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    • Defamation on Facebook

    • The increased use of free social networking websites, like Facebook, also has a downside. In the UK a court has awarded Mr Mathew Firsht a considerable amount of damages after he discovered that a false profile of himself had been created on Facebook. Mr Firsht runs a company called Applause Store Productions which provides live audiences for television shows. On 4 July 2007 Mr Firsht discovered that a profile of him had been made on Facebook containing incorrect and defamatory information. Face [...]
    • Defamation on Facebook

    • Gun owners

    • The U.S. Supreme Court has found that private gun owners have a constitutional right to keep handguns for private use in their own homes. The District of Columbia (Washington D.C.) passed legislation making it a crime to carry an unregistered gun and prohibiting the registration of handguns. The law also requires owners of lawfully registered guns to keep such guns unloaded and disassembled or locked. The law was challenged by a resident who applied to register a handgun that he wished to keep [...]
    • Gun owners

    • Discrimination in the workplace

    • Discrimination in the workplace was in focus this past summer at the European Court of Justice. The Court ruled that discrimination by association is unlawful and also held that a racist public statement can constitute direct discrimination. The landmark verdict in the case of Coleman v Attridge Law and Steve Law, Case C-303/06, was cheered by those who look after family members with a disability. The court in Luxembourg held that the directive on equal treatment in employment and occupat [...]
    • Discrimination in the workplace

    • Friendlier Skies

    • In its quest to rid Europe of discrimination, the EU does not feel constrained by terrestrial borders. The skies have now been made handicap-friendly by EC Regulation 1107/2006: Rights of Disabled Persons and Persons with Reduced Mobility when Traveling by Air. The Regulation, which entered into force on July 26, 2008, is directly applicable and directly effective, both horizontally and vertically, in all Member States. This means that it takes effect automatically without requiring separ [...]
    • Friendlier Skies

    • Damages for lost sales

    • The Court of Appeal issued a judgment on 10 September 2008 stating that a manufacturer and seller of goods who lost the goods through the fault of a third party before being able to deliver and sell the goods was entitled to recover the price for those goods as damages for their loss. The case concerned a claim brought by Sony computer Entertainment Europe Ltd against Cinram Logistics UK Ltd Europe in contract, bailment and negligence. Sony has sent a consignment of play cards to Cinram for deli [...]
    • Damages for lost sales

    • The tax burden on the Burden sisters

    • Were the Burden sisters victims of discrimination when they were denied the inheritance tax exemption available to married couples and civil partners? No, said the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights, in April 2008, the fact that cohabiting siblings do not qualify for that exemption does not violate Article 1 of the First Protocol to, and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case of Burden and Burden v UK concerned two unmarried sisters, the applicants,  i [...]
    • The tax burden on the Burden sisters

    • Standing for assignees

    • An assignee of legal title who has no beneficial interest in a claim, and has not suffered any actual injury traceable to the defendant’s conduct has standing to bring that claim in federal court, ruled the United States Supreme Court on June 23, 2008. In the case of Sprint v. APCC, the court held that a collection agency can sue on behalf of its customers even though it has no financial interest in the case. In the instant case, APCC Services, a billing and collection firm, is trying to coll [...]
    • Standing for assignees

    • Federal Ruling Helps California

    • A federal court helps the state of California in its efforts to reduce emissions from automobiles. One of the primary procedural issues addressed in American law is whether a question presented is governed by federal law or by state law. The pre-emption doctrine provides that a state legislature may not regulate a federal issue. A California federal district court recently ruled on the inapplicability of this doctrine with respect to the State of California’s request for a waiver from Enviro [...]
    • Federal Ruling Helps California

    • Fox Hunting and Human Rights

    • What does one have to do with the other? The tradition of fox hunting is very strong in the United Kingdom and when the government introduced a bill which would make foxhunting with hounds illegal, there was an uproar by countryside enthusiasts. Those opposed to foxhunting argued that the fox suffered a cruel and painful death when hunted by hounds and that causing such suffering as a sport was wrong. Those who are for foxhunting argue that it is a form of pest control and because it is an embe [...]
    • Fox Hunting and Human Rights

