National law firm Dykema has announced the launch of its Cannabis Law practice, creating an integrated and specialized offering for clients navigating the myriad issues that arise from operating in the cannabis industry, according to a release from the firm.

The practice group spans the political, licensing, regulatory compliance, and business services space, and includes senior lawyers and lobbyists in states across the country. The practice will be led by Lance Boldrey, a member in the firm’s Lansing office, who focuses his practice on regulated industries.

“Dykema has a long history of representing businesses in heavily regulated industries,” the release says. “While the firm has been engaged in the development of the emerging cannabis sector for nearly a decade, serving as counsel to Michigan’s 2008 medical marijuana initiative, the formal group is now launching in response to increasingly sophisticated and complex client needs. While the rapid industry growth provides unparalleled business opportunities, the uncertain political environment imposes extraordinary legal complexity and uncertainty.”

“Dykema understands the complex nature and volatility of the laws and regulations in this area. Further, we have the experience and a proven track record of success advising those involved in the cannabis industry,” said Boldrey. “This booming industry has a host of brand-new legal minefields to navigate, and our team is providing counsel to support our clients’ business objectives.”

Among other cannabis-related matters, Dykema lawyers and lobbyists have:

• Served as counsel to the Coalition for Compassionate Care, the committee that drafted and won passage of the 2008 ballot initiative that created the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act
• Helped draft Michigan Public Act 512 and Public Act 514 of 2011, amendments to the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act
• Represent the National Patients Rights Association advocating on behalf of medical marijuana patients
• Provided advice with regard to labeling regulations for edible cannabis products
• Counseled cannabis-related clients with regard to intellectual property laws, including trademarking names and logos for cannabis-related businesses
• Advocated on behalf of an entity seeking a medical marijuana dispensary license in Illinois
• Oversaw zoning and real estate matters for an Illinois-based dispensary company
• Represented a company with cannabinoid medications in pharmaceutical litigation
• Counseled various business clients with regard to employment matters and policies related to employee cannabis use
• Assisted various cannabis-related organizations with nonprofit and campaign finance compliance
• Advised investors in dispensaries and CBD oil companies
• Handled SEC-related issues for a California cannabusiness executive

“At the state level, more than half of the country allows some form of medical cannabis use, and four states have legalized recreational usage, with several more, including California, having recreational use initiatives on their ballot this November,” added Dykema attorney Doug Mains, who came to Dykema after serving the Michigan Legislature in a lead staff role on marijuana issues. “The Dykema team has been central to the development and passage of many key pro-cannabis regulations. We know the industry inside and out and can quickly advise clients on complex issues to ensure that legal challenges do not stand in the way of growth.”

“Dykema lawyers and lobbyists have represented our organization on a number of state and local issues,” said Robin Schneider, Legislative Liaison for the National Patients Rights Association, a medical cannabis advocacy organization. “Not only are they extremely knowledgeable about the legislative and political processes, but they have also worked closely with us to learn more about the cannabis industry and all of the issues that cannabis-related businesses face. Dykema’s lawyers and lobbyists have always been professional, passionate about their work, and proactive in keeping us informed.”

The members of Dykema’s group come from administrative law & regulation, business and financial services, food & beverage, government policy & practice, intellectual property, land use & zoning, labor & employment, leasing & property management, political compliance, elections & campaign finance, product safety, real estate, and taxation. Dykema lawyers in the CannabisLaw practice serve as members of the National Cannabis Industry Association, the National Cannabis Bar Association, and the State Bar of Michigan Marijuana Law Section.

Dykema publishes a Cannabis Law Blog.

Litigator Sean M. Whyte has joined Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP as a partner in the firm’s Dallas office. He joins the firm from Alston & Bird, where he has practiced since 2011.

In a release, the firm said Whyte’s litigation practice includes complex commercial litigation, consumer class actions and products liability. He has practiced before state and federal courts, with class-action experience that includes defending clients in cases involving Internet sales practices, consumer fraud and other federal statutes. He has also represented clients in regulatory and government investigative matters involving federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Trade Commission.

“Sean’s versatile expertise will further allow our litigation group to offer the best solutions for our clients,” says Gardere Chair Holland N. O’Neil. “Our litigation partners are among the most respected in their field, and we are honored to have Sean join our team.”

While at Alston & Bird, Whyte worked on litigation that resulted in a victory in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in the first case to consider Texas’ Anti-SLAPP statute. He also helped win the first dismissal of a federal action under the Texas Health and Safety Code statute granting limited immunity to telecommunication providers related to 911 calls. He began his legal career at Jones Day in 2004 where he assisted on litigation resulting from Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Whyte received a juris doctor degree from The University of Texas School of Law in 2004, where he was an articles editor for the Texas Law Review. He completed course work for a doctorate degree in applied philosophy at Bowling Green State University and obtained a master’s degree from the same school in applied philosophy in 1996. He also earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1994 at West Virginia University. Prior to law school, Whyte served as a senior lecturer and adjunct philosophy instructor at universities in Ohio and Michigan.

