In the Loop: With the Hanson Bridgett Government Group We’ve been getting lots of questions from public agencies about the General Data Protection Regulation—known as GDPR. GDPR is a new European Union privacy law that governs the processing of personal data about people residing in Europe. It just went into effect on May 25 ...
In Praxair Distrib., Inc. v. Mallinckrodt Hosp. Prods. IP Ltd., 2016-2616, -2656, in a decision authored by Judge Lourie, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that the printed matter doctrine is properly applied during claim construction and can include not just printed matter, but also mental steps ...
On May 21, 2018, the United States Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, No. 16-285; Ernst & Young LLP v. Morris, No. 16-300; and NLRB v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc., No. 16-307 holding that an employer may require its employees to sign a dispute resolution arbitration agreement that includes an employee’s waiving the right to bring a claim on a class or collective action basis ...
In a much anticipated opinion, the Supreme Court on Monday held that class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable. In a 5-4 decision written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Court stated that “Congress has instructed in the Arbitration Act that arbitration agreements providing for individualized proceedings must be enforced, and neither the Arbitration Act’s saving clause nor the NLRA suggests otherwise ...
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, resolving an issue on which several Courts of Appeals and various federal agencies and administrations had disagreed. At issue in Epic Systems (and two companion cases presenting the same issue: Ernst & Young LLP. v. Morris and National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc ...
The approval of the long awaited Federal Law on Arbitration by the Federal National Council was announced earlier this year ...
With Administrator Scott Pruitt at its helm, cooperative federalism is the frequently recited principle underlying recent EPA enforcement efforts. As the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory oversight in areas like the Clean Water Act is delegated to the states, the agency is relying more upon state and local authorities to enforce the laws. There are shortcomings associated with this approach, which were raised in the recent U.S ...
Artificial intelligence has undergone significant developments in the last few years, particularly in respect of what is now known as deep learning.1 This method is the extension of the neural networks which have been used for a few years for machine learning. Deep learning, as any other form of machine learning, requires that the artificial intelligence system be placed before various situations in order to react to situations which are similar to previous experiences ...
Abu Dhabi has introduced new rules governing the functioning of the Emirate’s judiciary. The new rules appear in Abu Dhabi Law 13 of 2018, which amends Abu Dhabi Law 23 of 2006 on the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department. The new provisions largely address internal matters related to the functioning of the courts, such as the composition of panels of the courts and the accountability of judges. But two features could be of more general interest ...
A common question we receive from school systems relates to whether certain employees (both service personnel and professional personnel) recapture their seniority if there has been a break in their employment with the school system but they later return to employment. Often a break in employment is the result of a voluntary break or unfortunately a reduction in force ...
Many companies use so-called tracking tools on their website to analyze the use of the website by their visitors, and possibly also to carry out advertising activities on the basis of user profiles created with the tracking tools. These tracking tools mainly use cookies, i.e. small files that can identify a user of a website and that are deposited on the respective user's computer ...
Under Art. 26 GDPR, "joint controllers" must find an agreement on the data protection obligations between themselves. If they do not do so, they risk a fine pursuant to Art. 83 (4) GDPR. However, the question of when Joint Controllership applies is still a matter of dispute. REQUIREMENTS FOR A JOINT CONTROLLERSHIP Under Art. 26 (1) GDPR, where two or more Controllers jointly determine the purposes and means of processing, they must be classified as "Joint Controllers" ...
“We simply cannot go on with this utterly outmoded way of working…Endlessly re-keying in the same information; repeatedly printing and photocopying the same documents; moving files about, losing all or parts of them in the process… It is a heavy handed, duplicative, inefficient and costly way of doing our work and it is all about to go. Considerably past time, we will finally catch up with the world.” Sir Brian Leveson ...
On April 24, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or the “Commission”) announced its first enforcement action against a public company for failing to disclose a data breach. In a settled cease-and-desist order, the SEC imposed a $35 million civil penalty against Altaba Inc., formerly known as Yahoo! Inc ...
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Theresa May said the government wanted to, “secure broad energy cooperation with the EU”, including by, “exploring options for the UK’s continued participation in the EU’s internal energy market” ...
The Philippine National Privacy Commission (NPC), which administers the country’s Data Privacy Act (DPA), has recently made available to the public copies of its advisory opinions. These opinions had been issued in response to various queries regarding the proper application and interpretation of the provisions of the DPA and its implementing rules and regulations. Issue of consent Advisory Opinion No ...
The Bavarian data protection supervisory authority has prepared a series of template documents and overviews, intended to help small companies with GDPR compliance. At first glance, these documents do indeed provide important support for small companies. These have to fulfil almost all obligations under the GDPR in a similar manner to medium-sized businesses and large corporations ...
The Eleventh Circuit’s recent decision in United States ex rel. Hunt v. Cochise Consultancy, Inc., has further complicated the answer to what should be a simple question: What is the statute of limitations in qui tam action when the government declines to intervene? There are currently three different answers to that seemingly simple question depending on the forum in which a case is filed ...
Over the past 1-2 years, a great deal of information concerning the revolutionary technology that is “blockchain” has been published on many business, legal and technology news sources, and innumerable self-proclaimed authorities on the subject have emerged to contribute articles and presentations (ourselves among them) ...
Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (“OCIE”) released a Risk Alert covering the most frequent advisory fee and expense compliance issues identified in over 1,500 deficiency letters sent to registered investment advisers during the past two years. The alert highlighted six categories of compliance risks frequently observed by the OCIE ...
Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group’s annual employment law1 conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its’ impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as “law” or “justice” ...
Artificial intelligence is a burning topic in many sectors today and the legal industry is no exception. Recently, at the World Services Group's annual employment law conference held in February, AI was heavily debated along with its' impact not only on the legal profession, lawyers, clients, the way business is done, but also our traditional understanding of concepts such as "law" or "justice" ...
If your company has a cybersecurity incident, this guide is intended help you think through critical disclosure requirements and will direct you to sample disclosures from other companies that have endured cybersecurity issues. I. Introduction With the recent string of high profile cybersecurity attacks, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) issued further guidance regarding public companies’ disclosure of cybersecurity incidents ...
An increased number of corporate transactions and mergers have been observed in the oil and gas sector on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) in recent years. Several oil majors and traditional utilities and downstream companies have reduced their presence and, to some extent, been replaced by smaller companies, including start-ups backed by private equity ...
