“A recent enforcement action from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) drives home the importance of being proactive about vendors and data security,” writes Odia Kagan for Fox Rothschild’s Franchise Law Update.

“Specifically, the FTC recently entered into an enforcement action with an analytics company for breaching the FTC’s Safeguards Rule issued pursuant to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) by failing to properly vet a third-party vendor it engaged. The vendor stored personal information in cleartext in an unprotected cloud-based location that could be accessed by anyone with the relevant URL. The information was exposed for a year and was accessed by 52 unauthorized IP addresses.”

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“Rally, the creators of the fractional alternative investing platform that democratized investments in rare, one-of-a-kind collectibles, today announced the hire of Nili T. Moghaddam, the company’s first General Counsel. On the heels of hiring former Disney and ESPN executive George Leimer as its CEO, Rally’s latest investment in its C-suite team will enable it to further grow its user base and bring additional asset classes and collectibles to market,” released Rally in BusinessWire.

“Moghaddam joins Rally with a unique combination of decades-long experience in corporate law, government, and technology. Most recently, Moghaddam was at Robinhood, where she was one of the first lawyers at the company and later, its first Head of Litigation & Investigations. Prior to Robinhood, Moghaddam served as a federal prosecutor and as a corporate litigator at two prominent global corporate law firms.”

Read the release.

“Despite the coronavirus pandemic and recession that made life so miserable for millions last year, law firms did very well for themselves,” writes David Lat in Lateral Link’s Lat’s Legal Letter.

Of the 29 firms listed in the newsletter, “all posted increases in profit per partner, many of them well into the double digits. The highest figure so far, a 46.6 percent increase, was reported by Crowell & Moring (which led me to declare Crowell my Law Firm of the Week last week). But the firm had plenty of company, with eight other firms posting PPEP increases of 20 percent or more.”

“Now, the increases in profit per partner might be somewhat understandable, given how the pandemic and working remotely led to dramatic drops in many firms’ expenses, such as rent (in some cases), utilities, travel, and entertainment. And yes, some firms did engage in layoffs last year as well.”

Read the newsletter.

“Jeff Siegmeister, who was state attorney representing Columbia and six other North Florida counties for nearly seven years until he resigned suddenly in December 2019, was indicted this week on federal charges including conspiracy, extortion, fraud and several other charges,” report Eric Wallace and Frank Powers in News4Jax Local News.

“The FBI’s investigation of Siegmeister began in 2018 following allegations of a bribery scheme in which Siegmeister was accused of having ‘solicited money or things of value from defendants and lawyers in exchange for favorable prosecution treatment.’ According to a 37-page indictment, a grand jury charged Siegmeister with 11 counts related mostly to soliciting and accepting bribes in various cases between 2013 to 2019. Siegmeister is accused of soliciting and accepting bribes in return for the ‘favorable disposition’ of criminal cases.”

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During the pandemic there was an “increased focus on earn-out provisions as a method to mitigate the risk of a target’s post-closing under-performance and to bridge any valuation gap between the purchaser and seller,” writes Kiri Buchanan in Norton Rose Fulbright’s Deal Law Wire.

In this post they focus on “(i) reverse earn-out provisions and (ii) a review of the use of earn-outs in 2020 M&A deals.”

“…a ‘classic earn-out’ refers to a post-closing increase in the purchase price based on the achieving of certain performance targets, while a ‘reverse earn-out’ refers to a decrease in the purchase price if the performance targets are not achieved. For greater clarity, in a reverse earn-out scenario, the purchaser pays the maximum amount for the target at closing and if the agreed upon performance targets are not met, the vendor must re-pay an agreed portion of the purchase price, reducing the overall price of the target. Reverse earn-outs are used less often because the risk resides with the buyer, rather than the seller.”

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“Personal injury-related COVID-19 cases are on the upswing around the world, and there are other lawsuits centering on entertainment and travel refunds, employment issues, failed business contracts, medical negligence, business interruptions, pandemic avoidance, and much more. If you’re curious as to what types of lawsuits can come from exposure to COVID-19, this is for you. We’ll list the biggest ones happening right now,” posts in Kuzyk Law’s blog.

1. Workplace Safety Lawsuits
2. Discrimination Lawsuits
3. Employee Benefits or Leave Lawsuits
4. Negligent Security Lawsuits
5. Whistleblower and Retaliation Lawsuits
6. Breach of Contract Lawsuits
7. Unpaid Benefits Lawsuits
8. Price Gouging Lawsuits
9. False Advertising Lawsuits
10. Workers’ Compensation Lawsuits
11. Wrongful Death and Personal Injury Lawsuits
12. Insurance Lawsuits
13. Collections for Unpaid Bills Lawsuits
14. State or Federal WARN Act Lawsuits

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“TikTok has agreed to pay $92 million to settle dozens of lawsuits alleging that the popular video-sharing app harvested personal data from users, including information using facial recognition technology, without consent and shared the data with third-parties, some of which were based in China,” reports Bobby Allyn in NPR’s Technology.

