Our Incisive Media affiliate, <i>New Jersey Law Journal</i>, published the following commentary on the New Jersey legislature's attempt to react to the "sexting" issue by making Web site operators liable for what users write.
As obvious as this distaste for lawsuits may be to anyone who has ever been deposed, it nonetheless is often critical for businesses, and particularly technology firms, not only to be prepared to go (metaphorically) to war in the battlefield of the courtroom, but to actually take that step.
This article discusses the applicable general principles and drafting considerations for some of the most frequently litigated boilerplate provisions: choice-of-law, forum selection, venue, jury trial waiver and attorney's fees.
In the movies, it seems that monsters are always up to no good ' making mayhem or setting fires. But in a federal court in Philadelphia recently, a couple dozen movie monsters made some important new law and set a few significant precedents in the area of copyrights and trademarks that may help to define the doctrine of fair use for years to come.
The Supreme Court of Georgia recently held in <i>Trinity Outdoor, LLC v. Central Mut. Ins. Co.</i> that an insured for which the insurer is providing a defense does not have a claim for an alleged bad faith failure to settle prior to the entry of an excess judgment.
“Baseball arbitration” refers to the process used in Major League Baseball in which if an eligible player's representative and the club ownership cannot reach a compensation agreement through negotiation, each party enters a final submission and during a formal hearing each side — player and management — presents its case and then the designated panel of arbitrators chooses one of the salary bids with no other result being allowed. This method has become increasingly popular even beyond the sport of baseball.
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.
The DOJ's Criminal Division issued three declinations since the issuance of the revised CEP a year ago. Review of these cases gives insight into DOJ's implementation of the new policy in practice.
There is no efficient market for the sale of bankruptcy assets. Inefficient markets yield a transactional drag, potentially dampening the ability of debtors and trustees to maximize value for creditors. This article identifies ways in which investors may more easily discover bankruptcy asset sales.
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.
