A Broward County, Florida, lawyer, arrested on federal child porn charges, is also accused of abusing two underage girls, according to court records, according to a report from the Sun Sentinel.

David Rothenberg, 47, was arrested Saturday at home after an undercover investigation revealed he was logging on to a “daddaughtersex” chat room from the Internet protocol address of his Fort Lauderdale law firm and trying to persuade a stranger to let him have sex with her 13-year-old daughter, authorities said. But in reality he was communicating with an undercover officer for about six weeks, investigators said.

“Authorities said they moved swiftly to arrest Rothenberg on the child porn charges when they found evidence he was sexually abusing a real teenage girl,” the Sun Sentinel reported.

Read the article.

When companies understand exactly where their contracts are and, even more importantly, what is buried within them, they can make more informed decisions in order to maximize revenue opportunities, mitigate risk and reduce expenses, according to an article from Seal Software. But sometimes even Fortune 500 companies have no idea what is lurking in their contracts.

The company collected a top 10 list of actual examples of what Seal has found in customers’ contracts after five years of working with leading organizations across a variety of industries.

The examples illustrate problems in such areas as unnecessary costs, missed opportunity, increased legal risk, increased legal risk, contract inefficiency, legal exposure and more.

In one example, for instance, a large energy company three years after a takeover discovered it was auto-renewing a lease costing $400,000 per year on property it didn’t need.

And in another case, five years after a telecommunications company purchased a major competitor, it still had no idea of the liabilities contained within the 500,000 contracts it had acquired in a takeover.

Read the article.

Although continuing low oil prices affect the LNG industry in expected ways (e.g. delays and cancellations in the development of LNG export projects) and unexpected ways (e.g. take-overs between major players in an already consolidated industry), a prolonged LNG oversupply notwithstanding tapering Asian demand could be the most widespread industry impact in 2016, write Philip Weems and Monica Hwang in an article on King & Spalding‘s Energy Law Exchange.

The article examines the top ten questions the LNG industry may face this upcoming year. “Given that LNG is now considered the most valuable physical ‘commodity’ after crude oil, how the industry reacts to the oversupplied, low-price environment could have far-reaching consequences globally,” the article says.

Read the article.

Employers are advised to follow developments in the legislature and government agencies to curtail the use of arbitration agreements, writes James G. Ryan on the website of Cullen and Dykman LLP.

“Employers should also monitor decisions issued from federal agencies such as the NLRB and stay current with laws involving arbitration agreements in order to ensure compliance with both state and federal law,” according to the article.

The article also discusses a bill introduced by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, titled “Restoring Statutory Rights and Interests of the States Act of 2016,” that would limit the use of arbitration agreements in civil rights cases, employment disputes, and other lawsuits.

Read the article.

Courts have generally categorized online agreements into two types: “clickwrap” agreements and “browsewrap” agreements, write Joshua R. Stein and J. Alexander Lawrence of Morrison & Foerster LLP in an article posted on Lexology.com.

The explain:

Clickwrap agreements—which require a user to check a box or click an icon to signify agreement with the terms—are usually enforceable under U.S. law, even where the terms appear in a separate hyperlinked webpage but where language accompanying the box or icon indicates that checking the box or clicking the icon indicates assent to such terms.

On the other hand, browsewrap agreements—where the terms are passively presented to users in a hyperlink somewhere on a webpage, often at the very bottom of the page in small font—are often unenforceable because it often cannot be proved the user knew the terms existed or even was aware of the hyperlink.

They describe a case in which a signed contract did not include an arbitration clause, but instead included an Internet link to terms and conditions that included arbitration conditions.

Read the article.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP advised EIG Global Energy Partners on its $500 million equity commitment, on behalf of EIG managed funds, to Rice Midstream Holdings LLC, a midstream-focused subsidiary of Rice Energy Inc. and the indirect owner of the general partner of Rice Midstream Partners LP (NYSE: RMP). Rice announced the completion of an initial funding of $375 million of this investment. The full release is available here.

The Kirkland team was led by corporate partners Andy Calder and John Pitts; capital markets partner Matt Pacey; and debt finance partners Will Bos and Mary Kogut.

Barclays Capital Inc. acted as financial advisor and Vinson & Elkins L.L.P. served as legal counsel to Rice.

RMH will use approximately $75 million of the proceeds to repay all outstanding borrowings under its revolving credit facility and to pay transaction fees and expenses, and the remaining $300 million will be distributed to Rice Energy to fund a portion of its 2016 development program in the cores of the Marcellus and Utica Shales, Rice Energy said in a release. In addition, RMH will have an additional $125 million commitment from EIG (subject to designated drawing conditions precedent) for a period of 18 months.

