On Dec. 19, 2005, 11 years after Congress enacted the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, as amended (USERRA), the U.S. Department of Labor issued final regulations under USERRA which became effective Jan. 18, 2006. The final regulations can be found at 20 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Part 1002. The DOL suggests these final regulations do not impose any new obligations on employers, but rather, serve as an implementation of the statutory requirements, as well as to clarify and interpret areas of the law. However, these regulations, the first ever issued under USERRA, turn the internal guidance of the DOL into binding regulations.

A corporate lawyer must address a myriad of issues when called on to assist in a merger, acquisition or corporate financing transaction. If the company being acquired or financed has intellectual property assets, the first order of business should be to enlist the aid of IP counsel. <br>Although it is likely in transactions of this type that corporate counsel will experience some degree of sleep deficit, hopefully there will be fewer sleepless nights if an IP attorney is part of the due diligence team. Certain IP-related issues are readily dealt with by experienced corporate counsel. Frequently, however, corporate counsel lacks the time, specific IP legal expertise, or technology-specific knowledge required to identify and resolve issues involving intellectual property assets ' issues that may significantly affect the valuation of the company involved in the corporate transaction.

This question is becoming increasingly important with the proliferation of blogs and Web postings for corporate criticism ' from wakeupwal mart.com to www.googlereallysucks.blogspot.com. And whether companies and their in-house counsel pursue actions against bloggers in these cases involves more than the usual assessment of opportunity costs and the pure business interests of the company. There are limits to the rights of companies to compel an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to reveal the name of its customer, particularly when the ISP customer wishes to remain anonymous. This article explores what the courts are requiring companies to show before they will call for an ISP to divulge a blogger's identity and provides some guidelines in evaluating whether to pursue such a strategy.

As the 2006 proxy season gets underway, shareholder activism shows no signs of slowing. Over the last few years, high-profile corporate scandals and news stories about executive excess and corporate waste have compelled many investors to seek ' or demand ' a more active role in corporate governance matters of the companies they own. Now that most companies have implemented the changes required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the stock exchanges, the agenda of the shareholder activist is changing.

On January 4, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox announced the SEC's unanimously adopted policy on the use of the its enforcement powers to impose monetary penalties on public companies for securities law violations. According to the policy, when deciding whether to impose fines, the SEC will focus on whether a corporation's violation provided an improper benefit to the company and its shareholders. If so, the SEC will be inclined to seek fines to deter future conduct. Conversely, the SEC will be less likely to pursue fines in cases where they would result in further harm to shareholders already injured by a corporation's actions. This article examines the new SEC policy regarding fines and its implications for corporations and shareholders.

Highlights of the latest commercial leasing cases from around the country.

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Several federal agencies and independent agencies and commissions have leasing authority granted by the U.S. Congress (<i>ie</i>, NASA for specific space needs; FDIC; SEC; U.S. Military for recruitment stations and other specific needs; Smithsonian Institution and others). The General Services Administration ('GSA') provides a large percentage of the commercial leasing space needs for the balance of governmental entities and certain services for even those within their own authority. The GSA has recently retained third-party brokerage firms on a national basis to assist the government in its leasing of office space. As more brokers &mdash; and, in the future, lawyers &mdash; are asked to assist the government with its space needs, an understanding of the leasing issues specific to the government is required. This article details some of these issues, and suggests ways to address them in your lease.

Every lease has a use clause. Most get little thought or attention. Use clauses permit a tenant to do any number of things. Next question?