Zapproved has published “GDPR Readiness: A Quick Start Guide” about the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which is set to go live on May 25, 2018.

Zapproved says that half of all affected businesses won’t be ready for the May launch of the GDPR. This guide is intended to help those struggling with compliance so companies can avoid fines, which can be as much as 4 percent annual corporate turnover, or €20 million — whichever is greater.

“If you collect or maintain data about EU residents or conduct business in the EU, you will need to understand and comply with the data collection, security, access and erasure provisions of the GDPR or face unprecedented penalties,” the company warns.

This complimentary quick guide explains why GDPR exists and how it’s likely to conflict, at least initially, with U.S. discovery principles. It includes a short checklist for the first steps to take to get started with GDPR readiness.

Download the guide.

Image by US Dept. of Justice

Rachel Brand, the U.S. Justice Department’s No 3 official, is leaving for the top legal job at Walmart, reports the Associated Press.

“Brand attracted interest because of her potential to assume a key role in the Trump-Russia investigation,” according to the AP. “The official overseeing the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, has been repeatedly criticized by Trump. If Rosenstein had been fired or quit, oversight would have fallen to Brand. That job would now fall to the solicitor general, Noel Francisco.”

Walmart sought Brand to be head of global corporate governance at the retail giant.

Read the AP article.

A case heard by the National Labor Relations Board discusses the law concerning the legal duty to reduce a collective bargaining agreement to writing, and then sign it, according to a post on the Proskauer Labor Relations Update.

Partner Mark Theodore explains:

“Among other things, a signed agreement serves as an absolute bar to employees filing a decertification petition during the term of the agreement (with some timing limitations), while an unsigned agreement does not bar such a petition. A signed agreement also, obviously, is more easily enforced as it signifies to the entire world that this is the deal, and that the parties signed it after evaluation of its terms.”

Read the article.

Zapproved and General Counsel News have posted an on-demand webinar that can help executives and lawyers learn about the impact and strategies associated with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation set to take effect in May. (See the video below.)

While the GDPR standardizes data protection law across the EU, it doesn’t spell out how U.S. companies can update data preservation processes to be compliant. This on-demand webinar offers key steps on ensuring a company’s approach to processing personal data of EU citizens meets these new cross-border data privacy guidelines.

The webinar covers such topics as:

• Prepare for Article 30’s demand for detailed record keeping
• Article 30 of the GDPR broadly requires that data controllers and data processors maintain a detailed record of their processing activities.
• Understand the U.S and EU perspectives on privacy rights
• Consider gaining ISO2l701 certification
• Gaining ISO2l701 certification, an International standard of security that European regulators cite, demonstrates that you’re thinking like an international citizen with a cross-border responsibility.

When the Federal Reserve announced its punishment of Wells Fargo in the company’s sales scandal, the agency also announced that the company would replace four members of its 16-person board.

In a commentary for The Washington Post, former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers discussed the question: Why aren’t the directors who are leaving being named and asked to resign effective immediately with an element of humiliation?

“There are compelling reasons for due process before anyone goes to jail, even if it undermines deterrence,” Summers writes. “There is no similar justification for due process before being fired, publicly, for being a failed fiduciary. The Fed and other regulatory agencies should change their procedures.”

Read the Post article.

Dallas-based AriseBank — intended to be the world’s first “decentralized bank” —  saw its initial offering of a cryptocurrency it called AriseCoin shut down before it could get off the ground, reports The Dallas Morning News.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has halted the sale of AriseCoin, saying it was all part of a more straightforward, old-fashioned investment scam, according to economy writer Jill Cowan.

“Attempting to conceal what we allege to be fraudulent securities offerings under the veneer of technological terms like ‘ICO’ or ‘cryptocurrency’ will not escape the commission’s oversight or its efforts to protect investors,” Shamoil T. Shipchandler, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office, said in a statement.

The company company had said it raised $600 million ahead of its initial offering of the new currency.

Read the Dallas News article.