“The proposed settlement, which lawyers in the case have called among the largest privacy-related payouts in history, applies to 89 million TikTok users in the U.S. whose personal data was allegedly tracked and sold to advertisers in violation of state and federal law.”

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“In the wake of the deep freeze that recently swept the nation, natural gas has taken the forefront among a slew of price gouging allegations, write Christopher E. Ondeck, John R. Ingrassia and Nicollette R. Moser in Proskauer’s Antitrust.

“Last week’s winter storms caused natural gas spot market prices to spike, with some reporting up to a 100% percent increase. Reports also surfaced of spot prices for wholesale electricity in Texas’ power grid increasing more than 10,000%. In response, Minnesota Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) has not only encouraged federal regulators to investigate the price spikes, but has also requested regulators to “[i]nvoke, as appropriate, any emergency authorities available, including under the Natural Gas Policy Act, to allocate natural gas supplies at fair prices.” Whether natural gas prices exceeded allowable limits under applicable price gouging statutes currently in effect depends, among other things, on whether natural gas is within the scope of these laws in the first place.”

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Washington, D.C. – Sidley Austin LLP is pleased to announce that Sonia Barros has joined the firm as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office. Formerly the Chief Corporate Governance Counsel in the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Barros will be a member of the firm’s Global Capital Markets group, where she will be the chair of the group’s newly formed Public Company Advisory subgroup focused on advising clients in corporate disclosures and governance matters.

As outgoing Chief Corporate Governance Counsel, Barros is a leading authority on corporate governance matters that involve the agency’s rules and regulations. In addition to forming the Division’s initial corporate governance function, Barros also served as the SEC’s representative to the Corporate Governance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Prior to her role as Chief Corporate Governance Counsel, Barros served as the Assistant Director in the SEC’s Office of Real Estate and Commodities, where she had oversight authority for thousands of transactions and reviews of corporate disclosures, including financial statements, under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In this capacity, Barros also led the SEC’s disclosure review of companies across numerous industries, including REITs, real estate-related finance, real estate marketplace lending, lodging, casinos, commodities, stock exchanges, consulting services, and cryptocurrencies. Her other roles during her tenure with the SEC included Legal Office Chief of the Division’s Office of Risk and Strategy, Special Counsel, Attorney-Advisor for the Office of Health Care and Insurance, and the Office of Chief Counsel’s Shareholder Proposal Task Force. Before joining the SEC, Barros spent nearly a decade in private practice, counseling clients on corporate governance and securities matters.

Ashley Hutto-Schultz, a regulatory attorney with substantial experience in the mortgage industry, has joined the national financial services practice at Davis Wright Tremaine. Hutto-Schultz, who will join as counsel and work from the firm’s Washington, DC office, previously worked at Hogan Lovells and Morrison & Foerster, as well as serving as Director of Compliance at Castle & Cooke Mortgage. She will work closely with Chava Brandriss, head of the firm’s mortgage industry practice, who joined DWT in 2020.

Hutto-Schultz will support mortgage lenders, servicers and other mortgage industry participants, such as FinTech companies, on a range of matters, including helping companies structure mortgage products and services, advising on state and federal regulatory compliance, developing or revising compliance management systems, and assisting with regulatory examinations.

Davis Wright Tremaine recently reported that it had another strong year in 2020, its seventh consecutive year of record performance. Revenue increased by more than 7% and net income rose by nearly 12%.

After more than 50 years, USS Pueblo crew members and their families are finally being recognized for what they have endured. A federal district court has awarded compensatory damages in the amount of $1.15 billion and additional punitive damages in the same amount. Today’s decision follows a 2019 default judgment that held North Korea liable for taking the crew hostage in 1968. The damages awarded today are among the largest ever awarded in a state-sponsored terrorism case.

The case, John Doe A-1 et al. v. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was filed by Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp three years ago this month on behalf of 61 crew member plaintiffs and 110 family member plaintiffs in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It arises out of the capture of the Pueblo during an intelligence-gathering mission in international waters off the Korean Peninsula. On January 23, 1968, armed North Korean warships and fighter aircraft surrounded and fired on the ship. One crew member was killed, and the remaining crew – consisting of U.S. Navy, Marines and civilians – were held hostage by North Korea for 11 months until the United States negotiated their release. The plaintiffs, which include members of the crew and their families, sought damages for torture, hostage-taking, and personal injuries they suffered as a result.