In addition to his legal practice, Whyte serves as the co-vice chair of the Law Day Committee for the Dallas Bar Association. In 2014, he was named to the Texas Rising Stars list for his work in business litigation, and he was awarded Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year by the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program in 2010.

“It is an honor to join Gardere’s well-known and respected litigation practice,” Whyte said. “I am proud to be joining this exceptional group of professionals.”

Theodore M. Sullivan has joined Quarles & Brady LLP‘s Washington, D.C. office as a partner in its Health & Life Sciences Practice Group.

Sullivan counsels and advises clients on Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations and matters related to over-the-counter drug regulation, drug exclusivity issues, food and dietary supplement labeling and advertising, and import detention of FDA-regulated products. He has worked closely with clients in guiding new drugs and medical devices through the FDA’s approval processes, and has assisted clients resolving conflicts with the agency regarding approved products.

He received his law degree, with honors, from Chicago-Kent College of Law and his bachelor’s degree from George Mason University.

Thomson Reuters is offering a complimentary copy of the 2016 edition of Practical Law’s study, Reverse Break-Up Fees and Specific Performance: A Survey of Remedies for Financing and Antitrust Failure.

This year’s edition analyzed all 85 merger agreements entered into in 2015 for debt-financed acquisitions of U.S. reporting companies in deals valued at $100 million or more. The study provides a detailed guide to the negotiation of remedies for buyer breach by:

• Examining how deal characteristics such as the size of the transaction and the profile of the buyer affect the negotiation of enforcement and monetary remedies.
• Reviewing the sizes of reverse break-up fees in leveraged deals as percentages of deal value and as multiples of the target company’s break-up fee, and compares reverse break-up fees that cap the damages payable by the buyer against those that do not.
• Analyzing other techniques for allocating risk in debt-financed transactions, including the buyer’s financing covenants, the definition of the lenders’ marketing period, and the agreement’s “Xerox” provisions.

New this year, the study contains a supplement analyzing antitrust-triggered reverse break-up fees and other mechanisms for allocating the risk of antitrust failure. For this inquiry, the study surveyed all 49 agreements in the Practical Law What’s Market M&A database for 2015 that contained a reverse break-up fee payable for antitrust failure. These included 27 agreements for the acquisition of a US reporting company in deals valued at $100 million or more and 22 publicly filed agreements for private M&A deals involving the acquisition of a US company or business valued at $25 million or more.

Download the study and receive free temporary access to Practical Law online resources.

A federal bankruptcy judge in Dallas ruled late Tuesday that Dallas entrepreneurs Sam and Charles Wyly committed tax fraud when they created a series of offshore trusts in the Isle of Man in the 1990s to shield more than $1 billion for the family tax-free, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News.

There is “clear and convincing evidence” that the “heart of the Wyly offshore system had been established through deceptive and fraudulent actions,” wrote U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Houser.

“The IRS claims that the Wylys, who made billions of dollars growing and then selling Michaels Stores and Bonanza steakhouses, set up the series of offshore trusts in the Isle of Man in order to hide income from being taxed, while still using the money in the trusts to fund a lavish lifestyle,” the report says.

Under the ruling, Sam Wyly, the surviving brother, could be required to pay the IRS as much as $1.4 billion in back taxes and penalties.

Read the article.

Eric Schmidt took the witness stand Tuesday in Oracle’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Google, and he gave little ground during some tense exchanges with Oracle’s attorney, reports PCWorld.

In the suit, Oracle accuses Google of infringing its Java copyrights in the Android operating system. Schmidt is chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

Schmidt, the first witness to testify, was initially questioned by Google’s own attorneys, and testified that Google did not believe it needed a license to use 37 Java application programming interfaces for which Oracle owns the copyright. But on cross-examination, Oracle’s attorney asked him if Google’s APIs are treated as proprietary.

“Are you telling me that you don’t treat your APIs as proprietary?” Oracle attorney Peter Bicks asked Schmidt.

Read the article.

Cablevision’s top 10 executives may find themselves without a job after the company’s new owner, Netherlands-based Altice NV, completes the purchase of the Long Island-based company, possibly later this month, reports The New York Post.

The 10 Cablevision executives include General Counsel David Ellen and CEO James Dolan.

“Altice founder Patrick Drahi told Cablevision staff when the deal was first announced last year that he would seek to cut executives earning more than $300,000,” The Post reports.

