By Patty P. Tehrani
Lawyer and Founder of Policy Patty Toolkit

The cybersecurity regulations keep coming. Following New York’s proposed regulation on cybersecurity, and notice from banking regulators on proposed cybersecurity rules, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued an advisory and related FAQ.

The advisory includes key definitions relevant to cyber-related incidents as follows:
• Cyber-Event: An attempt to compromise or gain unauthorized electronic access to electronic systems, services, resources, or information.
• Cyber-Enabled Crime: Illegal activities (e.g., fraud, money laundering, identity theft) carried out or facilitated by electronic systems and devices, such as networks and computers.
• Cyber-Related Information: Information that describes technical details of electronic activity and behavior, such as IP addresses, timestamps, and Indicators of Compromise (IOCs). Cyber-related information also includes, but is not limited to, data regarding the digital footprint of individuals and their behavior.

The advisory explains how BSA requirements apply to cyber-events, cyber-enabled crime, and cyber-related information with guidance on:
• reporting cyber-enabled crime and cyber-events through SARs;
o consider all available information surrounding the cyber-event, including its nature and the information and systems targeted;
o determine monetary amounts involved in the transactions or attempted transactions (should consider in aggregate the funds and assets involved);
o know other cyber-related SAR filing obligations required by their functional regulator;
• including relevant and available cyber-related information (examples provided – IP addresses with timestamps, virtual-wallet information, device identifiers, and cyber-event information) in SARs to:
o provide complete and accurate information, including relevant facts, to the extent available:
 description and magnitude of the event;
 known or suspected time, location, and characteristics or signatures of the event;
 indicators of compromise;
 relevant IP addresses and their timestamps;
 device identifiers;
 methodologies used; and
 other information the institution believes is relevant;
o refer to the FAQs for additional information on reporting cyber-related information in SARs;
• collaborating internally between BSA/Anti-Money Laundering (AML) units and other units to identify suspicious activity to:
o make sure to internally share relevant information from across the organization to help reveal additional patterns of suspicious behavior and identify suspects not previously known to BSA/AML units;
o use cyber-related information to:
 help identify suspicious activity and criminal actors;
 develop a more comprehensive understanding of their BSA/AML risk exposure;
 use information provided by BSA/AML units to help the institution guard against cyber-events and cyber-enabled crime;
 provide for more comprehensive and complete SAR reporting;
• sharing information among financial institutions to guard against and report money laundering, terrorism financing, and cyber-enabled crime to:
o identify threats, vulnerabilities, and criminals; and
o note the extension of Section 314(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act as a safe harbor from liability to financial institutions—after notifying FinCEN and satisfying certain other requirements— to encourage information sharing.
The supplemental FAQs provide additional guidance on reporting obligations for cyber events and cover the following questions:
• What information should a financial institution include in SARs when reporting cyber-events and cyber-enabled crime?
• How should a financial institution complete SARs when reporting cyber-events and cyber-enabled crime
• How should cyber-events and cyber-enabled crime be characterized in SARs?
• How does a financial institution report numerous cyber events in SARs?
• Is a financial institution required to file SARs to report continuous scanning or probing of a financial institution’s systems or network?
• Should a SAR be filed in instances where an otherwise reportable cyber-event is unsuccessful?
• Does FinCEN now require financial institutions’ BSA/AML units to have personnel/systems devoted to cybersecurity?
• Are BSA/AML personnel now required to be knowledgeable on cybersecurity and cyber-events?
• Can financial institutions use Section 314(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act to share cyber-event and cyber-enabled crime information with other financial institutions
Note: These new FAQs replace prior guidance provided by FinCEN.

