“On January 6, 2021, the IRS issued T.D. 9944 (the “Final Regulations”), which finalizes the proposed regulations under section 45Q (the “Proposed Regulations”) that were issued in REG-112339-19 on May 28, 2020 and discussed in an earlier post. This article summarizes the key ways in which the Final Regulations differ from their predecessor,” reports Judy Kwok in Mintz’ Insights Center.

“The Final Regulations, as with the Proposed Regulations, contain numerous concepts that are roughly transposed, with some innovations, from the section 45 production tax credit (“PTC”) and the section 48 investment tax credit (“ITC”). The highlights of the Final Regulations, as they relate to these broadly applicable concepts, are listed” in the article.

Read the article.

“Chad Mizelle was recently the Acting General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security,” writes Joe Patrice in Above the Law’s Biglaw.

“Entirely unsurprisingly, Mizelle slipped into the firm his wife just vacated with an of counsel title and an opportunity to pretend that every career stain of the last administration never happened.”

“Some of the ‘complicated legal issues’ he failed to successfully navigate involved his former bosses Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the DHS ‘officials’ that Trump appointed to head the agency despite a clear legal framework that prevented this. Mizelle’s job was to make the case that Trump could staff the agency with anyone he wanted and the GAO kicked the claim to the curb after, you know, researching it. This prompted Mizelle to respond the way any professional attorney would… by throwing a tantrum and personally insulting the GAO lawyers.”

Read the article.

“As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on businesses across the country, several companies have thrived during the pandemic in areas such as the gig economy, work from home and e-commerce, entertainment, and social media. Litigation has followed success in many of these instances. The following is a representative sample of strong-performing companies that have experienced increased federal litigation during the pandemic in each of the aforementioned categories,” reports Kirsten Errick in Law Street’s Insights.

“The ‘gig economy,’ according to Investopedia, “is based on flexible, temporary, or freelance jobs, often involving connecting with clients or customers through an online platform.” Examples include Uber and Uber Eats, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, and Postmates. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these companies have faced COVID-19 related litigation, such as cases over driver misclassification and employment benefits. These companies have grown as people sought private rides over public transportation and food deliveries expanded as indoor dining shut down.”

Read the article.

“Robinhood Markets Inc’s user agreement is likely to protect the brokerage app from a barrage of lawsuits filed by customers after it blocked a frenzied trading rally in companies such as GameStop Corp that was fueled on social media forums,” discusses Tom Hals in Reuters’ Retail.

“The owners of internet platforms where much of the discussion took place are likewise shielded from liability for users’ activity under a 25-year-old law known as Section 230.”

“At least a dozen proposed class action lawsuits accuse Robinhood of breaching its contract with customers when it restricted trading on Thursday.”

Read the article.

“From time to time, private equity sponsors will exit a portfolio company investment by selling the portfolio company to buyers led by another fund managed by the same sponsor. Because the sponsor is essentially on both sides of the transaction, the sponsor must carefully consider and fairly address the customary business and legal issues arising in a typical private mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transaction. This note suggests a streamlined legal process that offers efficiencies of cost and timing, while still ensuring fairness to the investors in both the seller and buyer funds,” report Eitan Tabak and Abbe L. Dienstag in Kramer Levin’s Perspectives.

“At the outset, it should be noted that there is no shortcut to financial fairness, particularly a fair price for the asset. Achieving fair pricing of an interfund transaction is of special concern because of the sponsor’s control of both the buyer and the seller. The conflict should be addressed by outside fairness analyses and price negotiation conducted by independent committees of investors of the buy- and sell-side funds, generally outside the influence of the sponsor. It would be preferable for each of the funds to be separately advised and to receive its own fairness opinion. However, it may be possible to obtain a dual fairness opinion from a single adviser that has no relationship with either of the funds, or at least has not been preferentially engaged by one or the other of the funds.”

Read the article.

“Most contractors are well aware that they must abide by the performance standards and scope-of-work requirements in their contracts or potentially face legal action. What they might not realize is that there are situations that could render their contracts or a portion of those contracts unenforceable,” writes Kim Slowey in Construction Dive’s News.

