“Over the past four years, U.S. companies have been forced to expand their compliance programs to comply with an expanding array of international and U.S. state privacy laws. The wave of privacy laws began in May 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became effective, triggering new compliance obligations for U.S. companies with operations in the European Union. On the heels of the GDPR, other countries such as Brazil, Australia, India, Canada and China passed or expanded new privacy legislation, further expanding the scope of privacy compliance for U.S. multinationals,” reports Philip N. Yannella, Kim Phan and Gregory Szewczyk in Mondaq.

“In the U.S., there has likewise been a creeping expansion of state privacy laws. In 2020, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) became effective, triggering new legal requirements for U.S. companies that conduct business in California and generate yearly revenues of greater than $25,000,000.² Other states, such as Nevada, Utah, and Maine, have since passed smaller less comprehensive privacy laws.”

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“Approved by Congress in January 2021, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) is a new federal law requiring many business entities to identify to the Treasury Department the individuals who own a 25 percent or greater interest in the entity or who otherwise exercise substantial control over the entity. The CTA seeks to identify entities used for money laundering and other criminal activities by requiring entities to disclose their ownership and control,” write Melissa W. Bailey and Mark Davidson in Brooks Pierce Client Alerts.

“While further guidance on how the CTA will be enforced has not yet been issued by the Treasury, there are several things businesses owners and their advisors should know now.”

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“In its latest assignment for longtime client General Mills Inc, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath is advising the company on its $1.2 billion all-cash purchase of Tyson Foods Inc’s pet food business,” reports Sierra Jackson in Reuters’ Legal.

“Tyson Foods turned to a team from Hogan Lovells for the sale, which comes as people are increasingly adopting cats and dogs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Minneapolis-based General Mills announced the acquisition plans on Friday as part of its efforts to reshape its pet food portfolio, which will add the Nudges, Top Chews and True Chews brands to its holdings.”

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“Boeing quietly agreed to repay the U.S. $10.7 million after a three-year investigation concluded it had double-billed the military for taxes paid to foreign governments on overseas employees, according to a document and officials,” reports Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg in the Seattle Times’ Business.

“The overcharges “affected hundreds of contracts across numerous Department of Defense entities,” according to the latest edition of an in-house training newsletter of the Defense Contract Management Agency highlighting contract irregularities. The agreement, reached in September, wasn’t previously disclosed.”

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“Netflix Inc. and Comcast Corp., two of the largest U.S. media companies, collectively gave almost $20 million in total compensation last year to their top lawyers,” reports Brian Baxter in Business & Practice.

“David Hyman, Netflix’s chief legal officer and corporate secretary since 2002, received nearly $10.5 million in total compensation, a 28% increase from 2019.”

“Thomas Reid, hired by Comcast in 2019 to be its chief legal officer and corporate secretary from his role as chairman and managing partner of the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, had a nearly $9.3 million pay package.”

“The disclosures, made by both media giants in their annual proxy statements filed April 23, follow similar disbursements to law department leaders at other major entertainment companies. Those include billionaire Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActivCorp, which noted earlier this month that its former legal chief Gregg Winiarski received more than $22 million in total compensation during 2020.”

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“Apple has been ordered to pay $308.5 million to Personalized Media Communications (PMC) after a federal jury in Texas came to the conclusion that the latter’s patents were infringed,” reports Campbell Kwan in ZDNet.

“One of the patents in question is a ‘method of decrypting programming at a receiver station’, which the jury found Apple had used without permission for its digital rights management technology, FairPlay.”

“Despite PMC not being a creator or seller of any products, the court found that the company was not a patent troll as it licenses its own internally invented patent on an exclusive basis.”

“The $308.5 million figure is the culmination of royalties from when Apple first infringed the patents. In addition, the jurors have also directed that Apple pay a running royalty to PMC for when the patent is used in its products, which is based on the amount of sales of a product or service.”

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“AT&T Inc.’s top lawyer David McAtee made nearly double the compensation in 2020 he did the previous year, due to an equity award infusion,” reports Ruiqi Chen in Bloomberg Law’s Business & Practice.

