This act enhances each state’s ability to detect and stop unlawful direct-to-consumer (DTC) shipments of alcoholic beverages to the state’s residents. Currently, 47 states permit DTC wine shipments by wineries, and approximately a dozen states permit DTC shipments of other alcoholic beverages. The act provides state regulators with new tools and better information to enable them to distinguish between licensed and unlicensed alcohol shipments and to stop businesses illegally shipping alcohol into the state without interfering with the operation of businesses complying with existing state law. For more information about enacting this uniform act, please contact Legislative Program Director Kaitlin Wolff at (312) 450-6615 or kwolff@uniformlaws.org.
This new act will fill a gap in the law regarding the execution of certain estate planning documents, including trusts and powers of attorney. The Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) authorizes the electronic execution of bilateral contracts if the parties to a transaction agree. The Uniform Electronic Wills Act (UEWA) authorizes the testator of a will and witnesses to execute a will in electronic form. However, trusts, powers of attorney, and some other types of estate planning documents fell into a legal grey area where the law governing electronic execution was ambiguous. The Uniform Electronic Estate Planning Documents Act clarifies that these documents may also be executed in electronic form. The new act was drafted to complement UEWA and could be adopted by a state simultaneously with that act to comprehensively authorize the electronic execution of wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and several other types of common estate planning documents.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for public bodies to meet when disasters and other emergencies make in-person meetings of public bodies either impossible or inadvisable. The Act is intended to provide a process to ensure that important public meetings can go forward when these events occur consistent with protecting public access to meetings. The act builds on existing state laws authorizing the declaration of emergencies and subjecting public meetings to various procedural and public access requirements. This Act is intended to work in harmony with those laws, particularly open meetings and other laws providing for public comment on and participation in the deliberations of public bodies.
In recent years, improvements in telecommunication technologies have transformed the delivery of health care. The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic greatly expanded patient demand for telehealth services. To meet patient needs, many states chose to modify licensure and other requirements that served as barriers to the delivery of telehealth services. Today, many states are re-examining laws related to telehealth, often with an eye toward expanding access to care while maintaining protections for patients. The Telehealth Act has two broad goals. The first is to make clear that, as a general matter, health care services may be provided through telehealth, if doing so is consistent with applicable professional practice standards and the practitioner’s scope of practice, as defined by the state in which the patient is located. The Telehealth Act’s second goal is to establish a registration system for practitioners who hold licenses in other states. This act permits a registered practitioner to provide telehealth services to patients located in the state adopting the act. The Uniform Law Commission hopes the act will give states the clear guidance and framework they need to implement effective telehealth services, as well as open borders so that more practitioners are able to assist patients that might otherwise have limited or access to health care.
The 2022 amendments to the Uniform Commercial Code address emerging technologies, providing updated rules for commercial transactions involving virtual currencies, distributed ledger technologies (including blockchain), artificial intelligence, and other technological developments. The amendments span almost every article of the UCC and add a new Article 12 addressing certain types of digital assets defined as “Controllable Electronic Records” (CERs). The amendments provide new default rules to govern transactions involving these new technologies and clarify the UCC’s applicability to mixed transactions involving both goods and services. The amendments also contain some miscellaneous revisions unrelated to technological developments but providing needed clarification.
Contact Us
(312) 450-6600
info@uniformlaws.org
Uniform Law Commission 111 N. Wabash Avenue, Suite 1010 Chicago, Illinois 60602
Uniform Law Commission The Uniform Law Commission (ULC, also known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws), established in 1892, provides states with non-partisan, well-conceived and well-drafted legislation that brings clarity and stability to critical areas of state statutory law.