Read the article.

Blockchain technology is gaining attention for its promise to enable value and asset transfer across a wide range of industries and use cases — and its potential to disintermediate financial institutions, remittance companies and lots of other transactional middleman businesses, according to a report written by Sue Troy, an editorial director at TechTarget. Smart contracts, meanwhile, work hand-in-hand with blockchain technology and have the potential to automate — and also disrupt — processes in many industries.

“Whereas a traditional legal contract defines the rules around an agreement between multiple people or parties, smart contracts go a step further and actually enforce those rules by controlling the transfer of currency or assets under specific conditions,” she explains.

She discusses sample use cases for the insurance industry, real estate, and supply chain.

Read the article.

As general contractors take on more projects, they will likely find themselves working with new and unfamiliar subcontractors, warn James T. Dixon, P. Wesley Lambert, Amanda M. Leffler and Amanda P. Parker of Brouse McDowell.

“Whether parties are considering working with a new partner or simply re-evaluating existing relationships with long time partners, the parties should consider how to best allocate the risks associated with each project,” they write.

They discuss some of the key provisions contractors and subcontractors should understand when evaluating the risks allocated through subcontract agreements.

Read the article.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues to aggressively enforce the antitrust laws, reports Melanie A. Hallas of McDermott Will & Emery.

“On April 27, 2016, the FTC took action against Victrex, plc and its wholly owned subsidiaries, Invibio, Inc. and Invibio Limited (collectively, Invibio) because of exclusivity terms in its supply contracts. The consent order requires Invibio to cease and desist from enforcing most of the exclusivity terms in its current supply contracts and generally prohibits Invibio from requiring exclusivity in future contracts. Invibio is also prohibited from using other pricing strategies, such as market-share discounts, that would effectively result in exclusivity,” she writes.

In her post, she explains that exclusivity terms that arguably have the effect of harming competition may raise antitrust concerns.

Read the article.

Dr. Joseph Eng has joined Hogan Lovells’ New York office as counsel in its Intellectual Property Media & Technology Practice Group.

Eng will focus his practice at Hogan Lovells on patent litigation, patent prosecution, and transactional matters. He has represented clients in patent infringement lawsuits in federal district courts across the United States as well as before the International Trade Commission, in cases involving microelectronic devices, semiconductor processing, polymer coatings, optical fibers, medical devices, and respiratory protective devices. Eng’s litigation experience includes representing major pharmaceutical companies in Hatch-Waxman litigation.

Registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Eng has worked on numerous patent prosecution matters in the fields of pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals, peptide delivery systems, therapeutic uses of neurotoxins, consumer electronics, fuel cells, biofuels, petroleum refining, polymers, and automotive parts, the firm said in a release.

Eng’s experience in transactional matters includes licensing, conducting due diligence reviews, advising on asset purchase agreements, and preparing opinions of counsel regarding freedom to operate, patent invalidity, and non-infringement.

Eng holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Columbia University, a J.D. from Fordham University, and B.S. degrees in both chemistry and physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Eng previously worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Exxon’s Corporate Research Center and at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies. He was also a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs, where he was in charge of developing a research program in semiconductor surface characterization.

A federal judge sentenced the leader of digital currency company Liberty Reserve to 20 years in prison for running a global money-laundering scheme that prosecutors said was unprecedented in size and scope, reports Reuters.

Arthur Budovsky, 42, had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to launder money related to his role in Liberty Reserve, which allowed cybercriminals to conceal and move their illegal proceeds anonymously through a digital currency. Authorities shut down the company in 2013.

“Liberty Reserve operated a widely used digital currency, processing more than $8 billion in financial transactions and earning Budovsky over $25 million, prosecutors said,” according to the report. “Much of its business came from criminals seeking to launder proceeds from Ponzi schemes, credit card trafficking, identity thefts and computer hacking, prosecutors said.”

Read the article.

Photo by NY Photographic

It is estimated that roughly 300 upstream energy companies will file for bankruptcy in 2016, and many management teams are curious about hedging alternatives during the restructuring and bankruptcy process, write Ryan Bouley & Shane Randolph, Managing Directors at Opportune LLP.

“There are various alternatives management teams can take with their hedging programs, ranging from full liquidation to actually increasing hedge coverage,” they write.

In an article posted on Opportune’s website, they discuss the purpose of an effective risk management program, what typically happens to hedges during the bankruptcy process, and the hedging alternatives for a distressed company.

Read the article.

A Dallas appellate court considered whether California law governed contract and tort claims against California-based former employees who signed employment agreements containing a choice-of-law clause stating that Texas substantive law would apply, according to a report by Neil R. Burger in Carrington Coleman Sloman & Blumenthal, L.L.P.’s Sua Sponte blog.