“McAtee made over $18.6 million in 2020 as the Dallas-based telecom giant’s general counsel and senior executive vice president, compared to $9.4 million in 2019, according to a Thursday SEC filing.”

“The increase comes from a ‘career retention grant’ in the form of an additional $9 million in stock awards over what he received in 2019, on top of his base salary of $1.3 million. The grant does not vest until 2030.”

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“Two property titans’ real estate development firms, MV Ventures and Turnberry Associates, have picked up a pair of law firm partners to be their top lawyers,” reports Brian Baxter in Bloomberg Law’s Business & Practice.

“Eagan, Minn.-based MV Ventures, owned by the family of shopping mall billionaire and Minnesota Vikings owner Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf, hired Matthew Slaven to be its general counsel as of Feb. 15. Slaven was a real estate, environmental, and construction law partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister in Minneapolis.”

“Turnberry Associates, an Aventura, Fla.-based real estate developer controlled by the family of billionaire Donald Soffer, brought on Julian Chung to serve as its general counsel. Chung was a Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson real estate finance partner in New York.”

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“Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has set aside $3.9 billion for talc-related litigation, according to a regulatory filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington D.C.” reports Tim Povtak in Asbestos.com’s Legislation & Litigation.

“The company said it’s now facing more than 25,000 lawsuits related to various talc products that have allegedly caused cancers, primarily from asbestos fiber contamination.”

“The $3.9 billion is almost double the amount that Johnson & Johnson reported being set aside for litigation expenses in its 2020 fiscal year-end results.”

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“The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) became a law on January 1, 2021, and it has significant implications for many new and existing United States and foreign business entities,” report Matthew J. Ertman and Max Brunner in The National Law Review.

“The law will impose completely new, time-consuming and expensive compliance requirements on normal small business enterprises, even though it is expressly targeted to combat “money laundering, the financing of terrorism, proliferation financing, serious tax fraud, human and drug trafficking, counterfeiting, piracy, securities fraud, financial fraud, and acts of foreign corruption …” There are significant penalties, including fines and imprisonment, for willful failures to report according to the CTA. This article provides an executive summary of what you need to know to be ready for the CTA.”

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“Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that it failed to pay Flex delivery drivers the full amount of tips received from customers,” reports Annie Palmer in CNBC’s Tech.

“The commission voted 4-0 in favor of the settlement, which was announced Tuesday. In the complaint, the FTC alleges that Amazon in 2016 shifted from paying drivers the promised rate of $18 to $25 per hour, plus tips, to paying drivers a lower hourly rate.”

“Amazon ‘intentionally failed’ to notify drivers of this change and used the tips to make up the difference between the promised rate and the new lower hourly rate, according to the FTC.”

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“Even for a company as big as Anthem Inc., the nation’s largest marketer of Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance, paying a half-billion-dollar settlement might seem like a painful way to resolve litigation,” reports Greg Andrews and Indianapolis Business Journal Staff in The Indiana Lawyer.

“But some investment analysts and health care observers say changes to Blue Cross Blue Shield rules that are stipulated in the settlement are so favorable to Indianapolis-based Anthem’s growth prospects that they view the deal as a huge win for the company.”

“The settlement, struck last fall and awaiting final approval in an Alabama federal court, resolves lawsuits filed in 2012 by insurance customers alleging the Chicago-based Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and the nation’s 36 Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurers violated antitrust laws through practices that limited competition and caused higher prices. The total settlement is $2.7 billion, with Anthem shouldering $594 million.”

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“Tyson Foods Inc said on Wednesday it would pay $221.5 million to settle a price-fixing litigation with three groups of plaintiffs accusing it of illegally conspiring to inflate prices in the $65 billion chicken industry,” report Jonathan Stempel and Nivedita Balu in Reuters’ Healthcare.

“The amount will be reflected in its first-quarter statements, the company said in a regulatory filing.”

“Tyson has also faced price-fixing claims by large restaurant and supermarket operators such as Chick-fil-A, Kroger Co and Walmart Inc.”

“Court approvals are required.”

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“Internet service provider (ISP) Cox Communications’ attempt to reduce a $1 billion award of damages for copyright infringement has failed, in a win for music companies including Sony, Universal, and Warner,” reports in World IP Preview’s News.