FinCEN hopes the guidance will help reduce cyber risks for financial institutions as serve as a reminder on:
• their Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) obligations regarding cyber-events and cyber-enabled crime;
• how BSA reporting helps U.S. authorities combat cyber-events and cyber-enabled crime;
• compliance with BSA requirements or other regulatory obligations for financial institutions does not absolve them from having to comply with federal and state notice/reporting requirements and guidance on cyber-related incidents;
• encouraging collaboration:
o within financial institutions—between employees combating cyber-crime and employees combating money laundering;
o information sharing between financial institutions to again more effectively combat cyber-crime; and
• filing a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) does not relieve it from any other applicable notice requirements of events impacting critical systems and information or of disruptions in their ability to operate.

Note: Under the Bank Secrecy Act, financial institutions must file SARs to report suspicious activity.

Arlene Switzer Steinfield, Dallas-based Senior Counsel in Dykema Cox Smith’s Labor and Employment Practice, was recognized in D Magazine‘s CEO’s special edition, The Dallas 500. Steinfield was one of only six honorees recognized in the area of “Law-Labor and Employment.” D CEO celebrated this year’s honorees with a reception on November 16, 2016.

The Dallas 500 is a special print edition of D CEO that celebrates the most influential and powerful business leaders in North Texas. It is the result of a year-long research initiative from the editors of D CEO, compiling a list based on extensive contacts in local business circles and hundreds of interviews. Unprecedented in scope, The Dallas 500 provides an engaging, personal look at the people across 60 categories that make Dallas such a powerful economic force.

In a release, the firm said:

Steinfield has more than 38 years of experience representing management in labor and employment law. In her practice, she litigates employment discrimination cases and workplace disputes in state and federal court, conducts employment law compliance training, counsels employers on preventative compliance strategies, and appears frequently on behalf of employers before numerous administrative agencies including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Department of Labor Employment Standards Administration, the Texas Workforce Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board. She also serves as an independent investigator of internal workplace harassment and discrimination complaints, and as a mediator in workplace disputes. Ms. Steinfield’s proactive approach to employee relations enables her clients to address employee disputes effectively. What distinguishes Ms. Steinfield is her ability to devise creative and practical strategies for resolving personnel disputes with minimal disruption to the employer’s operations.

Outside of her practice, Steinfield serves on the Board of Governors for the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers, is a Fellow of the American, Texas and Dallas Bar Foundations, and is a Trustee with the Texas International Theatrical Arts Society. She has been recognized by Chambers USA as a Leader in Labor and Employment each year since 2007, and by The Best Lawyers of America® and Texas Super Lawyers® each year since 2003, including being listed in the Texas Super Lawyers® “Top 100 Lawyers in Texas” (2011), the “Top 100 Lawyers in Dallas/Fort Worth” (2011-2013), and the “Top 50 Women Lawyers in Texas” (2010-2013, 2015).

Steinfield received a B.A., with distinction, from the University of Rochester, and her J.D., magna cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center, where she served on the Executive Editorial Board of the American Criminal Law Review.

Blockchain consortium R3 has contracted global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright to determine the contractual effect and enforceability of smart contracts, reports Finextra.

The issue is whether, or in what circumstances, smart contacts have legally binding contractual effect, are enforceable and whether disputes arising from smart contracts can be resolved by an automated resolution process built into a smart contract.

The Finextra report quotes Todd McDonald, co-founder and COO of R3: “The past few years have seen a great deal of talk about distributed ledger technologies given the profound impact they will have on the future of financial services. In order to fully realise the benefits of the technology, it is essential that we design smart contracts that are legally enforceable. Working with our partners at Norton Rose Fulbright, we’re exploring various ways to ensure smart contracts meet that threshold.”

Read the article.

In the months since Cravath Swaine & Moore hiked starting salaries for first year associates by 11 percent to $180,000, law firms across the country raised their associate compensation scale to match — and now those pay increases are showing up as profit growth slows at some law firms, according to a new report on the first three quarters of 2016 compiled by Citi Private Bank.

“This is the first quarter we have an opportunity to see that,” David Altuna, a senior vice president and client adviser in the Citi Law Firm group, told Bloomberg Law.

