Federal Travel Regulation (FTR)

The FTR is contained in 41 CFR Chapters 300-304. These implement statutory requirements and Executive branch policies for travel by federal civilian employees and others authorized to travel at government expense

The five chapters that form the FTR include:

41 CFR 300	General
41 CFR 301	Temporary Duty (TDY) Travel Allowances
41 CFR 302	Relocation Allowances
41 CFR 303	Payment of expenses connected with the death of certain employees
41 CFR 304	Payment from a non-federal source for travel expenses

Read Details of its requirements in ComplianceOnline

California Hazardous Waste Regulations

California has unique hazardous waste regulations that include, but substantially exceed requirements of the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations generally in effect in other states. It is also hard to navigate California’s hazardous waste requirements because of the dramatic differences in substantive requirements, enforced by pervasive local city and county agencies deputized as Certified Unified Program Agencies (CUPAs) and result in surprising violations and onerous penalties.

These national and international corporations did not know they were doing anything wrong because, under RCRA, most of these offenses would not be violations, and rarely are the relatively modest offenses so harshly enforced. However, due to widely-varying resources and competence, there are large gaps in compliance assurance, which inevitably leads to intervention by the state DTSC or even U.S. EPA Region 9, usually resulting in substantial penalties.

Related Trainings
Nuts and Bolts of California Environmental Regulations – Differences between U.S. EPA and State Requirements
Hazardous Waste Regulation: 10 Major Differences Between Federal RCRA and California Hazardous Waste Regulations

Google and California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003

The California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 or OPPA became effective on July 1, 2004, is a pioneering privacy law enacted by a state. It requires owners of commercial websites or online services to conspicuously post a privacy policy.

Applicability

OPPA applies to any website that collect personally identifiable information from California consumers.

OPPA does not apply to ISPs or similar entities that transmit such information at the request of third parties.

Google accused of OPPA non-compliance

In 2008, a New York Times reporter said in a blog post that Google might be violating OPPA since it hadn’t posted a link to its privacy policy from the homepage. Rather, the search engine’s privacy policy had been posted at the bottom of the About Google page.

Following this, privacy activists and groups sent the Google CEO a letter charging that "Google's reluctance to post a link to its privacy policy on its home page is alarming."

The company had argued that users could access its privacy policy by typing Google Privacy Policy in its search engine. A month and a barrage of criticism later, Google linked to its privacy policy from its homepage, fulfilling OPPA requirements

What is FMEA and How to Use it

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis is the subject of an international standard, IEC 60812-Analysis techniques for system reliability-Procedure for failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)

The only international standard that applies for FMEA is IEC 60812, which shows general application, but does not show the use of the tool in risk management.An extension to the FMEA allows analysis of the criticality of a failure, such an analysis is called FMECA or Failure Mode and Effects Criticality Analysis

Most medical device companies use FMECA, although they incorrectly label it as “FMEA”

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis was developed as a tool to explore the effects of failure of components on the reliability of various products.The tool was developed as a tool for use in the field of reliability engineering to explore where more rugged components would be required to obtain desired product life

The title of the standard, Analysis techniques for system reliability-Procedure for failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA), reflects its correct use

Use of FMEA
As an input to the Risk Management process FMEA should be used to:

Solvency II

Solvency II is a new, stronger EU-wide requirement on capital adequacy and risk management for insurers with the aim of increasing protection for policyholders. The strengthened regime should reduce the possibility of consumer loss or market disruption in insurance.

Solvency I was a minimum harmonization directive introduced in the early 1970s. It allowed for differences to emerge in the way that insurance regulation was applied across Europe leading to different regimes. It was also primarily focused on the prudential standards for insurers and did not include requirements for risk management and governance within firms.

Solvency II aims to achieve consistency across Europe on the key ideas of:

• Market consistent balance sheets;
• Risk-based capital;
• Own risk and solvency assessment (ORSA);
• Senior management accountability; and
• Supervisory assessment.

The Solvency II Directive states that the new regime will go live on 1 November 2012 when it will replace the Solvency I requirements and the current regulatory regime for insurance supervision for firms in the UK. The European Commission’s (EC) proposals for the Omnibus II Directive include an amendment to the implementation date by two months to 1 January 2013.

The new regime will apply to all insurance firms with gross premium income exceeding €5m or gross technical provisions in excess of €25m. Some insurance firms will be out of scope depending on the amount of premiums they write, the value of technical provision or the type of business written.

Solvency II principles and rules apply to Lloyd’s of London syndicates in full. Due to its specific nature, some of the Solvency II requirements are being considered for their application to Lloyd’s.

European process

Solvency II is being created with a four-level process or the ‘Lamfalussy processes