The case was filed under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s terrorism exception. This exception allows victims to sue a state sponsor of terrorism for torture, hostage-taking, personal injury or death resulting from its actions or its material support for such actions. The Trump Administration re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism on November 20, 2017, shortly after Trump’s 2017 visit to South Korea and a speech to its Parliament in which he highlighted the USS Pueblo incident as part of North Korea’s history of terrorist acts. If deemed eligible, this would be one of the largest terrorism judgments in history to be paid by the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund.

North Korea previously was found liable by the D.C. District Court in 2008 for the capture of the Pueblo and its subsequent treatment of its Commander and three crew members during their nearly one year of captivity in Massie v. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. This case arises out of the same basic facts as Massie, but due to the nature of their claims, plaintiffs in the case decided today proceeded pseudonymously.

Edmund S. Cohen, Rachel Ingwer, and Scott Malone have joined Lowenstein Sandler’s Tax practice. Cohen and Ingwer will join as partners, and Malone will join as counsel; the team will be based in the New York office. The lawyers, who all until recently practiced at Winston & Strawn LLP, are expected to work closely with the firm’s Investment Management, Family Office, Private Equity, and Mergers & Acquisitions teams on sophisticated transactions and disputes.

The new group has extensive experience representing funds, corporations, and family offices and high net worth individuals with investments and philanthropic initiatives around the world. They advise on tax issues and controversies involving fund formation across asset classes, cross-border M&A, and a wide range of financial products.

Cohen has over 40 years of experience providing tax advice to multinational corporations, many of the largest investment funds, and numerous ultra-high net worth individuals. He has provided tax advice in connection with investment and cross-border corporate matters, as well as PFICs, Subpart F issues, the application of the GILTI tax, derivatives, and other financial product transactions, including life insurance investments. Cohen also has extensive experience in structuring foreign investment in U.S. real estate and tax planning for family offices and international families with U.S. family members. He is consistently ranked as a leading tax law practitioner in numerous independent surveys, including Who’s Who in America, Chambers USA, The Legal 500, Super Lawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. Prior to Winston & Strawn he was Chair of Coudert Brothers LLP’s tax practice for nearly 20 years.

Ingwer counsels both corporate clients and high net worth individuals on a variety of domestic and cross-border tax issues. She focuses a significant portion of her practice on tax matters relating to private equity transactions and other transactional tax matters, including business formations, taxable and tax-free mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures, financings, and restructurings and recapitalizations. She also counsels on debt and equity offerings and fund formation issues, including fund structuring and partnership tax matters.

For her private clients, Ingwer advises on a variety of individual and private foundation tax matters, as well as tax matters relating to their business interests. She has extensive experience advising both high net worth individuals and charitable foundations on structuring investments both into and out of the United States.

Scott Malone’s practice focuses on tax controversies. He represents investment funds, multinational corporations, trusts, family offices, and high net worth individuals in disputes with the IRS and state and local taxing authorities at the examination and administrative appeals levels. Malone also advises on the tax aspects of domestic and cross-border structuring and planning matters, such as trust restructuring, business formation and exit planning, debt and non-debt financial instruments, investments in controlled foreign corporations and passive foreign investment companies, family investment companies, residency planning, charitable giving, application of tax treaties, and compliance with FATCA and Chapter 3 withholding tax provisions.

In the past 18 months, Lowenstein has significantly grown its capabilities in the areas of domestic and cross-border structuring and planning matters for multinational corporations, trusts, family offices, and high net worth individuals with the addition of partners Max Karpel, Co-chair of the Family Office Practice, Boris Liberman in Investment Management, and Michael P. Vito in Trusts & Estates.

“An appeals court panel on Wednesday refused to overturn the majority of a visiting judge’s decisions in a civil case involving former Mahoning County Judge Diane Vettori-Caraballo and a client in her private practice, from whom she stole money,” reports Ed Runyan in The Vindicator’s News.

“Vettori-Caraballo, who formerly served as Mahoning County Sebring Area Court judge, was sent to federal prison in September 2019 for 2 1/2 years and ordered to pay $328,000 in restitution and after being convicted in federal court for her actions. She was removed as a judge in 2018 during an investigation.”

“The case went to trial in December 2018, and visiting judge Thomas Swift ruled in March 2019 that Vettori-Caraballo concealed $110,200 in cash assets from Falgiani’s estate and filed false statements to the Mahoning County Probate Court regarding estate assets. He ruled she should repay the the money, plus legal fees she received, interest and other costs totaling $185,678.”

Read the article.

Apria, Inc. has appointed Michael-Bryant Hicks as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. “Hicks will be based in Apria’s corporate headquarters in Indianapolis,” released Apria in their Press Releases.

“Hicks joins Apria from Elanco Animal Health, where he was Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Prior to Elanco, he served in public company general counsel roles at Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals and The Providence Service Corporation, overseeing all legal functions with both companies.”

