Eastman Kodak Co. , the Rochester-based printing technology company, has promoted Deputy General Counsel Sharon E. Underberg to General Counsel. She replaces Patrick M. Sheller, who has been with the company since 1993, reports the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.

The move is one of an array of changes in Kodak’s top management in recent months. Since CEO Jeffrey J. Clarke took over in March, Kodak has made such headquarters changes as new chief financial officer, chief human resources officer, and chief marketing officer.

Read the story.

Beauty goods company Avon has been fined $135 million by the SEC for bribing Chinese officials with luxury goods — everything from Gucci bags to Tiffany pens, reports CNN Money.

“The SEC alleged that Avon’s subsidiary in China doled out $8 million in bribes — cash, gifts, entertainment, and travel — to Chinese officials in charge of new regulations to sell directly to consumers,” the report says. “The watchdog also said the company falsely recorded the bribes as employee business expenses or vendor payments.

“The luxury bribes, which included Louis Vuitton goods and box tickets to the China Open, helped Avon win one of the first direct-selling business licenses in China in March 2006, according to a SEC statement.”

Read the story.

American Realty Capital Properties Inc., the U.S. real estate investment trust reeling from reports of an accounting cover-up, was sued by a former executive who said she was fired for blowing the whistle on financial improprieties, reports Bloomberg News.

Lisa P. McAlister, ARCP’s former chief accounting officer, alleged that her October termination was in retaliation for her statements that changes in accounting practices were an attempt to hide the company’s faltering financial performance, according to a complaint filed today in New York state court in Manhattan. She didn’t cite any evidence beyond the allegation, Bloomberg says.

AR Capital said in a statement that McAlister’s lawsuit was without merit.

Read the story.

A lawsuit alleges Gilead Sciences is price gouging by pricing its Sovaldi hepatitis C treatment at $1,000 a pill, the Wall Street Journal reports in one of its blogs.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, which serves the greater Philadelphia area, last week filed an unusual lawsuit claiming that Gilead is price gouging. The drug maker charges $84,000 for a 12-week regimen, or $1,000 a pill.

“In arguing its case, the transit agency claims that, by using ‘exorbitant pricing,’ Gilead has made it difficult for some consumers and government programs to afford its medication and, subsequently, violated antitrust laws,” the blog reports.

A Gilead spokeswoman is quoted as saying the lawsuit is “completely devoid of merit.”

Read the story.

Enterprise Products Partners L.P. announced Dec. 17 the election of Craig W. Murray as group senior vice president and general counsel, Harry Paul “Hap” Weitzel as senior vice president and deputy general counsel and Vijay A. D’Cruz as vice president, litigation. Each of the appointments is effective Jan. 5, 2015.

The company is based in Houston.

Most recently, Murray was a senior partner at Vinson & Elkins LLP in Houston where he focused primarily on corporate and energy-related finance, including pipeline financing. His energy finance experience has involved oil and gas properties in all major producing states, as well as the Gulf of Mexico. Murray earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee and a JD from the Louisiana State University Law Center.

Murray will succeed Stephanie Hildebrandt as general counsel, who will join the Houston office of the global business law firm Norton Rose Fulbright as a partner in February.

Read the story.

Winstead presents a complimentary on-demand webinar discussing the pros and cons of pre-judgment and post-judgment remedies.

A judgment without any recovery is at best an empty victory, Winstead says on its website.

Understanding pre-judgment and post-judgment remedies can be critical to the success of turning the judgment into cash.  This webinar discusses the pros and cons of pre-judgment and post-judgment remedies, the strategic use of pre-judgment remedies to shorten the litigation process, and available remedies against LLC members and partners.

Post-judgment bankruptcy strategies are also discussed.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Holland & Hart offers a complimentary on-demand webinar on the most important things employers should be doing now to prepare for health care reform during 2015.

The webinar discusses what to expect and how to prepare to comply with the ACA employer reporting requirements, and recent changes to the rules for determining full-time employee status and applicable employer coverage requirements.

