Here are select February 2013 rulings of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on civil law: Civil Code-Common Carrier; requisite before presumption of negligence arises; bill of lading; interpretation thereof; inherent nature of the subject shipment or its packaging as ground for exempting common carrier from liability; failure to prove negligence does not entitle claimant for damages ...
A jury in the Northern District of California has convicted David Nosal of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) by accessing his former employer’s computer network without authorization to obtain confidential information for use in a competing business. The business community has followed this case closely because it has far-reaching implications for the future application of the CFAA and, more importantly, for companies’ ability to protect their sensitive proprietary data ...
On February 1, 2013, the Supreme Court overturned a controversial decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal which granted pension beneficiaries priority over dip lenders in the context of a restructuring under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act ("CCAA")1. The Court of Appeal's decision led many to worry that lenders would be reticent to advance funds to restructuring debtors for fear of not being able to secure charges which would outrank all other claims ...
This week, the Ralph Lauren Corporation became the first company to obtain a non-prosecution agreement from the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) investigation. Ralph Lauren also obtained a non-prosecution agreement from the Department of Justice in connection with its investigation of the same FCPA violations ...
The First Circuit recently reinstated part of a False Claims Act complaint against a drug-testing laboratory, and in so doing, may have limited the reach of the FCA’s public disclosure bar. In U.S. ex rel. Cunningham v. Millennium Labs. of Cal., Inc., 2013 WL 1490435 (1st Cir. April 12, 2013), the First Circuit held that the district court erred in dismissing the entire FCA complaint merely because the action was based in part on prior public disclosures ...
The computer hacking trial of David Nosal is under way in federal district court in California. The trial is being followed with interest in the business community because it is the latest development in a case that highlights an important split in the interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) that has far-reaching ramifications with respect to liability–and protection for companies’ proprietary information ...
Mobilizing the Money: A New Investment Program President Dilma Rousseff has launched an ambitious investment program in infrastructure, transport, logistics, and energy that will cost US$ 235 billion. The president and the entire government have been mobilized in the search for these investments, from domestic, foreign, public, and private sources ...
You are general counsel of a publicly-traded medical device company. Your company’s Board has identified a publicly-held X-ray and CT scan component manufacturer that it would like to acquire. The target is a Delaware corporation based in California, with additional manufacturing facilities in Utah and Kentucky; within the past three years, it has sold two mothballed manufacturing facilities ...
On March 26, 2013, in the case of Teed v. Thomas & Betts Power Solutions, L.L.C.,1 the Seventh Circuit, in an opinion written by Judge Posner, joined at least one other circuit court and a multitude of district courts across the country in extending the federal common law standard for evaluating successor liability to suits brought under the Federal Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) ...
Last week the Delaware Supreme Court held in Pyott v. Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System, ___ A.3d ___, 2013 WL 1364695 (Del. 2013), that a Delaware derivative complaint should have been dismissed after a California federal court entered a judgment dismissing essentially the same complaint brought by different stockholders for failure to plead demand futility ...
Recently, the Superior Court rendered a decision 1 which clarifies the extent of the discretion a court has when asked to ratify a hypothecary creditor's recommendation to appoint an employee of its legal counsel to act as the officer of the court entrusted with the sale by judiciary authority of the collateral secured in its favour. CONTEXT The Superior Court had to render judgment in five cases involving very similar facts ...
On 3 March 2013, the Swiss electorate approved the Minder Initiative, which will fundamentally change the legal framework on executive compensation and other corporate governance matters for Swiss public companies. The implementation of the Minder Initiative will be the task of the Federal Council and the Swiss Parliament ...
On March 26, 2013, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (“OSFI”), the Canadian bank regulator, issued an Advisory in which it identified the banks considered to be systematically important for Canada in accordance with the framework set out by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. These banks are the Bank of Montreal, the Bank of Nova Scotia, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the National Bank of Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Toronto-Dominion Bank ...
Since the announcement of the investigation by the SEC of the CEO of Netflix, Inc. for a July 2012 Facebook post celebrating a company milestone, there has been considerable uncertainty as to whether companies can use social media outlets, like Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with investors without violating Regulation Fair Disclosure (“Regulation FD”) ...
On March 26, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the U.S. Patent Office’s rejection of the claim of a design patent continuation application, bringing some degree of clarity to the practice of claiming a portion of a previously-claimed design while seeking priority to the filing date of the previously-claimed design. In re Owens, No. 2012-1261 (Fed. Cir. March 26, 2013). In the case, Timothy S. Owens et al ...
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”), pursuant to its rulemaking authority under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”)1, has interpreted guarantees of swap agreements to fall under the definition of a swap,2 which means that any swap guarantor must be an “eligible contract participant” (“ECP”) at the time a swap is entered into (which may occur after the date on which the guarantee and related credit facility documents are entered
The Obama Administration has announced its intention of entering into negotiations with the European Union (“EU”) for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (“TTIP”) aimed at achieving a substantial increase in transatlantic trade and investment between the world’s two largest economies. In the Federal Register of April 1, the United States Trade Representative solicited comments from the public with respect to U.S. negotiating objectives ...
On 28 January 2013 the «Diário da República» (official gazette) published a set of measures1 - that came into force the following day - to improve and streamline the special scheme2 for granting a Portuguese ‘investment residence permit’ (“IRP”) to foreign nationals to enable them to make certain investments in the country ...
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court held in a 5-4 opinion in Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 569 U.S. ___ (2013), that a party seeking to maintain a class action must satisfy Rule 23’s requirements through evidentiary proof, even where such analysis may overlap with the merits of the underlying claim ...
Here are select February 2013 rulings of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on commercial law:Corporation; liability of officers and directors. Basic is the rule in corporation law that a corporation is a juridical entity which is vested with a legal personality separate and distinct from those acting for and in its behalf and, in general, from the people comprising it ...
Last February 15, 2013, the President signed into law Republic Act No. 10365 or the “Act Further Strengthening the Anti-Money Laundering Law.” True to its name, the third amending law to the Anti-Money Laundering Act (“AMLA”) gave it more teeth and strengthened the government’s ability to prevent and prosecute money laundering. The following discusses the new amendments to the AMLA ...
The Seventh Circuit recently reversed a $2.7 million damages award against a mortgage company accused of lying in applications for federal loan guarantees. See United States v. Anchor Mortg. Corp., 2013 WL 1150213 (7th Cir. Mar. 21, 2013) ...
SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan's new website went live on 1 March 2013. As a result, previously sent links to downloadable publications are no longer accessible. Below are a few updated links: Client Alert: SEC requires tax identification number for foreign investorsLegal Bulletin: Technology, Media & Telecoms (Jan ...
According to December 2012 data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for Gulf War Era veterans, hovering around eight percent, remains higher than the national rate. Over the last decade, more than 2.3 million Americans were deployed to military duty in Iraq, Afghanistan or both. Of that total, more than 1 million have since left the military ...
