The First Five Years of the SEC Whistleblower Program
August 01, 2016
We mark the fifth anniversary of the Whistleblower program with this two-part retrospective. This month, we take a broad look at how the program intakes tips from Whistleblowers and what the SEC does with them. Next month, we will look more closely at the program's track record in issuing awards.
EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Finalized
August 01, 2016
The European Commission concluded more than six months of negotiations both within the EU institutions and with the U.S. on July 12 with the announcement that an agreement had been reached on the Privacy Shield scheme to transfer data from the EU to the U.S.
The User-Friendly Proxy Statement
August 01, 2016
Attention, public companies: While your proxy statement is likely your most read disclosure document, its readership is spotty. Your retail owners and employees likely focus on some of the compensation information, but little else. Here's how to fix the problem.
Electronic Discovery: A Level Playing Field?
August 01, 2016
Courts have sanctioned corporate defendants for years for failure to produce or preserve electronically stored information (ESI). There have been, however, a few decisions in which courts have imposed sanctions or other penalties on plaintiffs who destroyed ESI. The misconduct giving rise to sanctions has varied from fraud and bad faith to inadvertence.
The Internet Is Not a Consequence-Free Zone
August 01, 2016
The ability to create, share, and misappropriate content ' all in an instant ' on social media has radically increased the number of unwitting copyright owners and infringers. Those who publish their musings, photographs, videos via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, for example, do not necessarily know that their content may be protected by copyright law. By the same token, those who make use of others' content typically give little thought to whether their actions constitute copyright infringement.
Standing the Test of 'Time Is of the Essence'
August 01, 2016
Real estate purchase and sale contracts have included the magic language, "Time is of the Essence" (TOE), seemingly since time immemorial. Practitioners should be mindful, however, of the meaning of TOE and the significance of its absence from a contract.