“In the legal world, there are affirmative defenses available to someone being sued for breach of contract, said attorney Quinn Murphy with Sandberg Phoenix in St. Louis. If those affirmative defenses are established, he said, it could mean that the parties no longer have an enforceable agreement.”

“Contractors must keep in mind, though, that the issue of whether a contract is unenforceable is a nuanced one and dependent on the facts specific to each contract, according to attorney Brian Wolf of Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. This is why it’s important to seek legal counsel when faced with a potential contract issue.”

Read the article.

“For the second time in four years, PepsiCo Inc. will have a new top lawyer, David Flavell, who is now the company’s deputy general counsel and chief compliance and ethics officer,” reports Brian Baxter in Bloomberg Law’s Business & Practice.

“Flavell will take over March 1 from David Yawman as PepsiCo’s general counsel and corporate secretary. Yawman became PepsiCo’s legal chief in 2017 following the departure of former Justice Department lawyer Tony West, who left to take the top legal job at Uber Technologies Inc.”

“PepsiCo said in a Jan. 28 statement that Yawman is leaving the company where he has spent more than 22 years to pursue other interests. In a Friday interview with Bloomberg Law, Yawman said he plans to rest for a few months before joining Cresco Partners Inc., a boutique executive leadership and development firm.”

Read the article.

“An appellate panel ruled Elizabeth’s School Board must pay roughly $260,000 in damages after findings its in-house counsel was improperly fired midway through a three-year contract,” reports Nikita Biryukoy in New Jersey Globe’s Local News.

“The school board fired Kirk Nelson after he was arrested in April 2013 as part of an investigation into the school board’s administration of the National School Lunch Program.”

“The body received several state and federal subpoenas on its administration of the program in 2011 and 2012 that led to criminal charges against several of its members.”

“Nelson told the court he was arrested because he failed to produce a document in response to a subpoena.”

Read the article.

Lowenstein Sandler has announced that Boris Liberman has joined the firm as partner in the Investment Management group.

Liberman provides strategic advice to U.S. and international hedge funds, mutual funds, CITs, UCITS, managed accounts, superannuation plans, sovereign wealth funds, and other asset owners regarding all aspects of investment strategy implementation across asset classes globally.

Before joining the firm, Liberman served as Senior Counsel for 12 years at AQR Capital Management LLC, where he counseled the trading, research, compliance, portfolio implementation, and business development teams. From his years in-house at this global investment management firm, as well as his time in private practice representing funds and private equity clients, Liberman has acquired wide-ranging experience in dealing with all aspects of investment strategy implementation, encompassing all types of activity and structures.

Liberman has specialized knowledge of relevant rules and regulations impacting trading documentation globally, including in key emerging markets such as China, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, and Russia. He provides counsel to investment managers and asset owners who wish to access these markets across various investment instruments.

Earlier in his career, Liberman represented private equity firms and hedge funds at the global law firms of Linklaters LP and Katten Muchin Rosenman. LLP.
He holds a J.D. from New York Law School and a B.S from Yeshiva University. He is fluent in Russian.

Sidley Austin LLP is pleased to announce that Brenna Jenny has rejoined the firm following service in senior legal posts at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). She brings extensive experience in the administration and enforcement of laws relevant to those in the healthcare industry. Jenny will be a partner in the firm’s global Healthcare and FDA practice, based in its Washington, D.C. office.

During her tenure at HHS, Jenny served as the principal deputy general counsel of HHS and chief legal officer for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). In this role, Jenny supervised an unprecedented wave of CMS regulatory flexibilities offered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jenny also served as the lead legal advisor for the Provider Relief Fund, a position that included formulating policy for reporting requirements and permissible uses of funds. Jenny was a co-founder of the HHS False Claims Act Working Group and routinely worked with the Department of Justice and the HHS Office of Inspector General on fraud and abuse matters relating to federal healthcare programs. She led implementation of the HHS Good Guidance Practices regulation and departmental efforts to implement the Supreme Court’s Allina decision, by advising HHS on the proper use of sub-regulatory guidance, including enforcement actions.