“Altuna said that the associate salary hikes, which started in July and continued to spread during the summer, are causing expenses to grow faster across the industry,” writes Gabe Friedman. “While the most elite firms have been able to grow revenues faster than expenses, all other firms felt the strain of high lawyer compensation expenses.”

Friedman provides a transcript of his interview with Altuna.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Mining giant Rio Tinto PLC said it fired one of its most senior operational executives and its head of legal and regulatory affairs based on the findings from a continuing internal probe into $10.5 million in payments to a consultant who helped acquire mining rights in Guinea, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The two executives are  energy and minerals chief executive Alan Davies and legal and regulatory affairs group executive Debra Valentine.

The company is reported to be investigating emails related to payments to a consultant who helped to acquire rights to mine the prized Simandou iron-ore deposit. Rio Tinto has notified law enforcement officials and regulators, including the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office, writes Rhiannon Hoyle.

Read the WSJ article.

Lack of precision in reinsurance contract wording has been known to engender anomalous results, points out Larry P. Schiffer in Squire Patton Boggs’ Insurance and Reinsurance Disputes Blog.

“Often a single word or phrase can cause a court or arbitrator to construe an agreement in ways unintended. In reinsurance arbitrations, when the panel majority decides how a contract operates based on its construction of a word or phrase, the losing party is likely stuck with that result even if a court might have construed the contract differently,” he writes.

He describes a recent case that illustrates his point that legalese and unnecessary words can cause a trier of fact to interpret a clause in a way that is unexpected.

Read the article.

While at first glance, an engagement with the federal government may appear lucrative, the venture comes with many strings attached, and the cost of compliance with the rules can quickly outweigh the financial benefit of the contract itself, warns Jennifer S. Cluverius in an article on the website of Nexsen Pruet, LLC.

She writes that a lack of experience can lead a federal contractor or subcontractor can encounter these pitfalls.

The article discusses some of the most costly and often-unnoticed employment-related compliance obligations.

Read the article.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President-elect Donald J. Trump, has spoken to a lawyer about the possibility of joining the new administration, a move that could violate federal anti-nepotism law and risk legal challenges and political backlash, reports The New York Times.

“Mr. Kushner, 35, the husband of Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, and an influential adviser to his father-in-law during the presidential campaign, had been planning to return to his private businesses after Election Day,” report Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Maggie Haberman “But on the morning after Mr. Trump won, Mr. Kushner began discussing taking a role in the White House, according to two people briefed on the conversations who requested anonymity to describe Mr. Kushner’s thinking.”

Kushner has considered putting his holdings into a blind trust and working at the White House without pay, but ethics lawyers in both parties have warned that such an arrangement would violate that 1967 law enacted after John F. Kennedy installed his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, as attorney general.

Read The Times article.

A Pennsylvania Superior Court panel has upheld a fine of almost $45,000 against Philadelphia insurance defense attorney Nancy Raynor, imposed for alleged witness intimidation during a medical-malpractice case that at one point also resulted in a controversial $1 million sanction against her, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

A separate judicial overturned the earlier sanction — imposed in 2014 by a lower court — in June.

Reporter Aswin Mannepalli writes that Superior Court judges found Raynor was responsible for the $44,993.25 in legal fees and other expenses incurred by the plaintiff in the malpractice case as a result of Raynor’s actions.

Read the Inquirer article.

Zapproved has published “The New Law Department Professional,” which discusses the savings corporate legal departments can realize by bringing e-discovery in-house.

“Although their primary duty has always been to protect the organization, in-house legal professionals commonly wear two hats,” the company says in a release. “In addition to their core responsibilities, they often are tasked with handling the administrative operations of the legal department. In the past, marrying these dual roles meant that this less substantive, ministerial work became less of a priority and was pushed down to lower levels or that this work was compartmentalized, leading to independent—and inefficient—silos. Today, however, things have changed.

