Features
2015 Tax Legislation: Extenders Plus More
2015 was an eventful year for tax legislation for law firms, their clients and their employees. In addition to the extenders package, that has become an annual tradition in Congress, there were some other significant tax bills that passed over the summer.
Features
Mobile App Developer Agreements
Many companies that have had disputes with developers have been surprised to discover that the agreements signed, often without input from legal, failed to hold developers to measurable standards, give the company ongoing interest in deliverables, or provide meaningful remedies to problems that arise.
Features
ACA-Related Retaliation Claims
This article briefly summarizes the ACA's employer mandate and highlights the anti-retaliation provisions applicable to complaints of ACA violations. Next, the article summarizes the "Break Time for Nursing Mothers" law added to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by the ACA, and highlights the anti-retaliation provision applicable to this law. Last, the article suggests ways for employers to reduce the risk of employee retaliation claims.
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First Amendment and Trade Secrets Issues In Government/Private Promoters' Live Events
Many local governments operate live event venues. Unlike dealing with private venues, concert promoters and producers might bring First Amendment free speech claims against government-controlled event facilities over how a local government chooses which promoters/producers with which to work. There's also the issue of whether the governmental authority or a private promoter owns ticket subscriber information that the private promoter generates through its live events work at a government-controlled venue.
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Mobile Data, Social Media, and Modern e-Discovery
It's easy to see how the Information Age has transformed the world once again. Old ways of doing things are no longer practical, and new guidelines for the way we conduct business are being formed in real-time. Keeping up with this changing landscape is vital in order to survive.
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Problems with the New Test for Joint-Employer Status
This past summer, the NLRB reversed over 30 years of precedent and adopted a new, more expansive and ambiguous standard for determining joint employer status. The new standard promises to entangle businesses with only tenuous links to another employer's workforce in a morass of collective-bargaining obligations and unfair labor practice liability for workforces over which they exercise no actual control.
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SEC Sets Limits on Crowdfunding
On Oct. 30, 2015, the SEC issued new regulations to complete its work for implementing the sections of the JOBS Act that, for the first time, permit use of the Internet to raise equity financing. These latest regulations are scheduled to go into effect on May 16, 2016.
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New Year's Resolution for GCs in 2016: Establishing a Data Governance Committee
Data is an increasingly valuable corporate asset that must be managed competently, efficiently and responsibly in order for a company to be well-positioned to thrive in a connected and data driven economy. Governing of the organization's data must be a priority for 2016. Organizations that don't put proactive systems in place now may find themselves a distant memory from the dawn of the age of the Internet of Things (IoT) for a whole host of reasons.
Features
111010001: An Article of Commerce?
In <i>ClearCorrect Operating, LLC v. ITC,</i> the Federal Circuit limited the ITC's jurisdiction over digital commerce. In a 2-1 decision, the panel held that the ITC lacks authority to regulate digital imports.
Features
Defining Big Data In the e-Discovery World
As a data analyst, I'm always interested in investigating data trends in different industries. In 2015 ' and at the end of the last five years ' I've looked back at what Big Data really means in the e-discovery world, where large data volumes can equal a lot of time, a lot of money, and a more challenging case.
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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 ›