Before joining HHS, Jenny served as legal counsel to the head of DOJ’s Civil Division, supervising False Claims Act matters and opioid-related investigations, in addition to advising on litigation strategy for healthcare-related lawsuits.

Foley & Lardner LLP has elected 19 lawyers to the firm’s partnership, effective February 1, 2021.

Of the firm’s new partners, 53 percent identify as racially diverse or women, which aligns with Foley’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. The firm’s new partners include:

Dovi Adlerstein, Business Law, Dallas

Adlerstein is a member of the Transactions Practice. He has experience in a broad range of transactional and corporate matters such as structuring, negotiating and implementing all phases of mergers and acquisitions, corporate recapitalizations and private equity transactions, many with intellectual property or technology-related components, including in the pharmaceutical, medical device, technology, insurance, oil and gas, restaurant and hospitality industries. Adlerstein has acted as lead counsel in transactions ranging in size from $500,000 to almost $30 billion, including numerous complex, multinational deals.

Christopher J. Babcock, Business Law, Dallas

Babcock is a member of the Transactions Practice Group and the firm’s Private Equity Leadership Team. He has significant experience representing private equity funds and their portfolio companies, as well as public companies, privately held companies and nonprofits in such matters, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and portfolio company governance. In addition, Babcock successfully represents clients across a broad range of corporate governance and capital market matters, including tender offers, public exchange offers, advising special committees on disclosure requirements, representing companies in communications with stakeholders, and representing activists in successful campaigns to change the direction of public companies.

Joseph P. Derrigo Jr., Business Law, Washington

Derrigo is a member of the Transactions Practice Group and the Technology, Sports and Cannabis Industry Teams. He represents established and emerging companies at all stages of the business life cycle, from formation through funding, expansion and exit. Joe leads cross-disciplinary teams in the negotiation of complex mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. In the emerging company space, Derrigo represents venture capital and other strategic investors placing growth capital, and he counsels operating companies on formation, governance, financing and commercial matters.

Kyle Y. Faget, Business Law, Boston

Faget is a member of the Health Care and Life Sciences Practice Groups and the FDA and Telemedicine & Digital Health Industry Teams. She advises clients on state and federal laws applicable to telemedicine practice, and on regulatory and compliance matters involving the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute, the AdvaMed Code and the PhRMA Code. Faget’s practice includes assisting companies in structuring, developing and implementing corporate compliance programs suitable for pre-commercial and commercial-stage pharmaceutical and medical device companies. She also regularly drafts and negotiates agreements required to develop and commercialize pharmaceutical and medical device products such as License Agreements, Material Transfer Agreements, Collaboration Agreements and Clinical Trial Agreements.

Thomas B. (T.J.) Ferrante, Business Law, Tampa

Ferrante is a health care attorney and member of the Health Care Transactions and Telemedicine & Digital Health Industry Teams. He focuses his practice on telemedicine, digital health, remote patient monitoring and virtual care, as well as a wide range of transactional and related regulatory issues for health care industry clients. Ferrante has considerable experience in structuring and negotiating transactions for technology-enabled health care providers nationwide, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic affiliations and financings.

Rebecca L. Hays, Intellectual Property, Madison

Hays is an intellectual property attorney and member of the Chemical, Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Practice. She counsels clients on a wide range of biotechnologies, including novel therapeutic and diagnostic platforms. Hays received her Ph.D. in molecular biology, cell biology and genetics from Northwestern University, where she earned a pre-doctoral fellowship award from the Northwestern University Lurie Cancer Center. After receiving her Ph.D., Hays did postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular Biology and Pharmacology at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis.

William R. Hughes, Business Law, Milwaukee

Hughes is a member of the Estates & Trusts Practice. He counsels individuals and families that have achieved uncommon success on thoughtful wealth-transfer planning in a tax-efficient manner. Hughes has extensive tax and estate planning experience, including life insurance planning with beneficiary designations and irrevocable life insurance trusts; planning for retirement accounts to minimize income and transfer taxes; estate administration for complex estates with illiquid and hard-to-value-assets; fiduciary income tax planning for estates, trusts and beneficiaries; and planning for closely-held business owners for business succession, buy-sell agreements and deferred compensation arrangements.