    • DuPont Found Negligent in Toxic Waste Case

    • Company must provide medical monitoring for residents of town. A jury has found that a chemical company must provide medical monitoring for 7,000 residents of a West Virginia town who were exposed to heavy metal contamination emanating from a waste site. Ten residents of the town of Spelter, West Virginia filed a class-action lawsuit against DuPont Co. in 2004, alleging that the company intentionally dumped dangerous substances on a local industrial site. T.L. Diamond & Co. was named as a [...]
    • DuPont Found Negligent in Toxic Waste Case

    • Patriot Act Setback

    • Parts of Patriot Act ruled unconstitutional A US federal law, the USA Patriot Act, allows the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to compel communications companies, such as telephone and Internet providers, to turn over customer records to the FBI. The FBI issues a so-called “national security letter” to the company from which such records are sought. The FBI does not need a court order to issue such letters but rather can do so on its own initiative. Moreover, the law places a ban on di [...]
    • Patriot Act Setback

    • A Cautionary Tale

    • Remedial measures to combat spam cost firm. As all e-mail users know, spam, or unsolicited e-mail impacts businesses worldwide, and spammers are always devising newer and more sophisticated techniques to evade firewalls and spam filters. In May 2006, one US law firm being bombarded with spam decided to combat the problem, and the firm’s IT administrator adjusted the spam settings on the firm’s firewall to make it harder for spam to end up on the computers of the firm’s staff. Unfortunat [...]
    • A Cautionary Tale

    • Are “Ladies’ Nights” at Nightclubs Discriminatory?

    • One lawyer thinks so, and he's taken a number of New York City nightclubs to court. Nightclubs often use lower fees and shorter lines to attract women, but a recent lawsuit claims that the practice is against the law . The class action, Hollander v. Copacabana Nightclub, 1:2007 CV 5873, against Manhattan nightclubs alleges that the establishments discriminate against men in their policies for admitting patrons and argues that the clubs’ admissions policies violate the 14th Amendment’s gua [...]
    • Are “Ladies’ Nights” at Nightclubs Discriminatory?

    • Intellectual Property Verdicts Exceed $1 Billion in 2006

    • A perfect storm of increasingly valuable intellectual property portfolios and societal acceptance of suits based on the infringement of intellectual property has led to a surge in intellectual property verdicts. Verdicts in US intellectual property cases are growing and last year they exceeded $1.3 billion. One example is the $78.9 million jury verdict high-tech company Finisar won in a patent infringement case against The DirecTV Group Inc. The patent at issue in the case covered data transmiss [...]
    • Intellectual Property Verdicts Exceed $1 Billion in 2006

    • Activist Investors Create Legal Work

    • Hedge funds and other activist investors wishing to acquire seats on corporate boards of directors and to drive performance are behind an increase in corporate legal work. Activist investors, particularly hedge funds, are driving an increase in legal work which is the natural result when sophisticated investors make demands and initiate proxy contests to acquire a seat on the board of directors. Naturally, this creates a lot of work for attorneys who advise the parties on these matters and who [...]
    • Activist Investors Create Legal Work

    • Corporate Gatekeepers

    • The role of corporate counsel is changing in the US from that of corporate confidante to cooperate gatekeeper. In-house counsel play a significant role in corporate governance and in managing corporate crises. From legislation in response to corporate accounting scandals, to the threat of government investigations and class action litigation, today’s in-house counsel faces challenges unheard of by their predecessors. While there is protection available through employed lawyers professional l [...]
    • Corporate Gatekeepers

    • Lawyers Indicted for Insider Trading

    • US authorities announce the indictment of 13 people, including two layers, on insider trading charges. A New York U.S. Attorney's Office recently announced the indictment of 13 people on insider trading charges. The indictments allege that the defendants participated in two insider trading rings. The tipper in the larger of the two insider trading schemes was allegedly Mitchel Guttenberg, a manager in the equity research group at UBS Securities, who provided tips about recommendations by UBS [...]
    • Lawyers Indicted for Insider Trading

    • Electronic Discovery

    • The widespread use of information technology has resulted in ever more electronic evidence. Now the US federal procedural rules have caught up. To keep pace with the challenges posed by the discovery of electronic evidence, members of the bench and bar in the US have labored for several years to amend the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. These amendments were long overdue given the growing importance of electronic evidence. The result is that there is a new type of evidence, electronically sto [...]
    • Electronic Discovery

