When management or the Board of Directors suspects possible misconduct within the company, they cannot respond with sound business judgment unless they have good information about what happened. In serious cases, they probably need outside counsel to investigate, report, and recommend remedies. The government has long encouraged companies to disclose the results of these internal investigations by offering the hope of leniency in charging or sentencing. On Sept. 22, 2003, the Attorney General added a "stick" to this "carrot" approach when he announced the Justice Department's new policy of charging the most serious criminal offenses that are readily provable, with a limited exception in cases where a defendant provided substantial assistance.
- November 01, 2003Avi S. Garbow
Attorney General John Ashcroft said recently that law-enforcement agents had arrested 125 suspects in a crackdown on Internet crimes ranging from hacking to fraud to selling stolen goods. The seven-week cybercrime sweep involved police from Ghana to Southern California and uncovered 125,000 victims who had lost more than $100 million, he told a news conference.
November 01, 2003Samuel Fineman, Esquire, Editor-in-ChiefIn deciding to review the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act, the U.S. Supreme Court will revisit Congress' efforts to protect children…
November 01, 2003Samuel Fineman, EsquireThe latest on legislation affecting the Internet.
November 01, 2003Samuel Fineman, Esq.The Internet has made commerce as close and as quick as a mouse click, but it has also caused a dramatic increase in e-identity theft. Due to the passive approach taken by Federal and state authorities toward combating it, legal practitioners must use statutes designed to eliminate unlawful actives associated with e-identity theft, to eradicate the theft itself.
November 01, 2003Jonathan BickIn a bold experiment, Stamford, CT-based General Electric Commercial Finance is buying outside legal services over the next 2 years through reverse-auction bidding ' in Internet chat rooms ' this month.
November 01, 2003Thomas B. ScheffeyThere must be something in the fiber-optic cable in Philadelphia. Why else would the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit be such a hotbed for Internet policy making? For Stefan Presser, the longtime legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, it is a hotbed blooming with work. Presser is a member of the legal team that filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania attorney general Mike Fisher in September. The suit challenges a statute that allows the AG to force Internet service providers to block particular Web sites from being viewed by Pennsylvania residents that his office alleges contain child pornography.
November 01, 2003Laura PearlmanRecent developments in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.
November 01, 2003Julian S. Millstein, Edward A. Pisacreta and Jeffrey D. NeuburgerIn the second of two articles on use of software escrow in e-commerce projects, we take a look at how to avoid some technology pitfalls.
November 01, 2003Bea Strickland Wray and Judith SilverAfter a furious round of litigation at the trial and appellate court levels, the national Do Not Call Registry emerged in mid-October intact and enforceable. In the first few weeks of the Registry's effective date, the FTC received over 50,000 consumer complaints. Commission officials midmonth were reviewing these complaints for patterns and repeat violators, and hoped through these efforts to be in a position to bring the first enforcement actions before the end of the year.
November 01, 2003D. Reed Freeman Jr.