Christina M. Kennedy, Litigation, Orlando

Kennedy is a member of the Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution. She represents clients throughout the U.S. in high-stakes business and complex commercial litigation, including the defense of class actions, primarily in the health care, financial services, retail and manufacturing industries. Kennedy has extensive experience litigating disputes from inception through trial and appeals. She has litigated disputes in all aspects of the health care industry, including those concerning securities class actions, consumer class actions, payors and claims administrators against lawsuits related to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and various commercial and labor and employment claims. In addition to her commitment to pro bono legal services, Kennedy is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Florida Inc.

Susan Poll Klaessy, Litigation, Chicago

Klaessy is a member of the Bankruptcy & Business Reorganization and Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practices. She focuses on corporate restructuring and insolvency matters, fiduciary liability, debtors’ and creditors’ rights, corporate dissolution, fraud, corporate governance disputes and complex business litigation. Klaessy has represented debtors, creditors and other stakeholders in various in and out of court reorganizations. Additionally, she is an experienced trial counsel and has litigated numerous business disputes, including class action cases, arbitrations, appeals and other high-stakes corporate disputes across a wide range of industries.

Sara P. Madavo, Litigation, New York

Madavo is a member of the Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution and Labor & Employment Practices, as well as the Health Care Industry Team. She focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation and has represented large companies, small businesses and individual clients across various industries through all phases of litigation. Madavo is co-chair of the firm’s Black Attorneys Affinity Group and a member of the Diversity Fellowship Committee.

Claire Marblestone, Business Law, Los Angeles

Marblestone is a member of the Health Care and Telemedicine & Digital Health Industry Teams. Marblestone advises hospitals, health systems, physician groups, digital health providers and health care businesses on a range of health care regulatory and transactional matters, with an emphasis on HIPAA compliance, corporate practice of medicine, provider enrollment, and licensure and certification. She also provides transactional counsel to health care providers, and she has drafted and negotiated documents relating to hospital acquisitions, health plan acquisitions, health care provider mergers, professional services arrangements and management agreements.

Victoria A. (Tory) Matese, Business Law, Washington

Matese is a member of the Transactions and Finance Practices, as well as the Sports, Energy and Hospitality & Leisure Industry Teams. She represents clients on domestic and international mergers, acquisitions, private equity transactions, project finance, supply chain and distribution matters, and general corporate and contract counseling. Matese also has extensive experience and business skill in drafting and negotiating a wide range of commercial agreements, including license, supply, manufacturing and distribution agreements, including for clients in the energy, medical device and health services industries.

Margaret Gembala Nelson, Litigation, Chicago

Nelson is a member of the Securities Enforcement & Litigation Practice. She represents financial service entities, corporations, private funds, accounting firms, and their professionals in government enforcement investigations and examinations and complex securities and business litigation. Nelson also conducts internal investigations on behalf of clients and advises on regulatory compliance and risk management issues. She has experience working with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Department of Justice, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and other federal and state agencies in connection with regulatory inquiries, investigations and actions.

Eric G. Pearson, Litigation, Milwaukee

Pearson is a member of the Business Litigation & Dispute Resolution, Securities Enforcement & Litigation, Tax Controversy, Appellate and Government Enforcement Defense & Investigations Practices. He concentrates his practice on commercial and securities litigation, focusing on representing clients in regulatory, corporate governance and enforcement matters in complex U.S. federal and state tax controversies. Pearson is a certified public accountant. He is the current chair of the Appellate Practice Section of the State Bar of Wisconsin and is a member of the Board of Governors of the Seventh Circuit Bar Association. Before joining the firm, Eric served as a law clerk for Judge Diane S. Sykes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Ruben J. Rodrigues, Intellectual Property, Boston

Rodrigues is a member of the IP Litigation and Electronics Practices, as well as the Technology Industry Team. He has managed litigation matters for technology companies of all sizes on cases involving software, electronics, semiconductors, medical devices, oil and gas exploration, offshore technologies, additive manufacturing, toys, construction technologies, telecommunications, gene sequencing and biochemical research tools. Rodrigues also represents clients in post-grant review proceedings before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and advises on general IP strategy and licensing issues.

