A new layer of federal oversight should help protect consumers and ethical e-commerce companies against misleading and name-tarnishing activities of outlaw e-tailers who have ripped off thousands of U.S. consumers. On Dec. 29, President Obama signed the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, introduced in the Senate early last year by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
The DOJ has brought cases against companies and individuals in relation to their dealings with state-owned enterprises based on a broad reading of the term "instrumentality," a term not otherwise defined in the statute prohibiting corrupt payments to "foreign officials.
Thanks to a recent act of Congress, the oil spill may be seeping into product liability law. Meet the SPILL Act.
The DOJ exercises virtually unlimited discretion in deciding who gets charged in FCPA cases and, for all practical purposes, in deciding the amount of the financial penalty imposed against corporate violators. But sentencing of individual defendants is ultimately a matter of judicial, not prosecutorial, discretion.
Questions of discoverability in litigation of social media interactions are constantly evolving. A look at a recent, disturbing case.
Corporate Counsel take note: on Nov. 3, the SEC published proposed Regulation 21F, establishing a program designed to reward individuals who provide the SEC with information leading to successful enforcement actions. The proposal was mandated by Dodd-Frank and sets out procedures under which whistleblowers could qualify for significant monetary awards by providing information to the SEC regarding violations of the federal securities laws.
Possessing child pornography is such a potentially serious crime that institutions take pains to keep it off their premises. e-Commerce firms, whether they have significant physical premises or not, are no different.
An appeals court ruled last month that a state law requiring most online retailers to collect sales taxes on purchases by New Yorkers is constitutional on its face, though the panel ordered the reinstatement of claims that the tax law may violate the Commerce and Due Process clauses as applied to Amazon.com and Overstock.com.
The last two years have seen major changes in the legal and regulatory environment regarding compensation discrimination, and there are even more on the horizon.
Failure to comply with government regulations, and inactivity if a company falls out of compliance, can lead to serious product liability issues in the long term. Unfortunately, CEOs often do not consider the potential cost of product liability enforcement when they evaluate whether or not to act.