The presenters also talk about important transition rules that delay the effective date of certain ACA requirements for some employers, and about the Administration’s enforcement efforts targeting employers who “dump” their employees on the exchanges.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The Washington Legal Foundation has posted a free on-demand webinar discussing the Spokeo case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court and the issue of “no-injury” class actions.

Spokeo Inc. v. Robbins raises the question whether Congress may confer Article III standing upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private right of action based on a bare violation of a federal statute, Mayer Brown says on its website. This question of Article III standing potentially impacts a wide variety of lawsuits that Mayer Brown views as “no-injury” class actions.

Mayer Brown represents the petitioner.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The International Association for Contract and Commercial Management presents a free webinar designed to help participants establish contract management as a business competence. The webinar is offered through Seal Software.

The pressure for improved business controls continues to grow and contract management is increasingly seen as a critical discipline, Seal Software says on its website. However, short-term measures tend to focus on control and compliance and these inhibit – even undermine – longer-term value.

Topics include:

• The drivers of change transforming approaches to control and compliance
• Key steps in developing commercial competence
• How to improve quality in commercial judgment
• Gaining understanding of the critical tools
• From reactive to proactive – recognizing the indicators of failure

Watch the on-demand webinar.

A powerful Texas Health and Human Services Commission general counsel who resigned last week stretched the boundaries of a little-known state purchasing program to ensure an Austin company would not face competition for a $110 million contract, according to interviews and a review of recent government purchases. The Houston Chronicle reported on the case Dec. 17.

GC Jack Stick used the program to award a massive Medicaid fraud detection contract to Austin technology firm 21CT, even though records show its no-bid process typically is used for small purchases, such as school printer cartridges, The Chronicle reported.

The Cooperative Contract program, which allows government agencies to bypass competitive bidding requirements by choosing from pre-approved IT products, has been used over the past five years for purchases averaging $3,493, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of the 2.5 million transactions over that time.

Read the story.

Google and Verizon have entered into a long-term patent cross-license agreement intended to thwart lawsuits from trolls, PC Magazine reports.

The deal covers “a broad range of products and technologies,” though neither company expanded on the details.

A joint press release said the deal ideally will allow Verizon and Google to ward off future patent litigation.

“In high-tech industries like ours, the patent system can be exploited to get in the way of innovation,” wrote Verizon’s general counsel, Randal Milch. “High-tech products can implicate thousands of patents, and when patent litigation takes years, costs millions of dollars, and comes long after innovators have launched new products, the Johnny-come-lately owner of a single patent can threaten an entire innovative ecosystem. That’s bad for innovation and bad for American consumers.”

Read the story.

BlackBerry Ltd. launched its long-awaited Classic Dec. 17, a smartphone it hopes will help it win back market share and woo those still using older versions of its physical keyboard devices, Reuters reports.

With the Classic and the recent launch of its Passport smartphone, Blackberry is in some ways taking the company back to its roots, re-emphasizing the physical keyboard, rather than trying to compete directly against the touchscreen handsets of dominant rivals like Samsung Electronics and Apple, Reuters says.

In a press release, Blackberry CEO and chairman John Chen said, “We listened closely to our customers’ feedback to ensure we are delivering the technologies to power them through their day – and that feedback led directly to the development of BlackBerry Classic. BlackBerry Classic is the powerful communications tool that many BlackBerry Bold and Curve users have been waiting for. It’s the secure device that feels familiar in their hands, with the added performance and agility they need to be competitive in today’s busy world.”

Read the story.

If legislators won’t pass tougher gun control, the argument goes, then crusading lawyers will seek justice in court. But the strategy hasn’t worked in the past—and it won’t work in the future. But Bloomberg Businessweek says gun-control advocates’ plans have some basic weaknesses.

The latest attempt to sue a gunmaker for firearm mayhem is under way in Connecticut.

Businessweek says lawyers working on the Sandy Hook suit know they will run into the liability-shield law, and they think they have a solution: an exception in the law that allows suits based on the theory of “negligent entrustment.” Under the shield law a defendant can still be held liable for entrusting a dangerous product to another party who then causes harm to a victim or victims.

Read the story.

NeoSystems Corp. has posted a free on-demand webinar on how to forecast, plan and optimize cash flow and cash management for government contractors.