Daniel Rose, Intellectual Property, Boston

Rose is a member of Foley’s Electronics Practice Group and the Technology Industry Team. He is involved in the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in the areas of electronics, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, cybersecurity and telecommunications. Rose has advised companies ranging from Fortune 1000 multinationals to basement startups in the areas of network security and cloud storage, personalized health care and big data processing, and signal processing and communications. He provides advice on domestic and international patent portfolio development, infringement and patentability opinions, post-grant proceedings before the USPTO, and IP diligence for mergers and acquisitions.

Thomas C. Scannell, Litigation, Dallas

Scannell is a member of the Bankruptcy & Business Reorganization Practice. He focuses his practice on the restructuring of companies in and out of bankruptcy, debtors’ and creditors’ rights, and debtor-in-possession financers. Scannell also counsels his clients on out-of-court workouts, turnarounds, and the acquisition and sale of distressed assets inside and outside the bankruptcy sale process. Since 2009, Scannell has represented debtors, creditors, trustees, committees, landlords and receivers in a wide variety of insolvency-based litigation arising from commercial debtor-creditor disputes. He also defends clients in resolving preferential and fraudulent transfer challenges, along with a broad range of adversary proceedings in bankruptcy court.

Morgan J. Tilleman, Business Law, Milwaukee

Tilleman is a member of the Insurance and Health Care Practices and the Health Care Industry Team. His practice is concentrated on corporate and regulatory insurance and reinsurance law and the intersection of health care and insurance. Tilleman represents insurers and reinsurers in mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, reinsurance transactions, shell transactions, affiliations, joint ventures and insurance program arrangements, and she provides regulatory and business counsel to a wide range of U.S. and international insurance industry participants. Tilleman also focuses on advising health insurers and HMOs regarding formation, licensure, operations, compliance, strategy, and mergers and acquisitions.

Nick J. Welle, Business Law, Milwaukee

Welle is a member of the Employee Benefits & Executive Compensation Practice. He exclusively devotes his practice to issues impacting group health and welfare benefit plans, focusing on health care reform issues and consumer-driven health benefits. Welle advises his clients on matters concerning the Affordable Care Act, HIPAA privacy, COBRA, Employee Retirement Income Security Act, cafeteria plans, flexible benefit plans, wellness programs, health savings accounts and other health benefit issues. Welle also works with members of the firm’s Transactions Practice to advise clients on potential liabilities regarding ACA, HIPAA, ERISA and other federal laws governing group health plans.

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP is pleased to announce that former D.C. Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith has joined the firm as a special counsel in its issues and appeals practice. Judge Griffith will be based in Washington, D.C., where he will focus his practice on appellate litigation, Congressional and internal investigations, and strategic counseling.

Appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by President George W. Bush in 2005, Judge Griffith served on the court for 15 years until his retirement in 2020. During his judicial tenure, Judge Griffith authored more than 200 opinions touching a wide range of issues, including administrative law, environmental law, energy law and congressional investigations.

As a member of the D.C. Circuit, Judge Griffith was appointed by the Chief Justice of the United States to serve on the Judicial Conference’s Committee on the Judicial Branch, which concerns the judiciary’s relationship to the Executive Branch and Congress, and the Code of Conduct Committee, which sets the ethical standards that govern the federal judiciary.

Before his appointment to the D.C. Circuit, Judge Griffith served as Senate Legal Counsel from 1995 to 1999. In that role, he represented the interests of the U.S. Senate in litigation and provided non-partisan legal advice to Senate leadership. He represented the institutional interests of the Senate in litigation over the Line Item Veto Act and in numerous committee investigations.