“These days, legal professionals are expected to lead the charge in implementing corporate initiatives aimed at reducing costs, mitigating risk, introducing new technologies, and changing corporate culture. No longer are the administrative priorities secondary to the substantive work—they are an integral part of it. At the 2016 Conference on Preservation Excellence, panelists discussed ways the new breed of law department professionals are helping to transform their department so it runs like a business, from e-discovery to information governance and more.”

The discussion features:

Moderator:

• Mike Quartararo, Director of Litigation Support Services, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP

Panelists:

• David Castro, Associate General Counsel and Chief Litigation Counsel, Hess Corporation
• Dawn Radcliffe, Legal Operations Manager, TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd.
• Charisma Starr, Legal IT Manager, Exelon

Download The New Law Department Professional

Reuters is reporting that President-elect Donald Trump is nearing a settlement of about $20 million in fraud lawsuits relating to Trump University, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Some former students of the now-defunct school claim they were they were lured by false promises into paying up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors.

Reporter Karen Freifeld writes that sources tell her there are three lawsuits relating to Trump University: two class actions in California and a case brought by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. All would be covered in the possible settlement. One of the cases, in U.S. District Court in San Diego, is scheduled to begin Nov. 28.

Read the Reuters article.

Akerman LLP, a top 100 U.S. law firm serving clients across the Americas, announced the continued expansion of its second largest office, with the addition of New York partners John Campo and Sanford Davis. Campo joins Akerman from Troutman Sanders, bringing experience in complex bankruptcy and business restructuring within the real estate and financial services sectors. Davis joins from Withers Bergman LLP, bringing transactional tax experience.

“New York is a vital and dynamic market for Akerman and our clients,” said Steven Polivy, Akerman’s New York office managing partner and chair of the Economic Development & Incentives Practice. “We are pleased to continue to attract highly skilled professionals who enhance our core strengths across a diverse range of client sectors.”

In a release, the firm described the new partners:

John Campo
Campo is a partner in the Bankruptcy & Reorganization Practice Group. He represents debtors, trustees, creditors, equity holders, and asset purchasers in Chapter 11 and large, complex Chapter 7 cases, as well as out-of-court workouts. He has been involved in many large, complex bankruptcy proceedings and has served as an operating Chapter 11 trustee in cases in both the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York. Notably he served as the Chapter 11 trustee in Maywood Capital Corp., a multi-debtor proceeding involving a $200 million real estate Ponzi scheme. Campo also has served as the lead lawyer in numerous reported circuit court, district court, and Bankruptcy Court decisions. His cases have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The American Lawyer. He also has appeared on CNBC’s “American Greed.”

Sanford Davis
Davis is a partner in the Tax Practice Group. He advises privately held and publicly traded companies, high net worth investors, and investment funds on a broad range of U.S. and international tax matters. His practice is both transactional and advisory, focusing on corporate, M&A, partnership, finance, joint venture and international taxation. He has extensive M&A experience on the buy and sell side, assisting private equity and portfolio companies, strategic players and closely-held businesses to achieve tax efficiencies, benefits and value-add. Davis’ cross-border experience is both in-bound and outbound, addressing corporate reorganization, Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA), tax nexus, sourcing, withholding, effective rate minimization and deferral, controlled foreign corporations (CFC) and passive foreign investment companies (PFIC), transfer pricing, foreign tax credit and treaty issues. In addition, he has represented clients in federal and state tax controversy matters, and obtained a landmark corporate tax victory at the federal appellate level Falconwood Corp. v. U.S., precluding application of the step-transaction doctrine in a multi-step, single day reorganization in the consolidated return context.

Campo and Davis join one of the fastest-growing law firms in New York. Lateral Link revealed Akerman had the third most lateral gains in the market over the last year, expanding the New York office to more than 100 lawyers and business professionals. Recent additions include the firm’s first OnRamp fellow and a former leader of the American Civil Liberties Union Sara Mandelbaum; litigation partner Joshua Bernstein from Pryor Cashman; real estate transactional partner Thomas Diorio from Nixon Peabody; healthcare transactional partners Martin Monaco and William Weiner from Duane Morris, and tax partner Ira Stechel from Wormser, Kiely Galef & Jacobs LLP, among others.

