers” (Stepka). These programs can review contracts and cases faster than humans. The challenge with this type of AI is how it describes and analyzes the documents resulting in some faultiness. Other kinds of AI such as Westlaw Edge is a program that many attorneys already use for research. It uses algorisms to understand words instead of trying to match them with other words. Another feature from Westlaw Edge is Quick Check where its AI is used to draft arguments and to help out attorneys if they have missed anything while drafting. Along with analyzing the content of documents AI can also create them as well. It goes on to talk about how AI can generate drafts, reports, and journals but sometimes will type things that are irrelevant. The article conveys that in order for AI to be useful in the legal world it would need to be trained, “In order for AI to draft legal contracts, for example, it will need to be trained to be a competent lawyer. This requires that the creator of the AI collect the legal performance data on various versions of contract language, a process called “labeling” (Stepka). 

There are many questions as to how AI will be incorporated into the legal system but for now there are not too many huge leaps when it comes to becoming fully AI-based in the legal system. This is because AI is created by humans, indicating that the programs can have malfunctions and errors that humans would be able to overcome with consciousness. Another reason the article states why AI is not ready to be used in the judicial systems is because people might succumb to just blatantly believing whatever the AI believes is correct. Without the oversight of a real human being, there is a long way to go until we can fully put our faith in AI as a whole.

Law Bots: How AI Is Reshaping the Legal Profession

Christian is an economics major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2025.

Posted by Ian Benzler.

An arbitrator has recently ruled against the sheriff and in favor of the Teamsters union in Franklin County, Washington, after Sheriff Jim Raymond tried to prevent a union representative, Jesus Alvarez, from visiting jail employees, known as correction officers, outside of normal working hours.  Further, Raymond only let union representatives visit their clients when escorted by the sheriff himself or a human resources worker. Despite the arbitrator’s ruling, Sheriff Raymond does not plan on changing his actions as he feels that “An arbitrator has no authority to order a sheriff to open the jail hour doors to a union. This is just a union trying to take control away from the sheriff, so they can control a law enforcement operation.”  Raymond also explains he is simply preventing union representatives from meeting correction officers in the jail and that they are free to meet at any time in any other location.

The Teamsters union plans to continue to challenge the sheriff’s actions as they aim to completely resolve the conflict, which has been going on for 18 months since October 2020.  Six months earlier, the correction officers dropped their previous union, the Franklin County Correction Officers Association, and picked up the Teamsters Union to represent them.  The Franklin County Correction Officers Association had negotiated the correction officers’ previous contract, which contained the provision that the labor representative “may visit the work location of employees covered by the agreement at any reasonable time for the purpose of investigating grievances.”  However, this agreement had expired more than a year prior to the arbitrator’s decision.  As such, representatives were allowed to enter the jail at any hour after being met at the gate. There was no issue during the first six months that Teamsters represented the correction officers but then on October 6, 2020, Sheriff Raymond changed policy to prevent visits after normal hours.

The dispute then spilled into arbitration, which looked into the issues of the work location for correction officers and what is reasonable hours for visit at the jail.  County officials deemed work location to be the entire Franklin County Courthouse, including the jail, and that reasonable visiting hours were the normal business hours.  They further argued that the Teamsters were not there to negotiate the contract and thus did not know how the provision was to be interpreted.  On the other hand, the union argued that the policy change came as a result of hostility toward the union as its representatives were able to come into the jail for six months.  The union also argued that only being allowed to visit during normal visiting hours would prevent employees working night shifts from being able to raise any issues they face. The arbitrator ultimately ruled that “since Alvarez had been allowed to come into the jail both during day and night shifts for six months, which showed what the past practice had been.”