Earlier in his legal career, Judge Griffith spent several years in private practice and served as general counsel for Brigham Young University, where he received his undergraduate degree. A graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, Judge Griffith is a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and has taught previously at the law schools at Stanford and BYU.

Judge Griffith is a senior advisor at the National Institute for Civil Discourse and a member of the advisory board of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU. He has long been active in international rule of law projects and is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of the CEELI Institute in Prague, which promotes international legal reform projects in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

Attorneys in Hunton Andrews Kurth’s issues and appeals group represent clients in federal and state appellate courts nationwide, including in the Supreme Court of the United States. Among the firm’s lawyers are former justices of the Texas Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Virginia, two former state solicitors general, and more than 30 who have clerked for federal and state appellate judges throughout the country.

Firm welcomes new partners, associates to Dallas office

DALLAS – Family law attorney Whitney Keltch Green and health care attorney Wade Emmert have joined Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal, LLP as partners in the firm’s Dallas office.

A passionate advocate for clients facing personal turmoil, Green has developed a practice based on creative solutions in matters involving divorce, child custody/support disputes, adoptions, premarital agreements, modifications, enforcements, and complex property disputes. Her work also focuses on unique legal questions involving children, including parental alienation, grandparents’ rights, special needs, and addiction and mental health concerns.

Her work has earned recognition from the Best Lawyers in America in Family Law for 2020 and 2021, D Magazine’s Best Lawyers Under 40, and Thomson Reuters’ Texas Rising Stars. She also holds a 10.0 “superb” rating from AVVO.com. Green is also the President of the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers.

Emmert is a board-certified Health Law attorney with more than 25 years of experience representing Texas practitioners and hospitals, including complex health care transactions and regulatory compliance matters.

Emmert also serves as an adjunct professor at the Texas A&M University School of Law where he teaches courses on Health Care Transactions and Antitrust, and Health Care Fraud and Abuse. He has been recognized on Thomson Reuters’ Texas Super Lawyers listing and among the top 1 percent of America’s Most Honored Professionals.

Also joining the firm are associates Dorlin Armijo, Stephanie Assi and Abbye West. Armijo and Assi join the firm’s Litigation practice group. West’s practice focuses on Family Law.

Lisa Thomas brings broad litigation expertise to Houston-based firm

HOUSTON – The boutique litigation firm of Cadwell Clonts & Reeder is pleased to announce that Lisa M. Thomas has joined the firm as a partner. A trial-tested litigator, Ms. Thomas focuses on intellectual property disputes with an emphasis on complex patent litigation. Her experience includes all phases of litigation, including pre-suit strategy development, fact and expert discovery, pre-trial and post-trial practice, and appeals.

Thomas has litigated cases in a wide range of industries, including pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, chemistry, energy, and software. Licensed to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office since 2007, she has prepared and prosecuted patent applications and is experienced in post-grant proceedings that occur in conjunction with litigation.

She joins the firm from the Houston office of Reed Smith LLP.

Thomas earned her law degree from Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in 2011 and her undergraduate degree in bioengineering from Rice University in 2005.

Three veteran litigators formed Cadwell Clonts & Reeder in 2020 to support a wide range of business sectors in complex commercial disputes, intellectual property matters, and corporate transactions. Backed by previous tenures at major international law firms, the attorneys have represented some of the most intriguing and promising start-ups, as well as Fortune 100 companies.

“Matthew Miller, a former top lawyer at cannabis company Green Thumb Industries Inc., joined BarkBox Inc. as its general counsel this month, the company confirmed,” reports Brian Baxter in Bloomberglaw’s Business & Practice.

“Petco Health and Wellness Inc. also confirmed it hired Ilene Eskenazi as chief legal officer and corporate secretary before the company raised $864 million through a mid-January initial public offering. The company trades under the ticker symbol WOOF.”

“Petco this month hired Sunayna Ramdeo, associate general counsel for compliance, and Giovanni Insana, assistant general counsel for securities, from their in-house roles at IHS Markit Ltd. and InterDigital Inc., respectively. Other legal recruits by the newly public Petco include corporate counsel Cindy Kung, veterinary services counsel Mark Arimoto, and employment counsel Matthew Wroblewski.”

