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On May 9, 2003, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts announced that Bayer Corporation, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, had been sentenced and ordered to pay a criminal fine of $5,590,800 stemming from its earlier plea of guilty to violating the Federal Prescription Drug Marketing Act by failing to list with the FDA its drug product, Cipro, that was privately labeled for an HMO. Such listing is required under the federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act. The Federal Prescription Drug Marketing Act, Pub. L. 100-293, enacted on April 22, 1988, as modified on August 26, 1992 by the Prescription Drug Amendments (PDA) Pub. L. 102-353, 106 Stat. 941, amended sections 301, 303, 503, and 801 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, codified at 21 U.S.C. '' 331, 333, 353, 381, to establish requirements for distributing prescription drug samples.

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Way back in the 80s, companies in the U.S. Defense industry determined that it was in their best interests to band together and develop the Defense Industry Initiatives as a method to police themselves during a time when their industry was fraught with fraud and corruption. As an aftermath, ethics and compliance programs have been developed and implemented by the majority of U.S. companies. To further entice companies to establish an effective and proactive program designed to detect and, to the extent possible, prevent violations of law The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations, passed in November 1991, rewards these companies with relief when sentenced for violations of law.

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Recent rulings of importance to your practice.

Whether certain conduct is a crime depends on more than legislatures, judges, and juries. When prosecutors decide whether, whom, and what to charge, the policies underlying their decisions create operative standards of conduct. So, too, do those of agencies administering regulatory programs backed by criminal sanctions. But what about the private sector? Sensible standards of conduct articulated by trade associations can and should play a substantial role in drawing the line between acceptable business practices and bad conduct that can be subject to criminal sanctions.

Circa 1999, many law firms became accustomed to conducting much of their day-to-day work via e-mail. E-mail, however, has more than its share of shortcomings. For starters, it does not afford the security and confidentiality most clients want in their communications with attorneys and in the exchange of potentially sensitive files. Likewise, e-mail is ill-suited for document collaboration. Trying to track comments from different participants on a given document through a long string of e-mail dialogue while maintaining some notion of version control poses a significant challenge.

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Few things can be more annoying for a corporate client than "cybergriping," the practice of using an Internet "complaint name" ' typically the client's trademark followed by the phrase "sucks.com" ' that is devoted to criticism of the company. <I>The Taubman Co. v. Webfeats</I>, decided in February, is the first Court of Appeals decision to address cybergriping. It continues the trend of several district court opinions that have taken a tolerant approach to the practice, at least where it is not engaged in by competitors or for commercial purposes.

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A recent decision by a Manhattan appeals court could clear the way for a class action lawsuit against the Internet's second-largest domain-name registration company for its past advertising practices.