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Features

Disclosing Information Security Breaches Under Privacy and Securities Laws

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse estimates that over 100 million records containing sensitive personal information have been involved in security breaches. This non-profit consumer organization has tracked these breaches on its website (www.privacyrights.org) beginning with the significant and well-publicized ChoicePoint breach in February 2005. As a result, over two-thirds of states enacted security breach notification laws governing the notification that a company must make in the event of a security breach. This article outlines the requirements for providing notification of a security breach under state security breach notification law by any company and the factors that a public company needs to take into account regarding whether to disclose a security breach under federal securities law.

Thimerosal and Autism: A Paradigm for Judges to Act As Gatekeepers

Victor E. Schwartz & Micah L. Hobbs

One of the principal problems in our civil justice system is holding a defendant responsible for some very bad harm that it did not cause. Acting as 'gatekeepers,' judges are the key persons who can prevent this injustice, and many keep out both so-called 'junk science' and preserve the integrity of our legal system. Some very well meaning judges, however, do not do so. Sometimes, they can be persuaded to allow a jury to have a look at a case that should have been dismissed.

Features

FLSA Collective Action Litigation

Jennier Blum Feldman

When the dust settles from the current round of discussions on increasing the federal minimum wage, the lowest paid of the country's non-exempt employees may or may not be earning an additional dollar or two per hour. Either way, the debate will have drawn the country's ' and the plaintiffs' bars' ' attention toward the lowest paid of our country's workers, and the climate will be right for those attorneys to begin focusing not only on how much non-exempt employees are being paid per hour, but also on whether these workers are being paid in a manner that is consistent with every intricate (and often contrary-to-common-sense) twist and turn of federal and state law.

Quarterly State Compliance Review

Sandra Feldman

Corporations, LLCs, and other statutory business entities must comply with the provisions of their home states' business entity laws. These laws are constantly being amended by the state legislatures and interpreted by the courts. This edition of our new regular series, Quarterly State Compliance Review, looks at some amendments to these laws that went into effect during the last three months, and reviews some court cases of interest decided during that period.

The Missing Link Between Corporate IT and Legal

Stacy Jackson & Keith Moore

In 15 years of advising corporate and government litigators on the best processes and technology to deliver discovery management solutions, our company, IE Discovery, consistently encounters a common challenge in almost every organization: The legal and information technology departments simply do not communicate well. This can have major ramifications in producing information in response to requests from investigators, regulators, or litigation opponents. In the following dialogue, IE Discovery's corporate counsel, Stacy O'Neil Jackson, and its technology services and support manager, Keith Moore [the authors], discuss some of the reasons for this breakdown and provide some practical tips for improving the communication between IT and Legal.

Features

Business Crimes Hotline

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

National news items you need to know.

Features

In the Courts

ALM Staff & Law Journal Newsletters

Recent rulings of importance to you and your practice.

Features

Complaints of Judicial Misconduct

Justin A. Thornton

As counsel in a hotly contested case, you suspect that the presiding federal judge has engaged in judicial misconduct. What are your options? Should you overlook the alleged misconduct for fear of incurring the judge's wrath and perhaps prejudicing your case? Is there a formal procedure for filing a complaint of judicial misconduct? Many in-house counsel and practitioners alike are unfamiliar with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. ' 351 et seq., and the Rules Governing Complaints of Judicial Misconduct and Disability adopted by each of the federal circuits, which govern the handling of complaints of judicial misconduct or disability.

Features

Electronic Records

David F. Axelrod & John A. Walker

In <i>Arthur Andersen LLP v. United States</i>, 125 S. Ct. 2129, 235 (2005), the Supreme Court acknowledged the importance of records management policies that provide for the routine destruction of unneeded records under ordinary circumstances. It is, however, common knowledge that such policies should ordinarily be suspended once an investigation or litigation is reasonably anticipated. This is normally accomplished through the imposition of a 'litigation hold,' the process of notifying employees of their obligations to preserve all potentially relevant records while continuing the routine destruction of non-relevant active and archived data. This may be a company's first line of defense against claims of spoliation or obstruction. The failure to suspend routine purges of records in the face of litigation has contributed to the imposition of sanctions as high as $1.45 billion on companies.

Features

The Changing Face of FDA Consent Decrees

Joseph Savage & Adam Ziegler

Historically, when a health care company had a compliance failure, counsel could help it remain in business by negotiating with the relevant agency. If the problem involved sales, marketing or pricing, the company could seek a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) with the Office of Inspector General (OIG) at Health and Human Services (HHS). If the problems related to manufacturing, counsel could obtain a consent decree of permanent injunction ('consent decree') with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA). Consent decrees and CIAs each had their particular burdens and benefits, which health care practitioners had learned to navigate. Now this tidy distinction has become blurred as the FDA has borrowed features from HHS's CIAs.

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