In a dispute that touches on the intersection of copyright, contract law and cloud technology, the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of copyright claims against Barnes & Noble related to ebook samples stored on a user’s B&N-provided cloud-based locker, writes Jeffrey Neuburger in Proskauer Rose LLP’s New Media and Technology Law Blog.

“Notably, the Second Circuit dismissed the case on contractual grounds, declining the opportunity to opine on two important modern copyright doctrines that are often implicated when users store copyrighted content on the cloud,” he explains.

Neuburger discusses the case, concluding with, “[T]he dispute underscores the importance for copyright holders to understand the scope of any content distribution license involving cloud storage by users, particularly when broad language is used with respect to the rights of the licensee.”

Read the Proskauer article.

Practical Law and Epstein Becker Green attorneys will present a free, 75-minute webinar providing insights into recent developments and expected trends in the evolving legal landscape of trade secrets and non-competition agreements on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, at 1 p.m. EST. This webinar will focus on how to navigate this developing area and effectively protect client relationships and proprietary information.

Epstein Becker lawyers Peter A. Steinmeyer, Robert D. Goldstein and Anthony J. Laura will be presenters.m The moderator will be Barbara J. Harris, Senior Legal Editor, Practical Law Labor & Employment.

Topics will include:

• The Defend Trade Secrets (DTSA), including the new federal remedies available to employers and the steps they need to take to fully benefit from them.
• Newly passed state statutes addressing restrictive covenants, including who can enter into them, industry restrictions, and temporal restrictions.
• Recent decisions regarding what constitutes adequate consideration for a non-compete.
• Interesting developments determining choice of law issues, including a new California statute restricting choice of law provisions.
• Administrative agency developments, including agency enforcement actions cracking down on non-competes.

A short Q&A session will follow.

Register for the webinar.

The iControl ESI Team will celebrate eDiscovery Day Thursday, Dec. 1, in downtown Dallas.

The free event will include lunchtime education, and after-hours socializing.

Dec. 1 was chosen as eDiscovery day because it is the anniversary of the day the Federal Rules were first amended to include provisions for eDiscovery.

The event will begin with hours of educational programming covering a  range of current eDiscovery topics, the company said in a release. The education portion will be held at 1717 McKinney, Dallas, Texas 75202 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Signs will be posted in the lobby displaying directions to the education room.

Experts will include Mark Walker, Robin Athlyn Thompson CEDS IGP CIP IG, and Susan Ippoliti Kavanagh, RP, CeDP, CLSP.

Topics will be:

•TAR: A Look Inside the Black Box (Mark Walker)

•Proactive eDiscovery: The Role of RIM/IG in eDiscovery (Robin Athlyn Thompson)

•Career Advancements: The Non-Lawyer Roles in eDiscovery (Susan Kavanagh)

Lunch will be provided, and there’s no charge to attend.

iControl ESI has applied for three hours of CLE with the State Bar of Texas, including ethics credit. Certificates of attendance will also be given for other certification maintenance reporting.

Space is limited to the first 50 RSVPs.

The day will conclude with a social hour at the Idle Rich Pub, 2614 McKinney Ave, Dallas, TX 75204. Hors d’oeuvres will be provided, and there will be a cash bar from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

RSVP to edu@icontrolesi.com.

Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg LLP expanded its intellectual property practice with the addition of Olivia Luk Bedi as partner. Bedi is a trial lawyer with experience in intellectual property litigation, having represented both individuals and corporations in high-stakes cases in federal and state courts.

Bedi earned a B.S. in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2000 and her J.D. from the American University Washington College of Law in 2005.

“We’re thrilled to have Olivia on our team,” said Michael G. Kelber, co-chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions practice group. “She brings tremendous value to the group and will help us further expand the patent services we are able to offer our clients.”

