January, 2017 - HospitalityLawyer.com®

Hackers Use New Tactic at Austrian Hotel: Locking the Doors

by Dan Bilefsky in Insurance & Loss Prevention, Legal, Lodging, Risk Management, Safety & Security. Posted January 31, 2017

Hackers Use New Tactic at Austrian Hotel: Locking Doors The ransom demand arrived one recent morning by email, after about a dozen guests were locked out of their rooms at the lakeside Alpine hotel in Austria. The electronic key system at the picturesque Romantik Seehotel Jaegerwirt had been infiltrated, and the hotel was locked out ...

Employers Required to Use New Form I-9

by Andrea Kirshenbaum in Human Resources, Legal. Posted January 30, 2017

As of January 22, 2017, employers are required to use the new Form I-9 issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). A link to the new form can be found here. Employers who fail to use the updated form can be subject to fines and penalties, which nearly doubled in 2016 (the minimum ...

Supreme Court Agrees To Wade Into Class Action Waiver Conflict

by Fisher Phillips in Food & Beverage, Human Resources, Legal, Lodging. Posted January 20, 2017

In a widely expected move, the U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to settle a dispute about whether employers can use mandatory class action waivers with their workers. The decision, which should be issued by June 2017, will provide clarity to a topic that has become increasingly muddled over the past year. Employers will spend the ...

Local Hotelier Launches Hospitality Management Firm

by Kingsbridge Managment in Hotel Development, Lodging. Posted January 12, 2017

Jan. 4, 2016, Victoria, BC – Suzanne Gatrell has launched her new hospitality management company, Kingsbridge Management Ltd., and announced her first client, Victoria, BC’s Oswego Hotel. Effectively immediately, Gatrell takes over the full management contract of a hotel she has been overseeing as general manager for seven years. Prior to joining the Oswego, Gatrell ...

Binary Treachery: Defending Yourself from Attacks Coming at the Speed of Light

by David Denney in Food & Beverage, Insurance & Loss Prevention, Risk Management. Posted January 10, 2017

It seems these days that not a month goes by when one does not hear about a major company’s network infrastructure being hacked. Major retailers (including bars and restaurants), insurance companies, payment systems and even Experian, the credit reporting agency, have been victims of cyber attacks resulting in the theft of the personal information of ...

Where Does Hotel Industry Joint Employment Liability End?

by Buchalter in Hotel Development, Human Resources, Legal, Lodging. Posted January 6, 2017

A big issue facing hotel owners is who is the employer—is it the owner or the manager, the franchisor or the franchisee, the client or the contractor? Who has the liability for employment claims? Many hotel owners today are real estate investment trusts, private funds, insurance companies and other institutional owners, which muddies dividing lines, ...

Unsung Heroes of Hospitality – Security Directors

by Larry Mogelonsky in Lodging, Safety & Security. Posted January 5, 2017

We often take the role of our security directors for granted. While most of us in hospitality focus our efforts on finding ways to enhance our guests’ comfort (and make more revenues!), we can only do so in an environment where both safety and security are assured. After all, this is a department where reports ...

Establishing “Workweeks” For Exempt Employees

by John Thompson in Human Resources, Legal. Posted January 4, 2017

We have written previously about how important the “workweek” concept is in complying with the federal Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum-wage and overtime requirements. An FLSA workweek is a fixed, regularly-recurring period of seven, consecutive, 24-hour periods that management expressly adopts for FLSA purposes. Employers must select and document at least one such workweek (or ...

Help Fight Human Trafficking: a business travel New Year’s resolution

by Travel and Transport in Safety & Security, Travel. Posted January 3, 2017

You might not realize it, but business travelers are in a unique position to be a line of defense in one of the world’s greatest tragedies: the crime of human trafficking. Because of the element of travel, the world of the business traveler and human trafficking victims overlap in surprising number of areas. Due to ...

Monthly Archives: January 2017