    • Be Careful What You Link For

    • American lawyer Gregory M. Poehler examines the intellectual property ramifications of linking. Providing a link to another’s website is an extremely common practice among website owners. The practice of linking is so widespread that few companies even consider requesting permission from the owner of a site to which a link is provided. After all, there is seemingly little reason for a site owner to object to such unsolicited advertising and the resultant increased traffic to its site. Neverth [...]
    • Be Careful What You Link For

    • Managing the Digital Future

    • Digital rights management solutions helps protect against copyright infringement, but has it gone too far? About 75% of internet traffic is generated by peer-to-peer, so-called P2P, networks, much of which consists of unlicensed copyrighted material. In response, content providers have developed a number of “technological protection measures” (“TPMs”) aimed at restricting users’ ability to copy digital material. These technological protection measures are usually referred to under the [...]
    • Managing the Digital Future

    • The Reebok Rules

    • The famous Reebok Rules for creating and/or maintaining a successful in-house legal department. This past summer , Mike Dillon, the General Counsel of Sun Microsystems launched a blog and his first post referenced the so-called Reebok Rules for successful in-house counsel. (See Obiter Dicta for a description and link to the blog.) The rules were crafted by Reebok’s former General Counsel, John B. (“Jack”) Douglass, III and refined while he was at Reebok by he and his colleagues. The Reebo [...]
    • The Reebok Rules

    • Testimonial Privileges

    • American attorney, Howard S. Sussman examines privilege in light of recent trials involving attorney-client privilege. In the aftermath of the Enron and similar scandals, a debate has emerged on the question whether a corporation’s lawyer should be forced to reveal information the corporation has conveyed to him or her in confidence. Historically, such information was normally protected by a testimonial privilege -- the attorney-client privilege -- but pressure has developed to limit that pri [...]
    • Testimonial Privileges

    • Bet the Company?

    • Professor Joseph Kelly, an expert on Internet gambling law, looks at the prospects for legislation banning online gambling in the U.S. Since 1995, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has introduced anti-internet gambling bills into the U.S. Senate. Congressmen, such as Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) and Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) have introduced similar legislation into the House of Representatives. Occasionally an anti-Internet gambling bill will pass either the House or the Senate but not both within the two-yea [...]
    • Bet the Company?

    • Competition Law Trumps Trade Mark?

    • Steven Sidken, a London practitioner, writes that a recent UK decision leaves open the possibility that infringement of competition law will override infringement of a trade mark. Background STONE ISLAND is a brand owned by Sportswear Company SpA. It is distributed in the UK by Four Marketing Limited. STONE ISLAND marked clothes were sold in the UK by Stonestyle Limited. However, the labels were defaced and swing tags cut out or defaced. The labels included garment codes containing infor [...]
    • Competition Law Trumps Trade Mark?

    • Copyright Enforcement and the Protection of Privacy in France

    • French attorney François-René Lebatard explores the French government’s efforts to strike a legislative balance in a collision between intellectual property law and the protection of privacy. The challenges presented by the Internet, e-commerce, and digital technology generally are many. As governments struggle to legislate in these areas, new conflicts regularly arise. For example, Recital 15 of the Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights[1] clearly states that the [...]
    • Copyright Enforcement and the Protection of Privacy in France

    • What Are Equity Securities under the Prospectus Directive?

    • Stockholm-based attorney, Jens Pohl examines the EU’s new Prospectus Directive, which has now been implemented in most member states. A new Prospectus Directive entered into force in the European Union in 2003, and most Member States have now implemented it. On December 31, 2003, a new Prospectus Directive (PD) entered into force in the European Union, replacing the provisions of the previous Directive dating from the 1970s and 80s. The last transposition date for the PD was July 1, 200 [...]
    • What Are Equity Securities under the Prospectus Directive?

    • Increased Criticism for Sarbanes-Oxley

    • In light of the Enron verdicts, American attorney Kenneth Raphael analyzes some of the criticisms leveled against the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the legislative response to the scandal. While there were verdicts in the Enron case recently, the jury is still out with respect to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In the aftermath of several corporate and accounting scandals, including Enron, WorldCom, and Tyco International, in 2002 the United States Congress passed, and President Bush signed into law, the Sar [...]
    • Increased Criticism for Sarbanes-Oxley