Read more about the deal.

An article posted on the ContractRoom website discusses the arguments for and against standardizing contractual language, covering such topics as cost, efficiency, lack of variation, legal issues, risk mitigation and productivity.

With many differing opinions about how to draft a contract how do people feel about contract standardization?

“When you talk about standardization of contact language,” the article continues, “you will usually encounter two types of people:

1. those who are for it and for whom standardization cannot come soon enough; and,
2. those who are more hesitant and concerned about the possible negative impact of such a change.”

“It will be interesting where contract standardization goes in the next decade and how the development of contract management software technologies influences this,” the article concludes.

Read the article.

The trial law firm Gardner Haas PLLC has added experienced commercial litigator Jeremy Camp as a partner.

Camp joins Gardner Haas from Dallas’ Brewer Attorneys & Counselors, formerly Bickel & Brewer, where Gardner Haas’ co-founders Michael Gardner and Eric Haas previously practiced. Camp’s litigation and arbitration practice focuses on a variety of complex commercial matters, including merger and acquisition-related disputes, business torts, hospitality law and environmental litigation.

“Jeremy has extensive litigation and arbitration experience and his forward-thinking philosophy aligns with ours,” says Gardner. “He’s an extremely talented lawyer and we are excited he is joining our team.”

Camp has tried several notable cases before judges and juries, including obtaining a take-nothing judgment in federal court for his client, 3M Co., in a dispute concerning the sale of an $854 million business.

“I have great respect for Michael and Eric and share their vision of solving clients’ problems through exceptional work at a value that the big firms can’t match,” says Camp. “I look forward to adding to the depth of Gardner Haas.”

Camp received his law degree, magna cum laude, from Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law in 2009. He received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 2006.

Quarles & Brady LLP partners David Funkhouser, Christopher Townsend, and Bradley Vynalek each have received the 2016 Client Choice award from Lexology and the International Law Office (ILO), the firm announced.

Established in 2005, the Client Choice awards recognize partners around the world that stand apart for their excellent client service. Uniquely, these awards survey in-house senior corporate counsel only, inquiring about quality of legal advice, value delivered, commercial awareness, and effective communication. Following one-on-one interviews with clients, this year’s winners were chosen from a pool of more than 2,500 nominations. Only one attorney in each market is recognized for any particular practice area.

From the firm’s news release:

Funkhouser practices in the firm’s Phoenix office and is a member of the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice Group. His litigation practice has an emphasis in real property disputes, construction disputes, consumer lending, contract disputes, probate, trust and estate litigation, and other commercial torts. He also routinely represents financial institutions in all aspects of litigation. Funkhouser received his law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa. Client Choice recognized Funkhouser in the Litigation category.

Townsend practices in the firm’s Chicago office and is member of the Energy Practice Group. He leads a team of energy lawyers who help clients reduce costs, develop projects, and manage risks in the ever-changing energy markets, assisting with strategic counseling, regulatory, litigation, transactional, and government relations matters. On a local, state, national, and international level, he helps clients address risks and opportunities associated with the on-going restructuring of the electricity and natural gas industries. Townsend received his law degree, with honors, from the University of Iowa College of Law and his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from Augustana College. This is the second consecutive year Client Choice has recognized Townsend in the Energy & Natural Resources category.

Vynalek practices in the firm’s Phoenix office and is a member of the Litigation & Dispute Resolution Practice Group. He serves as a counselor and advisor on strategy, exposure, and enterprise opportunity for clients ranging from local startups to Fortune 500 companies. Vynalek works very closely with law departments to create and manage budgets and create optimal teams for a variety of legal services in the banking, high-tech, Internet, software, manufacturing, e-commerce, health care, higher education, and tech transfer industries. He also serves as a member of the firm’s executive committee. Vynalek received his law degree from The University of Arizona – James E. Rogers College of Law and his bachelor’s degree, with honors, from Stanford University. He was recognized by Client Choice in the General Corporate category.

More information about ILO and Lexology

The whistleblower, employment and civil rights law firm Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP has announced the release of its 2016 comprehensive practice guides for the whistleblower programs for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The firm has produced its SEC Whistleblower Practice Guide annually since the inception of the SEC Whistleblower Program in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank). As a companion manual, the firm’s first-ever CFTC Whistleblower Practice Guide covers the whistleblower program for the CFTC, an independent agency with regulatory authority over futures trading.

The firm says in a release that both guides provide in-depth explanations of the rules and procedures concerning the respective programs, offer valuable practice trips for whistleblowers and their counsel, and outline the legal protections that whistleblowers have against retaliation for reporting violations to the SEC and CFTC.

