Regulation

The new UK Bribery Act comes into force in April 2011. It has been described by some as the most draconian anti-corruption law in the world.

Section 922 of Dodd-Frank created awards of 10%-30% of monetary sanctions for whistleblowers who report to the SEC original information leading to securities law enforcement actions that recover more than $1 million. Here are 10 actions organizations might take to help mitigate the increased regulatory risk this change may create.

As with domain names, social networking user names are often an extension of a person's or an organization's identity. Businesses, for example, use social networking identities to promote themselves as a source of goods and services. And the flip side of that coin is that abusive use of social networking user names allows a third party to benefit from the goodwill by-product endorsement. But here's the problem: Such abusive behavior constitutes intellectual property infringement.

As students returned to school recently, many may have been looking ahead to their next day off. And today, there are so many online schools that e-commerce executives are turning the chorus of Alice Cooper's classic 1972 schoolboy anthem "School's Out" ' "School's out forever" ' into reality by turning school into another form of e-commerce.

The ability to convert capital expenditures to operating expenses, tax considerations and other cost-savings benefits are sending businesses to the cloud with glee, while the legal profession is lagging behind but getting the hint. As the evolution of security measures becomes more imperative, tales of international disagreement regarding security regulation make the location of a vendor's servers a question of paramount importance in selecting a cloud provider. For lawyers, this question of location is compounded by jurisdictional considerations.

Part One of this article, last month, examined the liability involved with social media and e-mail use. Part Two discusses implementing compliant and defensible workplace policies.

In City of Ontario v. Quon, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a government employer's search of an employee's communications on an employer-issued pager was reasonable under the circumstances and, therefore, did not violate the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. The Court's narrowly tailored decision underscores that cases in the area of employee privacy will continue to be highly fact-sensitive.

In a case of first impression, SEC v. Jenkins, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona refused to dismiss an action brought by the SEC seeking reimbursement of bonuses and securities trading profits from a corporate CEO under Section 304 of SOX.