Features
E-mails and Privilege for In-House Counsel
Courts employ a heightened standard when companies attempt to shield their employee'in-house lawyer communications under the attorney-client privilege. The dominant reason for this scrutiny is the recognition that employees often involve in-house counsel in business and legal-related conversations, forcing courts to scrutinize whether the putatively privileged communication pertained to legal or business advice.
Features
Another Look at Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plans
By establishing a prearranged plan to trade their companies' stock in compliance with SEC Rule 10b5-1, corporate executives avail themselves of the only formally codified affirmative defense against a charge of insider trading. However, statistical evidence demonstrating that executives in trading plans outperform their peers by 6% to 10% have twice brought trading plans under academic and journalistic scrutiny.
Features
With Virtual Currency, Does Virtually Anything Go?
In late 2013, a Subway sandwich franchise in Pennsylvania was making the news for being one of the first small American businesses to accept bitcoin as payment for purchases. According to press reports, that franchise generated a lot of interest among hungry bitcoin enthusiasts, who went out of their way to visit the store. Should this be dismissed as a mere publicity stunt, or is the use of bitcoin something that deserves some thought?
Columns & Departments
Bit Parts
Nashville Federal Court Finds Plausible Copyright Infringement Claim over "Remind Me" Phrase<br>Puerto Rico District Court Rules There Were Implied Licenses for Music Festival Artworks, But Were the Licenses Irrevocable?<br>Songwriting Income and Record Production Activity Don't Support Long-Arm Jurisdiction
Features
A Dangerous Undertaking
Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote that "it would be a dangerous undertaking for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations." If Holmes didn't think he could do it, which of us thinks we're up to the task? Nonetheless, this was just the challenge taken up by Judge Block of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in <i>Cohen v. G&M Realty L.P.</i>
Features
Quarterly State Compliance Review
This edition of the Quarterly State Compliance Review looks at some legislation of interest to corporate lawyers that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014. It also looks at four recent decisions of interest from the Delaware courts.
Features
Supreme Court Leaves NY Online Sales Tax Law In Place
December 2 was an extraordinary day for Amazon.com Inc., the mammoth online retailer: Cyber Monday sales reached new heights, its fanciful plan to use drones to make deliveries was creating buzz ' and then the U.S. Supreme Court spoiled it all by turning down Amazon's challenge to online sales taxes.
Features
Prepayment Premiums and Make-Whole Payments
To determine whether a creditor has an enforceable right to collect a prepayment premium in bankruptcy, courts first consider the text of the loan documents.
Features
Ubi Sunt, Buck-Out Lease?
Despite predictions in several quarters, the so-called buck-out lease appears alive and healthy, if not as robust as it once was.
Features
The MAC Clause
This article is the second in a continuing series on resolving contentious issues in sophisticated lease transactions. In this installment: The MAC Clause.
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