“The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, upheld the award of damages in a decision dated Tuesday, January 12.”

“In 2018, members of the music industry including Sony, Universal, and Warner accused American ISP Cox of contributory copyright infringement and vicarious copyright infringement. The plaintiffs claimed that a total of 10,017 copyrights were infringed on peer-to-peer networks.”

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“A federal judge denied Apple Inc’s bid to set aside or reduce a $502.8 million patent infringement verdict favoring VirnetX Holding Corp, and awarded interest and royalties that could boost Apple’s total payout in two lawsuits above $1.1 billion,” reports Jonathan Stempel in Reuters’ U.S. Legal News.

“In a decision issued on Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert Schroeder in Tyler, Texas rejected Apple’s request for a new trial and several other claims.”

“These included that VirnetX’s award should not exceed $113.7 million, and that jurors should have been told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had deemed VirnetX’s claims ‘unpatentable.’”

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“Tyson Foods separately struck an agreement to settle with the group of chicken buyers to settle price-fixing claims, but did not disclose the amount … Tyson reportedly did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, which is still subject to court approval, reports Lillianna Byington in Food Dive.

“Pilgrim’s Pride agreed to pay $75 million to chicken buyers to settle price-fixing claims, according to an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The amount will be reflected in Pilgrim’s upcoming Q4 earnings.”

“This settlement comes just months after Pilgrim’s agreed to pay a $110.5 million fine as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division in the price-fixing investigation.”

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“A Texas-based insurance company fired one of its senior lawyers, the company said Thursday, after the attorney was identified as one of the hundreds of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump who stormed the U.S. Capitol a day earlier,” reports Caroline Spiezio in Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw Today.

“Goosehead Insurance said in a Thursday morning tweet that associate general counsel Paul MacNeal Davis is “no longer employed” at the company.”

“He joined the Dallas-area company in mid-2020. His profile on the State Bar of Texas website lists a number for law firm Clark Hill. Court records show he also previously worked at Andrews Kurth, since merged to become Hunton Andrews Kurth. Representatives for those firms did not immediately respond to request for comment.”

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“The mass exodus of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s top staff over accusations of bribery against their former boss has left the Republican seeking $43 million in public funds to replace some of them with outside lawyers to lead a high-profile antitrust lawsuit against Google,” reports Jake Bleiberg from the Associated Press in ABC News’ U.S. News.

“Former Paxton aides told The Associated Press that before they reported him to the FBI in September and began resigning, the lawsuit against the search engine giant was set to be handled internally by what is one of the largest state attorney general’s offices in the U.S.”

“The outside lawyers’ contracts put a price tag on the fallout from Paxton’s deputies accusing him of crimes in the service of a wealthy donor who employs a woman with whom the attorney general allegedly had an extramarital affair. It remains to be seen how much taxpayers will ultimately shell out under the complex deals.”

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“Google faced its third major lawsuit in two months on Thursday as 38 U.S. states and territories accused the $1 trillion company of abusing its market power to try to make its search engine as dominant inside cars, TVs and speakers as it is in phones,” report Diane Bartz and Paresh Dave in Reuters’ U.S. Legal News.

“The lawsuit against the company’s parent Alphabet Inc follows years of complaints that it and other big tech firms including Facebook and Amazon use their massive market power to smite competitors in pursuit of profits.”

“The states asked the court to find Google guilty of breaking antitrust law and to order an end to any agreements or other behavior that it finds to be exclusionary. It raised the possibility of requiring asset sales but did not go into detail.”

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“The Texas attorney general’s office has named The Lanier Law Firm and the law firm Keller Lenkner to the litigation team that would face off against Alphabet’s Google in an expected antitrust lawsuit, the office said on Tuesday,” reports Diane Bartz in Reuters’ Technology News.

“Texas, backed by other states, has long been expected to follow the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Google but unrelated allegations against Attorney General Ken Paxton of bribery and abuse of office led to the departure of several lawyers who were key to the Google investigation.”

“With the new hires, the Texas lawsuit could come as early as this month, according to a source familiar with the office’s planning.”

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