Read the article.

“A Texas judge has ordered a Houston-area lawyer and his client to be jointly sanctioned $150,000 for the client’s ‘outright lies’ in litigation and ‘a mountain of evasiveness’ in discovery,” reports Debra Cassens Weiss in ABA Journal’s News.

“In a Jan. 21 order, Judge R. O’Neil Williams of the 268th District Court in Texas imposed the sanctions on solo practitioner Paul B. Rosen of Bellaire, Texas, and his client Gen Fu Zhang.”

“The case involved a dispute over a commercial lease for a fast-food restaurant.”

“Williams said the client made false statements about property used as collateral in the lease transaction. Rosen did not conduct a reasonable investigation of the law and the facts before filing the suit, then failed to correct false and misleading claims in later pleadings, Williams said.”

Read the article.

“Southern California Edison will pay $2.2 billion to settle insurance claims for the Woolsey fire that tore through Malibu in 2018,” reports Catherine Traywick of Bloomberg in the Press Telegram’s News.

“The company also reached settlements with plaintiffs involving the 2017 Thomas and Koenigstein fires and the 2018 Montecito mudslides, it said in a statement. Edison, which did not admit wrongdoing or liability, last year reached a $360 million settlement with local government agencies that were harmed by the same fires.”

“Utility equipment has been tied to several devastating California wildfires in recent years, saddling the state’s power companies with billions of dollars in potential liabilities and forcing its largest, PG&E Corp., into bankruptcy in 2019.”

Read the article.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP is pleased to announce that the firm scored a 90 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2020 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which is the national benchmarking tool on corporate policies, practices and benefits pertinent to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.

Medlock and Bradley’s Inclusion and Diversity Committee, which is chaired by partner Anne Marie Seibel, led the effort to ensure the firm had practices and policies in place to participate in the CEI survey. The committee is tasked with identifying and implementing inclusion and diversity initiatives across all the firm’s offices. In 2020, the Inclusion and Diversity Committee implemented new programs aimed at improving recruitment, retention and advancement of diverse attorneys, held firm-wide social justice discussion groups and panel discussions, and supported the firm’s affinity groups in their activities.

The 2020 CEI ranks employers that took concrete steps to ensure greater equity for LGBTQ workers and their families in the form of comprehensive policies, benefits and practices. The rating criteria includes non-discrimination policies across business entities; equitable benefits for LGBTQ workers and their families; and supporting an inclusive culture and corporate social responsibility.

Pandemic-related pressure and political disruption are expected to create significant uncertainty in 2021—and as governments grapple with these challenges, enforcement authorities are likely to uncover bribery and corruption issues. In this climate, businesses face compliance risks across a range of industries and regions, according to a new report by global law firm Hogan Lovells.

The Global Bribery & Corruption Outlook identifies a number of compliance and enforcement trends, and areas in which enforcement is on the rise.

“Over the course of 2021, we expect to see continued cross-border enforcement activity and collaboration, the alignment of European corporate criminal liability laws with existing U.S. laws, and a more global crackdown on bribery and money laundering,” said Stephanie Yonekura, global head of Hogan Lovells’ Investigations, White Collar, and Fraud practice.

Businesses face uncertainty on a number of fronts. Countries that had hoped to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic this year have instead enacted further restrictions. The United Kingdom is adjusting to life after Brexit, and the United States is transitioning to a new administration.

“Despite these unpredictable times, we have identified some unifying trends in key industries and jurisdictions around the world,” Yonekura said. “For example, in the U.S., even though the new administration has just begun to shape its legislative and regulatory priorities, there is broad agreement that enforcement activity involving corporate fraud will only increase in coming years.”

Industries in the hot seat

As governments plan for recovery from the economic downturn inflicted by the pandemic, the financial services sector can expect to see a global rise in enforcement activity, including actions brought under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the U.S.