“Olivia’s addition continues our focus to add top-flight talent,” added Managing Partner Scott J. Fisher. “Her jury-trial experience and deep connections within the community fit perfectly with our focus on seeking exceptional talent, and building an inclusive and collaborative culture.”

Bedi joins Neal Gerber Eisenberg from the boutique intellectual property firm Niro Law, where she was a shareholder. Prior to beginning her legal practice, she spent five years as a patent examiner for the United States Patent and Trademark Office in the area of semiconductor manufacturing.

She has been recognized by Law Bulletin Publishing Company as one of the “40 under Forty Top Lawyers in Illinois,” and has been included in Managing Intellectual Property magazine’s Top 250 Women IP Attorneys list.

Bedi is active in the community, serving as Executive Director of the Richard Linn American Inn of Court in Chicago, which she co-founded, as well as serving on leadership committees for the Economic Club of Chicago and Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. She co-founded LIPS (Ladies in IP Society) to promote mentoring and networking among female members of the IP bar in Chicago. She also serves on the board of directors of the Chicago Founders Council for the American Writers Museum and the Chicago Inventors Organization.

Buchalter Nemer announced that it has added Masahisa (“Masa”) Mitsunaga to the firm’s Los Angeles office, where he is a member of the Corporate, Intellectual Property and Japan practice groups. Mitsunaga joined from Liner LLP.

“Masa is a welcome addition to our Los Angeles office as we seek to bolster our corporate and IP offerings and grow our Japan Practice Group,” said Sabina Helton, shareholder and chair of the Japan Practice Group. “Masa strengthens our already highly-respected reputation in the Japanese markets.”

“Masa’s previous transaction experience is impressive – including involvement in the $660 million purchase of Miramax Films from Disney and related financing – and I look forward to seeing him continue that type of high-profile work at Buchalter,” adds Adam J. Bass, president and chief executive officer of Buchalter.

In a release, the firm said Mitsunaga has a deep understanding of the business and legal practices in the Hollywood and entertainment industries as he regularly represents broadcast, film production and distribution, talent management and toy and game companies on M&A matters, debt and equity finance transactions, and intellectual property matters. Mitsunaga also advises Japanese companies on legal considerations when entering or expanding in the U.S. market.

“The Asian entertainment industry is rapidly expanding into the U.S. and other markets, and with this expansion comes the ever-increasing need for executives to fully understand the intellectual property and media-related transaction legal landscape,” said Mitsunaga. “I’m thrilled at the opportunity to continue to advise my clients on these matters at Buchalter, a firm that promotes collaboration from top to bottom.”

Mitsunaga earned his LL.M. at University of Southern California Law School and his LL.B. from Keio University in Tokyo, Japan.

Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company,  announced the latest expansion of its Legal Analytics® platform into antitrust law, following its recent expansion into securities law in July.

In a release, the company said the move is part of the company’s ongoing plan to expand its Legal Analytics platform beyond intellectual property law to cover every federal practice area, including commercial, product liability, employment, commercial bankruptcy and more.

The release continues:

With the expansion, antitrust litigators will be able to use Legal Analytics to make data-driven decisions based on detailed information from more than 7,800 antitrust cases active since 2009 which have thus far resulted in more than $20 billion in damages awarded. The platform gives attorneys a competitive advantage in antitrust litigation by providing strategic insights about trends in antitrust case timing, resolutions, findings, damages and remedies, as well as actionable intelligence on opposing counsel, law firms, parties, judges, venues, and more. These capabilities also extend to Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) – complex cases that could potentially have hundreds of plaintiffs across dozens of jurisdictions.

“In antitrust litigation, where potentially billions of dollars and companies’ entire futures could be at stake, Legal Analytics for Antitrust helps law firms, in-house counsel and government attorneys develop winning case strategies and data-driven arguments based on the outcomes of thousands of prior cases,” said Josh Becker, CEO of Lex Machina. “The power of Legal Analytics truly becomes apparent in multidistrict litigation where untangling some of the more complex cases could encumber attorneys for months, instead of finding the desired insights in minutes.”