In its determination to reverse a two-decade slump in U.S. stock listings, the SEC might offer companies an extreme incentive to go public: the ability to bar aggrieved shareholders from suing, reports Bloomberg.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has privately signaled that it’s open to at least considering whether companies should be able to force investors to settle disputes through arbitration, an often closed-door process that can limit the bad publicity and high legal costs triggered by litigation, writes Benjamin Bain.

“But allowing companies to shield themselves from shareholder lawsuits would almost certainly enrage investor advocates and Democratic lawmakers, a combination that helped defeat a 2012 attempt by private-equity giant Carlyle Group LP to prohibit investor suits as part of its IPO,” Bain explains.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Senior officials with the National Labor Relations Board have expressed concern over a plan outlined by the board’s new general counsel to demote the senior civil servants who resolve most labor cases, reports The New York Times.

Peter B. Robb, the agency’s general counsel and a Trump appointee, outlined the proposal this month in a conference call with the civil servants

“Under the proposal, those civil servants — considered by many conservatives and employers to be biased toward labor — would answer to a small cadre of officials installed above them in the National Labor Relations Board’s hierarchy,” explains Noam Scheiber.

The result could be result in a system friendlier to employers named in complaints of unfair labor practices or facing unionization drives.

Read the Times article.

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Fortune is reporting that  Qualcomm has been hit with a massive $1.23 billion antitrust fine in the European Union, for illegally paying billions of dollars to Apple to make sure that its components were used in iPhones and iPads.

Reporter David Meyer writes: “The payoffs ensured that rival manufacturers of LTE baseband chipsets—the components that let mobile devices connect to cellular networks in order to provide internet connectivity—had no chance of getting into Apple’s devices for half a decade.”

The commission found that Qualcomm effectively shut down competition in the market, no matter how good competitors’ products were.

Read the Fortune article.

A data analysis by the Los Angeles Times has found that President Trump is ranked sixth of 19 presidents for appointing the highest number of federal judges in their first year.

Reporter Kyle Kim explains that Trump’s Republican Party’s slim majority in the Senate is one reason he has been able to fast-track judges.

“Another reason is a little bit of political warfare. Republican senators blocked 36 judicial nominations in President Obama’s first five years, according to Politifact. The best-known nominee was Judge Merrick Garland, chosen to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia,” writes Kim.

Read the LA Times article.

NAVEX Global will present a complimentary webinar on recent and anticipated enforcement and regulatory changes as they relate to third-party risk.

The online event will be Thursday, Jan. 25, at 1 p.m. EST / 10 a.m. PST.

Michael Volkov, renowned FCPA and third-party due diligence expert, will help participants learn about new FCPA policies and DOJ advice, data privacy regulations coming in May and more.

Participants also will learn what’s ahead in the world of anti-bribery, corruption and third-party risk management efforts.

Anyone who can’t watch the live online event may register to receive a recording of the webinar afterwards.

Register for the webinar.

A group of 22 Democratic state attorneys general, including those from California and New York, filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block the Federal Communications Commission’s repeal of tough net neutrality rules for online traffic, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The AGs’ complaint argues that the vote last month by the Republican-controlled FCC was an “arbitrary and capricious” change to regulations, writes reporter Jim Puzzanghera.

“The repeal of net neutrality would turn internet service providers into gatekeepers, allowing them to put profits over consumers while controlling what we see, what we do and what we say online,” said New York Atty. Gen. Eric T. Schneiderman, who is leading the suit.

Read the LA Times article.

Litigators are settling more cases as labor agencies and federal courts fill up with business-friendly appointees, reports Bloomberg.

“While employers across the U.S. paid a record amount in settlements for workplace violations last year, don’t expect this to mark the beginning of a trend. Think of it more as the storm before the calm, as labor lawyers rush to lock in payouts ahead of a shifting legal landscape,” writes Rebecca Greenfield.

She quotes Paul DeCamp a lawyer at Epstein Becker & Green who represents employers:

“I think that what we see is a race to settle. I’ve seen it in my practice. Cases that plaintiffs’ counsel felt very strongly about and seemed more bullish and willing to go to trial—since the election they were more eager to settle those cases.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

Zapproved has published a report providing insights from a PREX17 summary on meeting the new GDPR rules by May 2018. The summary may be downloaded free of charge.