“Financial services institutions should anticipate and prepare for heightened attention from the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, and regulators worldwide in anti-bribery enforcement,” said Hogan Lovells partner Ann C. Kim, co-editor of the Global Bribery & Corruption Outlook. “Given the current economic climate, now is the time to examine compliance efforts and identify and remediate any issues, before enforcement officials come knocking.”

Technology companies also find themselves in the hot seat.

“2020 saw no shortage of governmental scrutiny of technology companies, and it is not lost on us that the very companies that were in the crosshairs of enforcement authorities were the ones helping the world to keep turning during the pandemic,” Yonekura said. “We expect government authorities to continue their focus on the technology sector, including a likely surge in FCPA enforcement actions in the U.S.”

The Global Bribery & Corruption Outlook examines enforcement in other industries as well, including:

• Life sciences – The race to find therapeutics and a vaccine in the fight against COVID-19 has put the spotlight back on international clinical trials, and companies are increasingly turning to AI to spot compliance issues.

• Sports, media, and entertainment – Businesses in this sector, among the hardest hit by the pandemic, face compliance challenges as they begin to re-open, such as the potential for vendors and third parties seeking to use in-kind donations, such as tickets to events, to cut through government bureaucracy.

• Aerospace, defense, and government services – The industry saw arguably the largest anti-corruption settlement in enforcement history, and tighter controls are likely ahead.

• Private capital – Developments in Europe expand the risks companies can face when bribery and corruption is uncovered at a newly acquired entity. The report also looks at acquisition risks in the U.S. and UK.

Around the World

Written by Hogan Lovells attorneys from offices around the world, the Global Bribery & Corruption Outlook examines enforcement trends in a number of regions.

“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will continue to shape enforcement activity around the world,” noted partner and report co-editor Liam Naidoo. “But, as we explore in the Outlook, ongoing political and economic changes may have a greater impact in the longer term in some key jurisdictions.”

Regional highlights include:

• China – The digital transformation of Chinese retail companies in a post-COVID-19 era have given rise to compliance risks and challenges.

• Europe – In Spain and Germany, there is movement towards greater alignment with U.S. and other European jurisdictions when it comes to the criminal liability of companies.

• Latin America – Progress on the anti-corruption front, which had built up in Latin America in the wake of the 2014 Car Wash investigation, was impacted in 2020 by political developments, economic instability, and the COVID-19 crisis. Nevertheless, significant corruption investigations are underway.

• Southeast Asia – The report contains feedback from lawyers across the Asia-Pacific region on what the next 12 months will bring. In jurisdictions such as Vietnam and Indonesia, lawyers observe a “Wild West vibe” to compliance and ethical business practices.

As the world begins to step out of the darkness of the pandemic, the financial support that governments have put in place will start to wane, and with that, the fraud, corruption, and white-collar crime that may have lay hidden since March 2020 will begin to surface. It is not too late to review and improve corporate compliance programs, and such action may help mitigate issues yet to come to light.

The Global Bribery & Corruption Outlook can be viewed here: https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/news/2021-global-bribery-corruption-outlook

“With a notably sharply worded opinion, the Fifth Circuit recently vacated over $4.3 million in penalties levied against the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (M.D. Anderson) by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for a series of alleged HIPAA violations,” reports Dianne J. Bourque and Michelle L. Caton in Mintz’ Insights Center.

“The case, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center vs. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, stems from three separate incidents that occurred between 2012 and 2013. In two instances, M.D. Anderson workforce members lost unencrypted protected health information (PHI), while the third incident involved the theft of a faculty member’s laptop also containing unencrypted PHI. After investigating these occurrences, HHS fined M.D. Anderson a total of $4,348,000, which M.D. Anderson contested through the agency’s administrative review process. On review, both the administrative law judge (ALJ) and the Departmental Appeals Board upheld the penalties.”

“On appeal, the Fifth Circuit concluded that HHS’s civil monetary penalties order against M.D. Anderson was arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law, vacating the penalties and pointedly criticizing the agency’s actions and arguments in this matter. The court identified “at least four independent reasons” for its conclusion.”

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