As part of the product development process, Lex Machina interviewed antitrust litigators from top law firms, major corporations and government agencies to better understand their particular antitrust needs. The product team incorporated their feedback directly into the new offering. Some of the new features include:
• Expanded case coverage: Attorneys can now analyze federal cases brought under the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, Robinson-Patman Act, or Federal Trade Commission Act.
• New data source and case linking: Existing Lex Machina case data is integrated with data from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to provide accurate MDL case counts. The platform also links procedurally connected cases to let attorneys analyze them in the right context.
• Antitrust findings analytics: New tags have been added for Class Actions, DOJ/FTC Enforcement cases, Robinson-Patman Act price discrimination cases, and cases where counterclaims were asserted.
• Enhanced case timing analytics: Median days have been added to Dismissal, Class Certification and Summary Judgment Orders — useful for budgeting, resource allocation and legal strategy.

Lex Machina’s Legal Analytics is a “must have” tool for litigators in many of America’s top law firms and corporations. Half of the AmLaw100 law firms use Lex Machina to craft successful litigation strategies, win cases and land new clients. Due to the depth and breadth of antitrust cases, which span every industry, Legal Analytics can help attorneys gain a competitive edge in antitrust litigation.

Prior to launch, Lex Machina mined all of the antitrust cases filed since 2009 and identified a number of important trends and insights, including:
• Judge Marianne Battani of the Eastern District of Michigan has handled the most antitrust cases (393 cases) since 2009 – more than twice as many as the next leading judge.
• The top defendants since 2009 include financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase & Co (270 cases), Goldman Sachs & Co (192 cases), UBS (188 cases), and Deutsche Bank (185 cases); electronics companies like Panasonic (265 cases) and Hitachi (253 cases); and several airlines, including Delta (231 cases), American Airlines (212 cases), Southwest (211 cases), and United Airlines (206 cases).
• Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy is the top law firm representing plaintiffs (255 cases), followed by Miller Canfield (248 cases), and Spector Roseman Kodroff & Willis (236 cases).
• Latham & Watkins (340 cases), Gibson Dunn & Crutcher (334 cases), and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (294 cases) are the top law firms representing defendants.
• The median time to the grant of a permanent injunction is just under a year and a half (507 days).
• Judgments favoring the defense side – especially findings of “no antitrust injury,” “no Sherman Act violation § 1 (restraint of trade), and “no Sherman Act violation § 2 (monopolization) – tend to be issued as a judgment on the pleadings or as a summary judgment.

For more information about Lex Machina’s newest practice area and to get an early look at findings from Lex Machina’s first Antitrust Litigation Report, click here. Register here for Lex Machina’s half-hour launch webcast entitled “Legal Analytics for Antitrust Litigation,” scheduled for November 17th at 11:00 am PST (2:00pm EST).

Ted Cruz
Photo by Jamelle Bouie

President-elect Donald Trump is considering former rival Sen. Ted Cruz for U.S. attorney general, according to reports cited by The Washington Times.

Reporter S.A. Miller writes that Trump met Tuesday with the U.S. Senator from Texas. Cruz’s name has also mentioned as a possible nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Mr. Cruz did not confirm speculation about a possible job offer when he emerged from the elevator in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, where Mr. Trump lives and the transition team offices are located,” the newspaper reports.

Read The Washington Times article.

Image by Gage Skidmore

Vice president-elect Mike Pence is the latest Washingtonian found at the cross-hairs of an email controversy that could provide a glimpse into how a Trump administration would respond to issues of government transparency, CBS News reports.

CBS News’ Justice Correspondent Paula Reid explains that an email belonging to the former Indiana governor the core of the privacy debate.

The email is the subject of  a public records lawsuit filed by William Groth, a lawyer, in an effort to reveal the contents of the message, which allegedly shows how a group of 17 states planned to legally dismantle President Obama’s executive orders on immigration.

The Indianapolis Star originally reported on the story.

Read the CBS News article.