Read the release.

“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.”

Read the article.

“Stepping into his role as global co-chair of 4,500-lawyer DLA Piper, Frank Ryan says the best path forward is to get even bigger,” reports Roy Strom in Bloomberg Law’s Business & Practice.

“The law firm wants to compete, Ryan said, for high-end, global projects while also providing “full-service” to clients, a strategy many of the country’s most profitable firms have shied away from to focus on the highest-rate practices. Growing revenue by taking market share is how Ryan said he will measure the firm’s success.”

“Ryan, whose intellectual property and litigation practice focuses on clients in the sports and entertainment industries, was elected in May 2019 to begin this year a four-year term as chair of DLA Piper, the third largest U.S. firm by revenue, according to American Lawyer data. Last year, he said the firm’s U.S. business grew revenue and profits per equity partner in the high single digits.”

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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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Foley & Lardner LLP announced today that Michael (Mike) Lappin has joined the firm’s Transactions Practice Group as of counsel in its Milwaukee office. A proven and trusted C-suite leader and attorney with extensive experience helping to lead multibillion-dollar organizations through growth and complex business matters, Lappin brings additional expertise, depth and in-house perspective in support of Foley’s public and private company clients.

Lappin comes to Foley with nearly 30 years of legal experience and after more than a decade serving in senior executive roles with Advocate Aurora Health, Inc. and Aurora Health Care, Inc., one of Advocate Aurora’s predecessor organizations. His long tenure with the health care system began in 2009 when Aurora hired Lappin as the not-for-profit’s first general counsel. In that role, Lappin established the legal department, which handled numerous significant matters, including acquisitions and divestitures, governmental investigations, regulatory issues and major contracts. More specifically, Lappin served as the co-executive lead on all significant Aurora mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic partnerships, including the formation of Aurora Health Care Medical Group. He later took on additional duties as Chief Administrative Officer, overseeing legal and several other administrative departments.

Then, in 2018, when Aurora combined with Advocate Health Care to form Advocate Aurora Health, Lappin – known for his significant experience in mergers and acquisitions – was tapped to establish and lead a 60-person team that developed and implemented a merger integration plan, which unified the two organizations and resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual synergies. Following the merger, he returned to his Chief Administrative Officer role.

In addition to his professional background, Lappin is deeply involved in several nonprofit organizations. He currently sits on the board of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee and Jewish Family Services and has been involved with many other youth, health and education-focused nonprofits over the years.

DALLAS – Jackson Walker is pleased to announce the addition of Patrick Knapp as a partner in the Dallas office. Joining the Energy practice, Knapp brings a wealth of experience handling corporate transactions and energy litigation as in-house and outside counsel to domestic and international upstream, midstream, and downstream energy companies.

In addition to building a strong private practice focused on corporate transactions and litigation in the energy industry, Knapp served as managing counsel of Bridger Logistics, the former midstream division of Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. In his role, he led and managed a series of high-profile M&A transactions and litigation—including the sale of its saltwater disposal, crude oil truck transportation, and midstream logistics businesses, which Jackson Walker handled on Bridger’s behalf in 2018.

In his practice at Jackson Walker, Knapp will focus on mergers and acquisitions, financings, complex commercial transactions, and litigation strategies for midstream, downstream, and commodity financial services companies. He has represented producers, marketers, logistics providers, and refiners in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. His experience extends to virtually all forms of petroleum commodity marketing and transportation, including pipelines, gathering systems, terminals, rail, Jones Act and VLCC charters, truck transportation, and a variety of capital-intense, multimodal blending and processing facilities.

Knapp received his J.D. from Southern Methodist University and his B.B.A. in economics and marketing from the University of Notre Dame.

Venable LLP is pleased to announce that Michael R. Klein has joined the firm as counsel in the Environmental and Natural Resources Group in the Washington, D.C., office. Klein advises clients with infrastructure, mining, trade, or energy projects on environmental issues and opportunities that arise at the intersection of business, law, and government.

Prior to joining Venable, Klein served as the vice president and general counsel to an infrastructure and resource management company facilitating trade between the western U.S. and foreign markets. His in-house experience and entrepreneurial mindset enable him to design creative compliance strategies, effectively represent clients’ interests before the executive branch and federal agencies, and unlock new opportunities for economic development. Klein has experience overseeing budgetary matters and performance metrics, identifying new client targets, attracting international investors, and managing infrastructure projects, including ports and connections to trade corridors. In addition to his background in deal structuring and business plan execution, Klein is well practiced in developing federal strategies to seek executive, legislative, and judicial action on matters of importance to his clients. He has testified before Congress in support of a more efficient permitting process.

Klein received his J.D., magna cum laude; his MBA, with honors; and his B.A. in International Relations from Brigham Young University.