Cybersecurity is one of the most critical challenges facing our nation and our economy. U.S. regulators on both the state and federal level are working to keep pace with the challenges and risks posed by cybercrime. On March 1, 2017, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued a new cybersecurity regulation designed to protect financial institutions, their information technology systems, and their customers from cybercrime1 ...
Whether witnesses can be asked leading questions is a vital issue for fair trials, but is treated inconsistently in Polish litigation practice. Inspiration can be sought from the rules that have worked for years in common-law jurisdictions. Polish litigators generally share the belief that a witness should never be asked a leading question—that is, a question that suggests to the witness what the “right” answer should be ...
Can computers learn and reason? If so, what are the limitations of the tasks that they can be given? These questions have been the subject of countless debate as far back as 1937, when Alan Turing published his work on computable numbers1. Many researchers have devoted themselves to developing methods that would allow computers to interact more easily with human beings and integrate processes used to learn from the situations encountered ...
Residential developers should be aware that agreeing to enter a Land Registry restriction on the title to a property may inhibit their ability to manage it. A positive obligation relating to land will not, as a matter of law, bind future owners of the land. To ensure that it will, the original parties to that land obligation will often agree that any future owner enters into an identical obligation on its purchase of the land ...
In addition to registering their trade marks with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (“CIPC”), brand owners should ensure that their trade marks are protected online. One way of doing this is by registering a domain name. What is a Domain Name?A domain name allows a party to establish its identity on the internet. It assists internet users to easily identify brand owners on the internet and to access their sites on the web ...
Have you ever fought in a war? Chances are, you have. Participated in a proxy war that is. Harassing and coercing are some common tactics used in the attempt to obtain as many proxies as possible to wrest majority control. There has even been a situation where an individual held 250 proxies – effectively being able to make every decision solely ...
In a judgment handed down by the UK High Court on 28 February 2017, Mr Justice Marcus Smith stayed claims against one defendant and set aside permission to serve the proceedings outside the jurisdiction against the remaining defendants in a competition damages claim relating to the lithium ion (Li-ion) battery cartel. Competition damages claims are used when a party claims damages for losses allegedly caused by anti-competitive conduct ...
As of March 14, 2017, the recently enacted Consumer Review Fairness Act (the “Act”)1 will prohibit “gag clauses” – contract provisions that prohibit or restrict a consumer's ability to write negative reviews of products and services. While enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and state attorneys general is set to begin on December 14, 2017, businesses should act now to ensure compliance ...
On December 1, 2015, several amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect. While some changes are rather minor, others are expected to have a significant impact on litigation in federal court. Lawyers have been talking about these amendments for years as they were developed, proposed, revised, and eventually approved, but comparatively little has been said about what the parties to litigation need to know. Three key takeaways are discussed below ...
What is a Mechanic’s Lien? In South Carolina, construction liens, called mechanic’s liens, are automatically created by statute to protect anyone “to whom a debt is due for labor performed or furnished or for materials furnished and actually used in the erection, alteration, or repair of a building or structure upon real estate or the boring and equipping of wells.” S.C. Code Ann. § 29-5-10 ...
Everyone likes pie of some sort, especially around the holidays. For those working in the construction industry, the rapidly developing energy sector appears to be an ever-expanding “Job Pie” for contractors designing, managing, supplying, engineering, clearing and erecting projects for participants in the energy sector. For clues on how to follow the pie crumbs to real construction jobs, I turned to Melvin Stroble of Black & Veatch. Here is a slice of the information Mr ...
In January of this year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (“Fourth Circuit”) decided the case of Clark v. Absolute Collection Service, Inc. (741 F.3d 487, 4th Cir. 2014). The question of first impression before the Court was whether Section 1692g(a)(3) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) requires a consumer to dispute a debt in writing to gain the protections afforded by the FDCPA ...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("ACA") has significantly changed the healthcare industry in the United States. Among the many changes is the new requirement that healthcare providers must provide all "Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education counseling for all women with reproductive capacity."77 Fed. Reg. 8725 (Feb. 15, 2012); see 42 U.S.C. 300gg-13(a)(4), 45 C.F.R. § 147.130(a)(1)(iv) ...