Whether you’re looking to fund your growth or just meet payroll, every government contractor – big and small – needs to manage cash, NeoSystems says on its website.

“Consider the cash flow challenges of managing your contracts:  the timeline for paying your employees versus the timeline of billing your clients and waiting for your invoice to be paid can stress anyone’s cash reserves.  Add additional contract wins to the mix and many companies find themselves cash constrained at best.  Not to fear – these challenges can be overcome by effectively managing your cash flow,” NeoSystems says.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Baker Tilly presents a complimentary on-demand webinar discussing how to analyze an engineer-procure-construct contract for risk and plan to audit EPC projects.

The list of objectives for the webinar begins with understanding the fundamental delivery differences betweenEngineer-Procure-Construct (EPC) and Architect-Procure-Construction (APC).

Other objectives include: how to learn to identify the unique contract audit risks of EPC, and how to learn to identify EPC contract audit red flags.

Watch the on-demand webinar and download the slides.

Is there a merger or acquisition in your future? If your responsibilities include contract management, you need to be prepared for what’s ahead. With the transaction comes a vast collection of client and vendor contracts – hundreds or even thousands of them, full of unknown dates and data.

Merrill DataSite offers a complimentary white paper that offers some practical advice on handling the challenge properly.

How can you get your arms around this challenge?  The key to understanding what’s in all those contracts – and what’s at stake if you fail to prepare – is all in this complimentary white paper, Acquired contracts create urgent needs: How to manage the influx of contracts after an acquisition.

Merrill DataSite says readers of the white paper will learn:

• Post-merger contract challenges, both customer-related and vendor-related
• The difference between reactive and proactive contract management
• How to prevent costly post-merger contract mistakes

Download the white paper.

The Harvard Law School Program on Dispute Resolution offers a free white paper offering advice on understanding how relationships can help someone to negotiate even the most difficult conversations.

On its website, the Program on Dispute Resolution says the free special report provides strategies on successfully negotiating difficult disputes, preserving relationships, and reaching mutually beneficial agreements.

Topics include how to:

• Foster relationships by building rapport
• Manage conflict in long-term relationships
• Negotiate business decisions with family members

Download the free white paper.

Ten groups of top technology, media and business organizations on Dec. 15 filed legal briefs in support of Microsoft’s argument to a federal appeals court that the U.S. government cannot issue a search warrant to obtain customers’ e-mails held in another country, reports The Washington Post.

The unusually high number of friend-of-the-court briefs and the breadth of groups that signed on reflect how significant the issue of privacy in the digital age is to U.S. industry.

Apple, Amazon and HP, as well as news organizations from across the political spectrum like CNN, Fox News, NPR and The Guardian, have all signed amicus briefs supporting Microsoft’s fight to keep its users’ emails away from the U.S. government.

Read the story.

Some former employees of Sony Pictures Entertainment have filed a suit forcing the company to defend the security measures it took in advance of the hack.

The complaint was filed on behalf of Michael Corona, who says he worked at the company from 2004 to 2007, and Christina Mathis, who says she worked at the company between 2000 and 2002. Both say they had information such as social security numbers leaked, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

The report continues:

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys at the law firm of Keller Rohrback who are demanding actual and statutory damages, restitution and disgorgement for causes of action that include negligence, health privacy and a California statute requiring notifications of data breaches. They haven’t estimated the value of the damages, but they are also demanding equitable relief including forcing Sony to provide credit monitoring for at least five years, identity theft insurance, credit restoration service and requiring Sony receive periodic compliance audits by a third party regarding the security of its computer systems.

Read the story.

Wolfsdorf Rosenthal presents a free webinar explaining President’s Obama’s executive immigration actions.

On its website, the firm says this webinar will clarify and explain the variety of executive actions initiated by President Obama as outlined in his Nov. 20, 2014, speech announcing new steps his administration is taking in light of Congressional inaction to address the broken immigration system.

The webinar will cover enforcement priorities, border security, Deferred Action for Parents, pending proceedings, immigration court feforms, U/T visas , worksite enforcement and more.

Watch the on-demand webinar and see the presentation slides.