U.S. Supreme Court Strengthens Franchisors' Ability to Litigate In Chosen Forum
Arbitration Provision Not Enforced Against Franchise Transferee
Franchisor Entitled to Terminate Franchises Without Notice Based on Fraudulent Inducement
The implications of the ruling are clear: Where one company seeks to acquire the assets of another, a simple disclaimer of liability will not be sufficient. Due diligence requires that the successor company closely examine any pending employment-related litigation of the seller and determine how a particular sale implicates the successor liability test under the federal common law.
Social media postings can be submitted as trial evidence as long as the party introducing the evidence can demonstrate to the judge that a jury could reasonably conclude the postings are authentic, the Delaware Supreme Court has ruled.
A price charged by a franchisee that is too low can adversely affect other franchisees and the franchisor by discouraging the provision of pre- and post-sale services, eroding brand image and jeopardizing the ability to introduce new products by depressing price points. Although relatively rare, a franchisee also may cause marketplace problems by charging too high a price for an attractive, new product in great demand.
When the U.S. Supreme Court 25 years ago decided Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, it adopted a legal theory that commentators would describe as revolutionizing securities law in the United States. By accepting the "fraud-on-the-market" theory, the Basic Court made it much easier for plaintiffs to get their cases certified as class actions, increasing the potential exposure of corporations and their officers and directors.
When is a sale a sale? This question is much more than semantics or a deep philosophical debate that college accounting majors have over a nice cold keg of Mountain Dew. Many an executive or business owner has gone to jail over this issue.
Television's old guard finally opened a hole in Aereo Inc.'s armor last month, winning a ruling that left the Internet TV upstart and its lawyers fighting to limit the damage ahead of arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court in April.
It is (high) time to rewrite and modernize the law that regulates access to our private communications and to the detailed information those communications automatically create.
Over the past decade, the volume of data in litigation and investigations has exponentially increased. As data has become more and more vulnerable to subpoenas and regulators, people have become singularly concerned with making relevance decisions for production. In the process, we have forgotten about focusing on the facts themselves and uncovering the stories within data.
Despite the active hostility of the Chinese, Indian and Russian governments, the spread of bitcoins throughout the world was untrammeled until last month. In a series of dramatic arrests and prosecutions, the U.S. government began an active campaign against the use of bitcoins for questionable purposes.