Imagine you are a materialman, selling indoor carpet to the contractors. You are approached by a West Virginia developer that wants you to supply carpet and flooring for several houses in a new development. The contract represents $50,000 in new business for your company – and you hope it marks the establishment of a productive relationship with the developer ...
Many community bankers have looked surprised at the “internationalization” of our banking rules. Standards coming out of the Basel Committee, particularly the Basel III Capital Rules, do not seem to fit community banks. The Basel Committee focuses primarily on the European banking system, which is dominated by very large banks. The rules have seemed to be a bad match for the U.S. economy, in which small community banks play such a large role ...
The American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) recently revised its Construction Industry Arbitration Rules and Mediation Procedures. The revised rules became effective on July 1, 2015 and include a host of changes, large and small. Here is what you need to know: Increased Thresholds for Regular and Fast Track Proceedings (Rules R-1 and F-1) AAA provides different procedures for “regular track” and “fast track” proceedings ...
It is undeniable that technology and globalization are changing the way lawyers practice law. Technology has not just made people, places, and things much more accessible to us – it has impacted the way we store information and documents, the way we communicate with and advise clients, how we conduct investigations, and how we participate in discovery ...
A debtor files for bankruptcy protection, and his or her creditors are sent notice of the filing. Despite having received the notice, due to a breakdown in internal procedures one of the creditors, a bank, accidentally takes action to collect on the debt after the filing of the bankruptcy case – thus violating the automatic stay. Since the violation was unintentional, surely the bank cannot be sanctioned, right? Wrong ...
Attorneys who litigate common law bad faith and Unfair Trade Practices Act claims are well aware that insureds who substantially prevail in an underlying contract action for insurance proceeds are entitled to an award of attorneys’ fees under Hayseeds, Inc. v. State Farm Fire & Casualty, 177 W. Va. 323, 352 S.E.2d 73 (1986) ...
Dispute is heating up over IRS’s attempts to get personal information about users of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Last November, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) filed a petition in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. It sought the court’s permission to serve a “John Doe” summons on Coinbase, Inc., a virtual currency exchanger in San Francisco ...
ALRUD Real Estate practice Specialists, Andrey Zharskiy, ALRUD Partner, Stanislav Veselov, ALRUD Senior Associate, Galina Kulikova and Ksenia Bondarenko, ALRUD Attorneys, prepared an Article for the Newsletter of the Real Estate Section of the International Bar Association Legal Practice Division. The article, “Don’t be Trapped in Lease Agreements” covers main pitfalls that tenants in Russia may face while terminating a commercial real estate lease agreement ...
The February 14 decision in a closely watched Fourth Circuit False Claims Act (FCA) case did not, as initially anticipated, address the issue of the validity of statistical sampling to establish FCA liability. However, it did address another question that has split the circuits—whether the U.S. Department of Justice has the unreviewable right to veto FCA settlements in cases in which it has declined to intervene. See United States ex rel. Michaels v. Agape Senior Community, et al ...
In the context of a dispute between a Turkish agent and a Belgian principal, the Commercial Court of Ghent (Belgium) referred a request to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) concerning the legal protection of a Turkish agent under Belgian/EU law. The agent and principal had expressly agreed that their agency agreement was subject to Belgian law ...
During the Summer of 2013, we interviewed a group of owners who had completed IPD projects. Some owners had many IPD projects under their belts and others only one or two. But all were willing to share their experience and advice to help other owners. The transcripts were summarized in a white paper, still available on the Hanson Bridgett website, Integrated Project Delivery: The Owner’s Perspective ...
'Close of business' is a term many people use in their day to day working life without much thought. But what does it actually mean and should the term be used in contractual documentation? Agreeing to get something done by 'close of business' is a phrase often used when flexibility is required as to the time a task will be completed. It makes it clear the task will be done that day, but not by a particular time ...