This article relates to business law as it discusses the topics of arbitration and contract dispute, both of which are topics that we have discussed in class.  A contract is an agreement between two or more parties that is legally binding and enforceable.  A contract dispute occurs when any party in a contract disagrees with any terms, definitions, or provisions contained within the contract.  Arbitration is an alternative dispute resolution where a neutral third party, known as the arbitrator, hears the dispute and imposes a legally binding resolution for both parties.  The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and the correction officers that work there were engaged in a contract that provided guidelines for how the officers were to perform their duties and meet with their union representatives.  The sheriff of Franklin County disagreed with the contract’s provision that allowed union representatives to enter the jail at any reasonable time, and as such initiated a contract dispute.  Finally, the dispute moved to arbitration where the arbitrator determined that the jail served as part of the Franklin County Courthouse, which served as a business to its employees, the correction officers.  As such, the arbitration hearing was conducted over business law issues.

This case is very interesting for a few reasons.  First of all, I was surprised to read that the sheriff does not plan to change his policies despite the arbitrator’s ruling.  Decisions made in arbitration are supposed to be legally binding on all parties, so the union representatives should to visit the jail at any hour to meet with all correction officers, per the arbitrator’s decision.  If the sheriff does not follow the ruling, I would expect there to be legal consequences, but the article does not discuss such a possibility.  Next, I was surprised by the arbitrator’s decision to rule in favor of the union.  The ruling seems reasonable based on the old contract, but that contract was expired so I do not think it should be considered legally binding.  I look at it like the current Collective Bargaining Agreement dispute between Major League Baseball and its Players Association: the agreement has expired, and the two sides are in the midst of negotiating a new agreement.  However, until that point, there will not be any baseball played as there are no guidelines that currently prevail over the sport.  I would expect the same to apply for the dispute between the Teamsters union and Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.  Since the two parties are still negotiating a new agreement, then I would not expect there to be any interactions between the parties regarding changes in policy.  The jail is essential to government and needs correction officers so there can not be a total lockout or shutdown of operations like Major League Baseball, but I would not expect the previous contract’s provisions to carry over for more than a year past expiration.

Ian is an accounting major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2024.

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/politics-government/article258741353.html

Posted by Dylan Fahy.

This article discusses how Roger Ng, a former managing director for Goldman Sachs, worked with a Malaysian financer by the name of Jho Low to allegedly “bribe officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates and to launder billions of dollars stolen from 1Malaysia Development Bhd., a state-controlled economic development company known as 1MDB” (Fanelli). Another man, named Timothy Leissner, a former Goldman Sachs partner, allegedly participated in meetings with Mr. Ng and Mr. Low to discuss bribing government officials to benefit Goldman Sachs. He also says that at this meeting, Mr. Low made a chart with all of the officials which they bribed. The issue that has arisen is that Mr. Leissner, who previously said that Mr. Ng was not at that meeting, in and FBI memo, was now saying that Mr. Ng was in fact at the meeting and knew about the bribery plans. Mr. Ng’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, also says that “Mr. Leissner never mentioned an alleged bribery chart until nearly three years into discussions with investigators” (Fanelli).

Mr. Agnifilo’s goal is to ruin any credibility that Mr. Leissner has as a witness in this case. By pointing out the inconsistencies in his testimony, as well as the fact that he has already been accused of these bribery crimes himself, he is showing the court that Mr. Leissner is not a credible witness. Additionally, in their time at Goldman Sachs, Mr. Leissner and Mr. Ng “helped raise $6.5 billion in bond offerings for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013” (Fanelli). However, despite raising this much money, most of it was laundered away by means of offshore shell companies. Although Mr. Low was a key partner in these illegal deals, he is still at large. Personally, I find it odd that he is still at large considering he was such a big part in these illegal actions. Also, with how digital the world is today it seems like it would not be that hard to find him. The article does go on to say that Mr. Leissner and Mr. Ng never told Goldman Sachs that Mr. Low was a middleman in these deals, so part of me does understand why it may be harder to find him if there is not much of a trail.