“The Katz, Marshall & Banks SEC guide is an invaluable resource containing all of the ‘nuts and blots’ about reporting securities violations to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,” said David J. Marshall, a founding partner of the firm and the SEC guide’s principal author. “The guide offers great detail on everything from preparing a winning ‘tip’ to cooperating in an SEC investigation to claiming a financial whistleblower award for helping to enforce the nation’s securities laws.”

SEC officials have continually praised the whistleblower program as a significant addition to the Commission’s ability to enforce the nation’s securities law – in some cases facilitating early intervention to minimize the harm to investors from unlawful conduct. To date, the SEC has paid over $55 million to 23 whistleblowers under the program.

The CFTC Whistleblower Program, which also was established through Dodd-Frank, began accepting whistleblower tips in September 2012, with the number of tips steadily rising since the program’s inception. The CFTC thus far has paid two awards to whistleblowers in connection with these tips, including a September 2015 payout totaling $290,000.

“We are pleased to introduce the Katz, Marshall & Banks CFTC Whistleblower Practice Guide to help whistleblowers earn the financial awards for helping to regulate commodity futures trading in the United States,” said Lisa J. Banks, a founding partner of the firm and the principal author of CFTC guide. “Following a couple of recent, significant awards under the CFTC Whistleblower Program, and with $300 million set aside in a special whistleblower fund, the Commission clearly is gearing up for a greater number and higher quality of whistleblower tips and payout of substantial awards.”

Available for free download from the Katz, Marshall & Banks website, the SEC Whistleblower Practice Guide can be found here, and the CFTC Whistleblower Practice Guide is available here.

About Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP

Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP is a boutique law firm representing plaintiffs in the areas of whistleblower, employment discrimination and sexual harassment law; Title IX of the Education Amendments; and other civil rights and civil liberties matters. The firm’s lawyers also represent whistleblowers in seeking monetary rewards by submitting tips to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodities Futures Trading Commission Whistleblower Programs, and through the filing of “qui tam” actions under the False Claims Act.

The en banc Federal Circuit by a vote of 10-2 held that patent exhaustion can be avoided by otherwise lawful post-sale contractual restrictions and that foreign sales of a patented item are not presumed to exhaust patent owner’s rights in the United States, according to a report posted by Dentons.

The case is Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Impression Products, Inc., No. 14-1617, -1619 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 12, 2016) (en banc).

“The dissent would have found post-sale restrictions invalid and that foreign sales exhaust patent owner’s rights in the United States absent an express reservation. The Federal Circuit’s 99-page majority decision may not be the last word on these issues if the Supreme Court is asked to grant certiorari later this year,” wrote Joel N. Bock, Joshua D. Curry and Heather Khassian.

Read the article.

The Department of Justice plans to release a set of questions in the coming weeks that companies implicated in wrongdoing can expect to be asked by investigators concerning their compliance programs, reports Bloomberg BNA.

“Andrew Weissmann, chief of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, told a group of attorneys meeting in Washington Feb. 9 that the department plans to publicize the list of sample questions to give the public and companies an idea of what investigators and compliance experts are concerned with,” the article says. “The list will be continually updated based on experiences officials have with companies, he said.”

Read the article.

A ruling in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals illustrates that at bankruptcy plan confirmation, debtors need to create a record for potential appeals, including those that it may ultimately want to bring, writes Brenda Funk is an Associate at Weil Gotshal & Manges, LLP in Houston.

In her article, published on the firm’s Bankruptcy Blog, describes In re O&S Trucking as a straight-forward map on how to preserve objections as issues for appeal in the Eighth Circuit.

Read the article.

Many companies in the technology industry pay workers as “independent contractors” or “1099 workers,” write Mark J. Neuberger and Larry S. Perlman of Foley & Lardner in an article posted by The National Law Review. In theory, classifying individuals as independent contractors rather than employees can bestow significant economic benefits on a company. This option may be very attractive to a start-up who may be short on cash to pay salaries and fringe benefits.

“When independent contractors do the work, your company is not responsible for tax withholdings, is not responsible for workers’ compensation or unemployment insurance, and does not need to pay minimum wage or overtime,” they explain. “That’s the good news. However, when not done correctly, independent contractor classification is fraught with risk and lots of potential legal liability.”

Read the article.

A $22 million lawsuit against Beaumont, Texas attorney Wayne Reaud, along with several others, have been dismissed. The plaintiff was an electrician who claimed the defendants committed acts that cost him a business contract with the Beaumont Independent School District, reports SETexasRecord.com.