In May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will go into effect, requiring companies that do business in Europe to adjust their strategies for data management. The GDPR standardizes data protection law across the member countries, but it doesn’t specifically address preservation and discovery for U.S. legal proceedings.

The PREX17 session summary, “Data Privacy, the GDPR and Security All in One” explores the practical considerations for this transition with insight from Intel’s Dan Christensen, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte and Jeane Thomas, Partner at Crowell & Moring LLP.

It discusses strategies to address:

• Article 30 requirements for detailed record keeping
• U.S vs EU perspectives on cross-border discovery and personal privacy rights
• ISO2l701 certification

Download the summary.

Reuters is reporting that a loophole in the new U.S. tax law could allow multinational corporations like Apple Inc to avoid paying billions of dollars in taxes on profits stashed overseas, according to experts.

Reporter David Morgan explains that the loophole involves the tax rates — 15.5 percent or 8 percent — that companies must pay on $2.6 trillion in profits they are holding abroad.

Stephen Shay, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, said the loophole clearly is the result of rushed legislation. He explained that a U.S. multinational could manipulate its foreign cash positions and potentially save  money by shifting profits to the lower rate from the higher one.

Read the Reuters article.

Salle Yoo, who resigned as general counsel of ride-hailing giant Uber in September, reportedly came up with an idea to foil government raids on the company’s computers: set up a system to wipe the data when the cops come through the door.

Bloomberg, citing three people with knowledge of the system, reports that, between spring 2015 until late 2016, Uber used a system designed to thwart police raids in foreign countries.

When authorities showed up at Uber offices, employees could page a number that alerted specially trained staff at company headquarters in San Francisco.

Citing a raid in Montreal, the report says, “When the call came in, staffers quickly remotely logged off every computer in the Montreal office, making it practically impossible for the authorities to retrieve the company records they’d obtained a warrant to collect. The investigators left without any evidence.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Reuters is reporting that President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the U.S. court system as “broken and unfair” after a federal judge blocked his move to end the program protecting young immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents, commonly known as “Dreamers.”

He was responding to a Tuesday ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that DACA must remain in place while the litigation is resolved.

In a post on Twitter on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote, “It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.”

Read the Reuters article.

In an article for Bloomberg Big Law Business, Wiley Rein LLP’s Kirk Nahra details the top-10 U.S. and international developments in 2018 that companies must be aware of to ensure an effective information security program.

Nahra writes that “it is clear that privacy and data security has moved from an issue impacting primarily healthcare and financial services companies, to an issue that affects, in large and small ways, virtually every company across the globe. These issues affect litigation, mergers and acquisitions, product development, research, corporate strategy, business partnerships, and, in some way most activities of most companies.”

His article covers the European Union’s new General Data Protection Regulation, Privacy Shield and other data transfer obligations, non-EU data transfer programs, cybersecurity, breach litigation, FTC and Office for Civil Rights enforcement, and the role of the states.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Fortune is reporting that Southwest Airlines agreed to pay $15 million to settle nationwide antitrust litigation by passengers who accused the four largest U.S. carriers of conspiring to raise fares by reducing seating capacity.

The Dallas-based carrier denied wrongdoing but said it settled to avoid the cost and distraction of further litigation.

The remaining defendants, including American Airlines Group, Delta Air Lines and United Continental Holdings, have not settled.

The report says Southwest agreed to help plaintiffs with their suit against the other three.

Read the Fortune article.

A Ninth Circuit ruling on President Trump’s “travel ban” case offers the U.S. Supreme Court a clever way to reject the ban without limiting government power over immigration, writes Garrett Epps for The Atlantic.

The court does not question the statute that the administration relies on as the basis for the travel bans, but it denies that the bans conform to it.

Epps explains that “a travel ban is perfectly possible, and the administration is always free to ask Congress for one. Had it done so in January, Congress might have enacted one by now. The Supreme Court may be concerned that a decision against the government in this case may weaken the nation; the Ninth Circuit opinion suggests a way to avoid doing so—while still rejecting Trump’s demand for personal powers that ‘will not be questioned.’”

Read The Atlantic‘s article.