General Counsel and In House Counsel

Part One of a Two-Part Article

As we head into 2018, cryptocurrency and blockchain will continue to be a top initiative for pioneers in the financial services industry. As with any innovation within the financial services industry, the regulators are never far behind and are doing their best to keep up. Those that enter this space will find that they also have to pioneer the controls to manage the regulatory risks this technology presents.

Many corporations around the globe are preparing for May 2018, when Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) enforcement kicks in. The regulation encompasses a wide range of nuanced privacy requirements that can be challenging to operationalize. In particular, requirements around the rights of European data subjects — which include the right to be forgotten and rights to access, rectification and objection to processing — will be some of the most difficult to address.

Gone are the days when being the best lawyer was enough to guarantee landing and retaining clients. Clients are demanding that firms incorporate automation and increase their efficiency. Clients are relying on automation to streamline the work they outsource, and they expect their law firms to follow suit. To this end and to remain competitive, law firms need to offer their clients innovative solutions and build artificial intelligence (AI) into the core fabric of their practices.

Following the Equifax Inc. breach that compromised personal information of 145.5 million Americans including more than 8 million New Yorkers, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is proposing comprehensive legislation to tighten data security laws

The skill required to successfully exfiltrate 143 million records is certainly sufficient to successfully attack the integrity of that very same data. It is generally accepted that cyber criminals have not performed integrity attacks because there is a minimal profit motive: Records have a black-market value; in integrity attacks, there is no deliverable that can be sold. This paradigm may be shifting.

Biopharma companies and their insiders often possess material, nonpublic information. And since company equity usually makes up a large part of insiders' compensation, legal issues arise when they have access to such information and want to trade their equity.

In the face of weather and other emergencies, how do you handle pay for shutdowns in the middle of a day, extended company closings, and planned or unplanned late openings?

A Checklist for In-House Counsel

Every general counsel over the course of his or her career will face the need to conduct an internal investigation into events at the company. Many of these may be routine in nature, such as matters dealing with individual employees or human resources issues. But at times, the company may be required to examine issues affecting the core of its business, with potential serious impact on its financial performance or with regulatory exposure.