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It was a dark and stormy Seattle day 7 years ago. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was in town for its workshop on the proposed revisions to the Franchise Rule (the NPR) on Nov. 6-7, 1997, to discuss whether it should allow franchisors to disclose electronically. Many people testified positively, including yours truly, and the discussion quickly turned to how to do so: floppy disks (but there were so many formats incompatible with the PCs and printers of the day), or the Internet (but there were so few prospects that had access). How much has changed!

Highlights of the latest franchising news from around the country.

Ever since the Medici family of Florence popularized the use of written documents to facilitate trade between city states and nations in the 15th century, letters of credit and their progeny, bills of lading, warehouse receipts and similar instruments of title, have consisted of written documents. Commercially effective and reasonably efficient for hundreds of years, letters of credit and documents of title in tangible form have become increasingly outmoded because of economic and temporal constraints. A recent article in <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> estimated that at least 5% of the cost of all international trade transactions was attributable solely to the cost of documentation [Gabriel Kahn, "Financing Goes Just-in-Time," <i>The Wall Street Journal,</i> June 4, 2004, Section A, p. 10]. With the growth of international trade and the relocation of manufacturing from industrialized nations to countries with cheaper labor costs, international shipments have increased dramatically as cost-conscious businesses search for increased efficiency. The historic standard of a 2-week turnaround for a written letter of credit for a secured bill of lading transaction and the cost of associated paperwork have created a need for a cheaper, faster system. Not surprisingly, merchants have found opportunities to use the Internet and other electronic arrangements to help solve this problem. This article will describe some of the alternative electronic bill of lading arrangements that have arisen since the 1990s for shipping goods internationally and the impetus that their spread provided to a Uniform Commercial Code working group that responded by overhauling and updating Article 7 to make it more reflective of modern trade practice.

In June, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its judgment in <i>Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada v. Canadian Association of Internet Providers</i>. This landmark ruling, colloquially known as the Tariff 22 decision, read together with the SCC's decision in <i>Galerie d'Art du Petit-Champlain v. Theberge</i> and <i>CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada</i>, clarifies the current state of Canadian copyright law as it relates to activities occurring over the Internet. In particular, the decision describes the potential liability of Internet service providers (ISPs) in the context of Copyright Act.

Recent developments in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.

Recent cases in e-commerce law and in the e-commerce industry.

For many people, going online is the first step in buying anything. <br>Yet, some firms refuse to sell online. Sound odd ' behind the times? On its face, perhaps, but sound business reasons explain such "backward" behavior ' and they're the same reasons why many brick-and-mortar businesses choose not to accept phone or mail orders.

<i>A&amp;FP</i>'s July edition included an article describing how one large firm methodically improved collections with due regard for the delicacy of client relationships. To that same end, this new article by Jim Hammond explores software technologies that help focus and streamline a firm's collections efforts.

If information is power, then it's not the amount of information that gives us value, but access to the right information at the right time, and in the most suitable form. <br>This is especially true of e-discovery, which, despite all the supportive tools and technologies, has become a complex, time-consuming, inefficient and often costly process. <br>As a result, litigators and general counsel can benefit greatly from targeted data extraction, a process that compiles and organizes all electronic data associated with a case, then automatically extracts a specified subset of information.

Companies considering outsourcing today, and companies that have already outsourced significant functions and processes, face an increasingly complex web of domestic and foreign laws and regulations at various levels of government. Compliance with those laws in the context of an outsourcing transaction poses a considerable and growing challenge. This article examines three of the hottest topics in the area of regulatory compliance in outsourcing: Sarbanes-Oxley, privacy, and legislative initiatives focusing on offshore outsourcing.