A federal district court's recent summary judgment decision in <I>In re: Brican America, LLC Equipment Lease Litigation</I> appears to be a mixed bag for vendor finance companies.
A decision earlier this year on a motion to dismiss the complaint filed by the defendants in the case entitled <I>Security and Exchange Commission v. Elek Straub et al.</I> sustains the global reach of the FCPA.
Ninth Circuit federal appeals court Chief Judge Alex Kozinski recently questioned whether federal courts should hear motions to strike under California's "ant-SLAPP" statute. He wrote that the state statute "cuts an ugly gash through" the "integrated program of pre-trial, trial and post-trial procedures" set out in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Recently finalized rulemaking by the SEC to implement the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act allows issuers of securities to engage in general solicitation and advertising to accredited investors in some private placement offerings of securities. Although the SEC's announcement leaves several notable questions unanswered, Rule 506(c) has the potential to enhance the utility of investment programs in the franchise world.
The value of e-discovery technology varies, depending on a number of factors, including the provider that is hosting the data, the quality of technical support and the nature of the matter at hand. For that reason, there is no single one-size-fits-all platform.
With trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.
Insiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.
At the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.
This article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.
While the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative is still in its early stages and cybersecurity regulations are evolving, whistleblower plaintiffs have already begun leveraging the FCA to pursue alleged noncompliance with government cybersecurity requirements.