“Applying the applicable provisions of the Restatement (2d) of Conflicts, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling that California law would apply to the claims for breach of the non-competition provision and related tort claims, because of California’s more significant relationship to the dispute and because application of Texas law would contravene a fundamental policy of California,” he wrote.

The case is Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, LLC v. Caporicci.

Read the article.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. shrugged off any difficulty the Supreme Court might be having reaching consensus with an equal number of ideologically divided justices, reports The Washington Post.

“Roberts seemed careful not to say anything that would aid either Democrats demanding that the Senate vote on President Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, or Republicans who say the next president should name the replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia,” according to the report by Robert Barnes.

The eight-justice court already has said it was deadlocked on several cases. And while it is true that only a small percentage of the court’s cases are decided 5 to 4, the most important ones often are, Barnes writes.

Read the article.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed a rule Thursday that would ban arbitration clauses, which would affect the entire financial industry and the hundreds of millions of bank accounts, credit cards and other financial services Americans use, reports the Associated Press.

“The CFPB’s proposal does have a significant limitation,” the report explains. “The ban would only apply when consumers want to create or join a class-action lawsuit. Financial companies will still be able to force individuals to settle disputes through arbitration; however cases where a lone customer wants to sue his or her bank are far less common.”

The financial industry claims that arbitration is a more efficient way for customers to resolve disputes, and a study commissioned by the CFPB in lends that claim some credence. “However, when large numbers of customers were negatively impacted by the same issue, the same study showed arbitration clauses hinder the ability for customers to seek relief,” the AP report says.

Read the article.

Financial services lawyers are predicting that efforts by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to prevent companies from keeping consumer complaints out of a courtroom will wind up being challenged in court, reports The Wall Street Journal.

A rule proposed by the agency Thursday would prohibit financial companies from using mandatory-arbitration clauses as a way to block class-action lawsuits, according to the report. “While companies would still be able to require consumers to enter arbitration to resolve individual disputes, the elimination of the no-class arbitration provisions would strip away incentives for companies to include arbitration clauses in their contracts. And many are predicting that as a result, companies would discontinue using them.”

But the CFPB counters that class actions are a “more effective means for consumers to challenge problematic practices by … companies” than arbitration, which it says gives financial service providers an unfair advantage over customers.

Read the report.

A federal judge in San Diego said he wanted a trial by the middle of this year in a lawsuit against Donald Trump over the now defunct Trump University, according to a report by ABC News. That was before the real estate mogul appeared headed for the Republican presidential nomination.

“U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is expected to address the trial’s timing at a hearing Friday in San Diego. Trump’s lawyers, who have put the candidate on a list of witnesses who may testify, have signaled opposition to a trial while Trump is in the race,” the report says.

“This will be a zoo if it were to go to trial,” Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said at a hearing in March.

Read the article.

Photo by Mike Mozart of JeepersMedia

Regulators fighting the merger plan of Office Depot and Staples face a decision from a judge that may hinge on the veracity of the government’s relevant product market, reports Policy and Regulatory Report, a Mergermarket Group company. The issue of whether the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) gerrymandered its market has repeatedly surfaced during the government’s pursuit of a preliminary injunction against the proposed merger.

PaRR Global (Policy and Regulatory Report) spoke to various independent sources to assess holes in the arguments of both the FTC and the merging companies.

In its case, the FTC defined the relevant product market as “consumable office supplies,” such as pens and paper, which constitute a so-called cluster market, according to the PaRR analysis.

A cluster market is used in antitrust theory to group separate individual relevant product markets, such as the individual market for paper and the individual market for pens, into a wider market for analytical convenience.

Clustering is appropriate “only when the individual products face similar competitive conditions,” according to the government’s proposed findings of fact.

Read the article.

A new complimentary on-demand video presented by Harlan Carvey, Security Analysis Senior Consultant, SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit Research Team, and posted on BrightTALK discusses ransomware attacks and how to protect an organization using a holistic and unifying visibility into the network and endpoints.

“The proliferation of ransomware has ushered in a new wave of extortionware and a new generation of malware attacks,” BrightTALK says on its website. “While these types of attacks are not new, they have become more insidious and sophisticated, growing in popularity in concert with the expansion of electronic payment systems such as bitcoin. In April, the US and Canada both issued formal warnings and suggestions, but how much that is reported about this new malware is true? Are we being naïve in our efforts to block these Ransomware attacks?”

The video covers:

– What is ransomware?
– How does it proliferate?
– How do I detect and block it?
– How do I know what systems are compromised or how the attacker got in?
– Do I pay the ransom if I am attacked?
– How do I ensure that I don’t become a victim (again)?

Watch the on-demand video.