Hope and Change
The combination of new people, priorities, resources and coordination ' coupled with public and Congressional outrage ' promises to bring a surge of white-collar enforcement, but perhaps accompanied by some sanity in sentencing.
Strategy for the Secured Creditor in a Single Asset Real Estate Case
The Bankruptcy Code ' 362(d)(3) provides unique grounds for stay relief by permitting a creditor secured by a bankruptcy debtor's "single asset real estate" to pursue an act against the property as early as 90 days after the case's filing. To take full advantage of this provision, however, secured creditors should carefully manage the dual time frames set forth in this Bankruptcy Code section.
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Companies Filing for Bankruptcy, and SEC Fraud Enforcement Actions
A recent study found that companies filing for bankruptcy protection were three times more likely than non-bankrupt companies to face enforcement action by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to alleged financial statement fraud.
How to Identify a Non-Statutory Insider
Recently, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower courts' rulings that a public company was an insider of another non-affiliated public company and was therefore required to return a $188.2 million payment made over four months before the debtor's bankruptcy filing. This decision, illustrates how critical it is for lenders and vendors to conform their conduct toward troubled companies so as to reduce their risk of being deemed non-statutory insiders.
The Myth of Certainty
In the constantly evolving world of e-commerce, legal contracts may be no more credible than tidbits found in the muck of online fact, fiction and plain nonsense that make sites such as Snopes.com so vital to separating Internet reality from Internet fraud. The truth is that no matter how well an attorney writes a contract, or Web site terms and conditions, another attorney can usually find a way to attack what the first one wrote.
Music Fans May Help Settle the Score in <i>Satriani v. Coldplay</i> Infringement Suit
A recently filed music copyright suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ' <i>Satriani v. Martin</i>, ' has revealed a new and unexpected application for the Web, namely, its potential as a forum for infringement analysis by amateur musicologists. Long before any party to this litigation will be required to submit expert reports or summary judgment briefs, YouTube postings have offered remarkably insightful analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of the parties' respective cases.
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e-Commerce Docket Sheet
QVC to Pay $7.5 Million to Settle Charges That It Aired Deceptive Claims <br>Credit Repair Companies Charged with Deceiving Consumers
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e-Commerce Companies v. Hackers
The 21st century is clearly the age of cybercrime, and e-commerce companies of all stripes should be especially concerned because there are only two types of computer systems: those that have been hacked, and those that will be hacked.
Avoiding Dysfunctional Litigation
Attempts by plaintiffs in product liability actions to bootstrap consumer fraud claims to obvious claims of product defect must be rejected wholesale by the American judicial system. The author discusses why.
Jungle to Desert: Defending the Government Contractor
The key factor in succeeding with either the government contractor defense or the combatant activities exception is the ability to establish that the government exercised its discretion over the manner in which the contract was performed. A look at recent cases demonstrating that these defenses are invaluable tools in defending a broad range of claims against government contractors.
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- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith 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.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (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.Read More ›
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- The DOJ Goes Phishing: The Rise of False Claims Act Cybersecurity LitigationWhile 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.Read More ›
- What Does 2024 Hold for Cybersecurity?Our annual poll of experts on the trends and developments to watch out for in 2024 in AI, data privacy, cybersecurity, e-discovery and more.Read More ›