At the end of the article, it is made known that Mr. Leissner did in fact lie to the FBI by “falsely saying that his ex-wife and Mr. Ng were responsible for certain crimes that he in fact committed” (Fanelli). When Mr. Agnifilo was able to get Mr. Leissner to admit this, it is clear that he as no credibility left. This is because since admitted to knowingly lying to the FBI, why should people have any reason to believe him now? This article is a great example of cross examination and it clearly worked for Mr. Agnifilo and his client, Mr. Ng. This is why a good cross examination is absolutely essential. Without Mr. Agnifilo being able to get this information out of Mr. Leissner, the court would still be under the assumption that Mr. Ng was at the meeting and what Mr. Leissner said in court and to the FBI was true. All in all, this article was very interesting, clear cut, and easy to understand. It gave me a clear understanding of the case and I leave it with more knowledge than I had before.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ex-goldman-banker-a-key-1mdb-trial-witness-is-challenged-by-defense-11646267122

Dylan is a sophomore and a Finance and Accounting Major, Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2024.

Posted by Chris Stapleton.

On Monday February 28th, Supreme Court Justices argued with differing points of view regarding federal authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Conservative Justices which make up the majority of the Supreme Court are in favor of general rules to limit the regulatory power of the federal government. Meanwhile, liberal Justices believe that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) current approach to the issue is effective and necessary. This case reached the Supreme Court after a lower court approved the EPA to regulate emissions using strategies that consider the effects the emissions have beyond the property lines of power plants. West Virginia took this decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that the decision will result in administrative overreach and could be the first step in overregulation from the Biden Administration.

Conservative Justices questioned the limits on federal agencies as they relate to regulations. These ideas formed the “major-questions doctrine” which presumes that federal agencies can not make rules that impact large sectors of the economy without “explicit direction from Congress” (Bravin, Puko). In a sense, one side to the argument believes that federal agencies should not have the power to make regulations that could have such profound impacts on the economy. The other side believes the EPA is acting as it should in making regulation to protect the environment.

If the ruling from the court were to prevent the EPA from making this regulation, President Biden’s agenda on climate regulations would be detrimentally impacted. Biden must rely on EPA rules and regulations to reach targets to reduce emissions. President Biden must rely on new rules from the EPA because the currently divided Congress has failed to pass his $2 trillion spending proposal for social and climate issues. Limits on the regulation of federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency would cause a major halt in Biden’s plans to reduce emissions.

In my opinion, I think it is beneficial that this case has gone to the Supreme Court rather than simply allowing the EPA to make such an impactful regulation. While I do not have an opinion on whether the regulation should be implemented or not, I do not think a federal agency should have so much unchecked power to be able to make new rules that will have a large impact on the energy industry and other economic sectors. In this case, the agency’s power is being checked by the Judicial system, and depending on the result of the case, it will also be checked by Congress.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-hears-arguments-on-limits-of-epas-powers-11646087306?mod=business_major_pos13

Chris is a sophomore, Finance Major, at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University.

Posted by Andrew Rogers.

Even though he stepped down from office, ex-Govenor Andrew Cuomo still faces legal problems that could cost the public millions. The state has agreed to pay up to $9.5 million to the legal teams of attorneys who are investigating and defending Governor Andrew Cuomo over sexual harassment allegations. It includes the legal fees of the individuals who have represented the office of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. It also includes the costs of an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him. Newly sworn in Gov. Kathy Hochul can also decide whether the state should continue to pay lawyers to defend her administration.

The ex-governor and his administration face lawsuits from women who accused him of sexual harassment. His attorney general is also investigating his use of state employees to help write a book.”We will be reviewing all legal contracts and making appropriate decisions on the need for legal representation and whether to continue any contracts,” Hochul’s spokesperson, Haley Viccaro, said. After an investigation led by Letitia James, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned following accusations of sexual harassment. One of Cuomo’s alleged victims, Lindsey Boylan said she plans to sue the ex-governor and his aides. “I believe if there is going to be any kind of appropriate conclusion to this, it has to be to make the victims of his misconduct whole,” Debra Katz, attorney for former Cuomo aide Charlotte Bennett, said.

If Cuomo is sued over allegations of misconduct, the public could end up covering the legal fees and any settlement. As governor, he signed legislation that requires state employees who sexually harass on the job to pay the state back. Cuomo could end up using his $18 million in campaign money for legal fees. If he is charged with a crime, Cuomo would most likely have to pay for his own lawyer. However, he could still seek state reimbursement under certain circumstances.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/cuomo-legal-woes-cost-public-millions

Andrew is an accounting major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2023.