may 13 covid-19 update

May 13, 2020 ARA Update to Recyclers

Congress
House Democrats unveiled a $3 trillion dollar COVID-19 relief bill opening up a new round of negotiations between House Democrats and Senate Republicans. The House bill includes $1 trillion in relief for state and local governments, direct payments to individuals up to $1,200 per person, and $175 billion in rent, mortgage, and utility assistance. A vote on the House bill is scheduled to take place by Friday.
  
Recovery and Relief
After originally resisting calls to ease restrictions on the use of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funds, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin has expressed willingness to make changes to the program to give employers greater flexibility in how PPP funds can be spent. However, Secretary Mnuchin himself does not appear to be willing to ease restrictions and that any changes to the program must come from Congress. Therefore, it will be interesting to see whether House Democrats and Senate Republicans can reach a consensus on this issue in the coming weeks. Both Democrats and Republicans have expressed a desire to ease restrictions on how much money can be used by a business on overhead.
   
Automotive
Last week, LKQ Corporation (LKQ) filed a lawsuit in federal court against General Motors Company. The lawsuit involves a licensing and patent dispute. LKQ is claiming that during negotiations with GM regarding a Design Patent License Agreement, which would provide LKQ a license to many of GM’s design patents, GM claimed that LKQ had been infringing on already existing GM design patents (for which there was a prior licensing agreement). LKQ is asking the federal court in the Northern District of Illinois to determine that they did not infringe on GM’s design patents. For more information, see LKQ’s complaint.  

Contact ARA Staff with any questions or concerns.  You can reach us at 571-208-0428 extension 2 or 3 or Sandy directly at 505-228-0401. In order to comply with the Virginia Governor's Directive to close all non-essential businesses, the ARA Office is closed and the staff continues to work remote from home.

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 For resources, go to ARA's COVID-19 Resource Page
 For resource links, go to ARA's COVID-19 Links
 
For Essential Business and Stay at Home Orders,
go to ARA's State & Provincial COVID-19 Orders