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ILTACON18
So, the 2018 ILTA Conference opened today. ILTA calls itself the “premier peer networking organization, providing information to members to maximize the value of technology in support of the legal profession.” This year’s version sported record attendance and enthusiastic crowds even though just as last year, there was a leadership crisis on the eve of the conference–the CEO “resigned” just days before the start–and even though for some reason ILTA decided to crack down on…
data5
New Regulations require organisations to obtain an individual’s explicit consent in advance of processing personal data for health research purposes.  The Regulations, known as the Data Protection Act 2018 (Section 36(2)) (Health Research) Regulations 2018 (SI 314/2018), set out a number of mandatory suitable and specific safeguards to be put in place when processing personal data for health research purposes. The Regulations came into effect on 8 August 2018.…
shh
When the Governor signed a recent appropriations bill passed by the House and the Senate during the last days of the most recent legislative session, the bill contained a version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The UTSA version in the proposed legislation was buried deep within the appropriations bill, which was not entirely surprising. Such a proposal, entitled “Chapter 93L,” has been held out previously as part of a compromise to proposed non-compete reform,…
clock
Unemployment rates are at historic lows and the economy is booming! That’s good news for business, right? Yes…and no. While low unemployment creates more demand for the goods and services offered by companies, it also means that employers will have to compete for an ever-shrinking pool of workers. This leaves employers with two options: offer workers better pay or benefits, or lower hiring standards. The prospect of lowering hiring standards is sure to give employers…
airplane
The heatwave may be over but the wave of August out-of-office responses is still building, so rather than post about controversial redelivery conditions or the fascinating behaviour of interest rates, and prompted by the striking intersection of aviation and literature recently, we thought it seemed high time to offer Legal Flight Deck: The Summer Reading Edition. You’re welcome.…
broadcast
Last week, the FCC released a Consent Decree where a broadcast company admitted to certain unauthorized transfers of several stations, even though actual control of the stations, for the most part, did not change. Stock of the company was transferred into a trust by the company’s shareholder without FCC approval, even though the shareholder continued to control the station until his death approximately a decade later. For this transfer, and another occasioned by the voting…
hollywood
The case of Rearden LLC et al. v. The Walt Disney Company et al., Nos. 3:17-cv-04006, 04191 & 04192 (N.D. Cal.), has been covered more in the Hollywood Reporter than in legal publications, but it is both a “Hollywood story” and a case with intellectual property issues that cover the spectrum of patent, copyright and (to a lesser extent) trademark law. The case revolves around a technology called MOVA Contour Reality Capture technology (“MOVA Contour”)…
work bound
The Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) reflects a strong federal policy in favor of arbitration.  In extraordinary cases, however, a dispute that otherwise would be arbitrable under the FAA could be rendered non-arbitrable by the operation of another federal statute.  The right to compel arbitration under the FAA becomes unenforceable when it would conflict with another federal statute such that the very purpose of the other statute would be frustrated.  Recently, for example, the Second Circuit…
tobacco
In connection with the FDA’s Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“ANPR”) addressing flavored tobacco products, a group of State Attorneys General has recommended that the agency ban all flavored tobacco products.  In their comments on the ANPR, the Attorneys General of New York, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island assert that the FDA should ban flavors (including menthol) in all tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars and electronic nicotine delivery systems…
blockchain new
In our previous post, we provided a simple answer to the following question posed by Director Dalia Blass of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management: To the extent a fund plans to hold cryptocurrency directly, how would it satisfy the custody requirements of the 1940 Act and relevant rules?” Our simple answer was to treat cryptocurrencies as “financial assets” under Article 8 of the Uniform Commercial Code. But, as Director Blass knows, this is…