The plaintiff, Calvin Gary Walker, proprietor of Walker’s Electric, had alleged that the defendants worked to end his professional relationship with BISD, insinuating the respondents wrongfully made light of his 2011 federal indictment for fraud. Walker’s claims against the Beaumont attorney and his newspaper were based on two articles published in The Examiner.

Reaud argued that defamation claims based on the articles were frivolous.

Read the article.

The eligibility of Sen. Ted Cruz to run for president will have a hearing Friday in Chicago, according to multiple news outlets.

CNN is reporting that a judge in Illinois on Friday will hear a lawsuit challenging Ted Cruz’s eligibility to serve as president, putting questions about the Texas senator’s status back into the news the day before the South Carolina primary.

Cruz has never denied being born in Canada, arguing that longstanding U.S. statutory law validates his claim that he was automatically a U.S. citizen at birth because his mother was a U.S. citizen.

Read the story.

One the world’s largest telecommunications companies and its subsidiary agreed to fines and forfeitures with U.S. and Dutch authorities totaling more than $800 million to resolve a long-running bribery scheme involving a government official in Uzbekistan, USA Today reports.

The report says Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said VimpelCom, headquartered in Amsterdam, and its Uzbek-based subsidiary Unitel LLC, made “bribery a foundation of their business model” throughout Uzbekistan.

“More than $114 million in bribes, according to federal prosecutors, was funneled to the Uzbek official during a six-year period by the firm, which issues publicly-traded securities in the U.S. The companies concealed the bribes through various payments to a shell company that some VimpelCom and Unitel officials knew was owned by the recipient of the bribe payments,” the newspaper reports.

Read the article.

M&A deal volume in the U.S. reached a record high in 2015, reports the National Association of Corporate Directors. The NACD is offering a complimentary copy of the summary from a recent meeting of the NACD Advisory Council on Risk Oversight, which focused on the board’s oversight of M&A transactions including understanding the board’s role during a transaction, identifying questions to consider when evaluating potential deals, and establishing a process for determining transaction success.

Topics covered include:

• Engaging management about possible deals
• Determining if a proposed deal advances company strategy
• Identifying culture and talent risks
• Measuring the success of a transaction
• Establishing effective oversight processes

Download the summary.

The Office of Management and Budgets (OMB) has issued a memo mandating that all billing and invoicing from government contractors and federal agencies must be electronic. Approximately 12 million invoices still need to make the transition, report two partners in Alston & Bird.

They advise that government contractors and payment service providers should be prepared to implement clear, practical methods of e-payments.

“Pilot programs in the federal government – both pure payment-vendor relationships and added services to banking relationships – are available to facilitate the OMB-directed shift to e-invoicing,” says Jeff Belkin, partner and leader of Alston & Bird’s Government Contracts Group with expertise in complex government contract compliance issues. “While it is unclear if the shift to e-invoicing will ultimately end in a no-fee electronic payments program, or, a model that requires the government (or its partners) to pay others to facilitate the program, there surely will be many challenges before that final equilibrium is reached.”

“As of July 2015, a mere 40% of invoices were processed using e-invoicing,” says Tony Balloon, partner in Alston & Bird’s Financial Services & Products Group, who has deep knowledge of the payments industry. “Though the initial transition leading up to the 2018 deadline will be challenging, the adoption of e-invoicing will result in increased efficiency and timely payments for both federal agencies and government contractors.”

Akerman LLP, a top 100 U.S. law firm, has  announced Eric Gordon has assumed the role of Labor & Employment Practice Group Chair.

“Eric is an excellent labor and employment lawyer with a tremendous capacity for leadership and client service,” said Akerman Chairman and CEO Andrew Smulian. “The very personal attention Eric devotes to his colleagues and client relationships reflect the values of our firm. We look forward to the continued growth and success of Akerman‘s Labor and Employment Practice Group under his able direction.”

In a release, the firm said Gordon will work to grow the national practice group while overseeing the delivery of labor and employment services to Akerman clients. He also will continue to practice law, representing employers in labor and employment matters and in many key sectors such as telecommunications, hospitality, healthcare, retail, and financial services. He is a past president of the Human Resource Association of Palm Beach County and will serve as president of the South Palm Beach County Bar Association in 2017-2018. Prior to leading Akerman’s Labor & Employment Practice Group, Gordon served as the office managing partner of Akerman’s Palm Beach County offices.

Gordon succeeds James Bramnick, who will continue representing management in labor and employment matters. He also will work in the labor and employment practice through his role as a chair of Lex Mundi’s Global Labor and Employment Practice Group, the world’s largest law firm network.