Features

Washington's FARA Frenzy Spurs New Legal Business
<b><i>The FARA feeding frenzy had already been building in recent years, but it gained traction in the months since Manafort's indictment last fall.</b></i><p>The U.S. Justice Department's aggressive enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) has drawn blood throughout the consultant class in Washington, with lawyers assessing the casualties and prowling for new business.
Columns & Departments
In the Courts
Former CFO of Bankrate Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for $25 Million Fraud Scheme
Features

The 'New NAFTA' and How It Will Affect Intellectual Property Law
The stage is set for the 24-year-old north American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to end and the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), which has implications for intellectual property, to take its place.
Features

The Blockchain Will Support GDPR, but Not How Most People Think
It's clear that the onset of GDPR regulations and a quickly changing consumer sentiment about the sensitivity and value of their personal data will reorient a company's interactions with their customers and their information. There will be some pain points in this transition, as Facebook investors recently demonstrated, but it doesn't have to be a unilateral downturn for the tech industry.
Features

Transient Rental Ban Does Not Violate Fair Housing Act
In a recent decision, the Eastern District of New York dismissed a multi-pronged challenge to a local municipal ordinance that regulates rental of property on a short-term or transient basis.
Features

Defusing the UST Tax Bomb
<b><i>How Lenders and Debtors can Minimize UST Fees and Maximize Creditor Recoveries</b></i><p>As predicted in the first part of this article (May, 2018), the new United States Trustee (UST) fee has had a disproportionate effect on middle-market, high-velocity cash flow companies. The best solution is for Congress to revisit the fee structure and refine it to reflect the realities of particular cases and the actual burden on the UST.
Features

Stretching the Limitations Period in White-Collar Criminal Matters
<b><i>Part Two of a Two-Part Article</b></i><p>Though they might seem straightforward on their faces, limitations periods are often elongated by legislation or court interpretation. The authors began looking at some of these exceptions to the stated limitations periods last month in Part One of this article. They continue here with further examples.
Features

PTO Gives Iancu More Control over PTAB Precedents
The USPTO announced revisions to PTAB procedures that formalize Andrei Iancu's control over the 250 administrative patent judges and their policy-making, while making that control more transparent.
Features

Get Ready for California's Version of the EU General Data Protection Regulation
The entertainment industry is intensely focused on data collection and analytics as it seeks to maximize the exploitation of digital content. Just as those of us in the privacy field had begun to have a slight breather as much of the heavy lifting on the GDPR was finally behind us, lawmakers in California have passed the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA).
Features

Coordination or Duplication? DOJ Adopts New Policy to Prevent 'Piling On' of Corporate Penalties
In May 2018, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a new policy to address a growing problem in white-collar criminal and civil enforcement. With increased…
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