Features
Legal Minefields In Using Twitter For Promotions
In today's digital era where consumers rely heavily on social media for news and entertainment, it has become increasingly common for entertainment companies to join the conversation on popular platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Marketers have found that authentic and meaningful engagement with consumers on Twitter can have a lasting impact.
Caution Urged for Entertainment and Media Companies In How Their Website Terms of Service Are Accessed by Users
The vast majority of terms of service on websites are unenforceable. Entertainment, media and other companies spend a great deal of time and money in crafting what they believe to be appropriate TOS, which they hope will provide the various protections, safe harbors and advantages needed in dealing with the public or in transacting business. Unfortunately, in most cases those bits will not have any legal bite.
Same-Sex Spouses Cannot Bar Paternity Suit, Says Court
Monroe County Family Court Judge Joan Kohout handed a lesbian couple a disappointing decision when she determined that a married same-sex couple cannot use a marital statute to block a man's paternity petition for the child he fathered with one of the spouses during the women's marriage.
Columns & Departments
Counsel Concerns
A Philadelphia-based litigation funding company is suing a California law firm and its client over the alleged failure to repay funds loaned to help support the client during his copyright suit against musical artist Usher and various record labels.
Real Estate Sale-Leaseback: Making a Comeback
With the "Great Recession" coupled with the uncertainty of the announced convergence of U.S. and international accounting standards, some industry analysts predicted that real estate sale-leasebacks would be eliminated from the array of possible corporate fundraising strategies. That possible demise appears to be greatly exaggerated.
Features
The NLRB <i>McDonald's</i> Ruling and Franchisors
The NLRB general counsel's July 29, 2014, ruling that McDonald's is a joint employer of those who work for its roughly 14,000 franchised restaurants in the United States continues to send ripples through both the legal and business worlds.
Features
Marketing Tech: Five Steps to a Strategic Marketing Technology Budget
Drafting a technology budget that adds value to the firm is increasingly important, and following these five steps will go a long way in ensuring that is the case.
Features
With All Due Deference
In the courtroom, a business transaction, or on a ball field, a loss can also be a victory. Such is the case for employees in the matter of <I>Nielsen v. AECOM Technology</I>, decided by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2014.
Features
<i>Res Judicata</i> and Collateral Estoppel In Subsequent Arbitration Proceedings
It is not uncommon in the realm of reinsurance disputes ' where the reinsurance contracts at issue very often require an arbitral forum ' for a party that has been victorious on an issue or claim in an initial arbitration (or lawsuit) to attempt to preclude its opponent or a related party from re-adjudicating that same claim or issue in a subsequent arbitration.
Features
Obama Weighs In To Favor Net Neutrality
President Obama, saying he is fulfilling a promise he made during his 2008 presidential campaign, stepped onto the "net neutrality" battlefield on Nov. 10 by releasing a statement (complete with video) calling on theFCC to adopt rules that prevent Internet service providers from charging more for faster online access and that "protect net neutrality."
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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 ›
- Meet the Lawyer Working on Inclusion Rider LanguageAt the Oscars in March, Best Actress winner Frances McDormand made “inclusion rider” go viral. But Kalpana Kotagal, a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll had already worked for months to write the language for such provisions. Kotagal was developing legal language for contract provisions that Hollywood's elite could use to require studios and other partners to employ diverse workers on set.Read More ›
- Use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements In White Collar InvestigationsThis article discusses the practical and policy reasons for the use of DPAs and NPAs in white-collar criminal investigations, and considers the NDAA's new reporting provision and its relationship with other efforts to enhance transparency in DOJ decision-making.Read More ›
- 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 ›