For the past two years, there’s been a new player in the world of employee whistleblower enforcement, writes Evan Gibbs for Above the Law.

In 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued its first administrative order finding that a company violated SEC rules based on language in an employment agreement.

“In the first and only case of 2017, the SEC fined another company $340,000 because its standard severance agreement previously contained a provision in which employees waived recovery of incentive payments from the SEC,” Gibbs writes. “The company received the six-figure fine despite having removed the offending provision on its own in March 2016 as part of the company’s regular review process prior to being contacted by the SEC.third parties unless compelled to do so by law and after notice to the company.”

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The Alabama Supreme Court has upheld the decision that removed Roy Moore from his position as chief justice, reports AL.com.

Moore was suspended over his administrative order against the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Reporter Kent Faulk writes that Moore can’t appeal the ruling to the federal courts because there are no federal issues at stake.

“Moore also said he would reveal early next week for any plans he may have to run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by former Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, who was appointed to replace Jeff Sessions who is now U.S. Attorney General,” according to Faulk.

Read the AL.com article.

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Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP will present a free webinar, “Full Disclosure: Bridging the Information Gap Between Inventors and the Patent System,” featuring Fitch Even partner Michael J. Krautner.

The webinar will take place on Thursday, April 27, 2017, at 9:00 am PDT / 10:00 am MDT / 11:00 am CDT / 12:00 noon EDT.

In a release, the firm said patents can be extremely valuable business assets, but only as valuable as the information they convey. Before a patent can be monetized, it will be scrutinized by myriad individuals — inventors, attorneys, examiners, judges, juries, and business leaders — each of whom will interpret the patent in the light most favorable to their objective. As a patent filer, it’s vital to ensure inventors provide clear, detailed, and accurate descriptions of their inventions so they’ll withstand scrutiny and generate the optimal return on investment.

Inventors can provide abusiness with a true competitive advantage, but because of the technical and legal complexities involved, attempting to capitalize on their innovations can be both expensive and risky. By educating inventors to recognize patentable innovations, the expense can be reduced and the risk mitigated.

This webinar will provide tips and strategies on how to
• Educate inventors on how to identify viable inventions and distinguish them from unpatentable ideas and concepts
• Ask the right questions to get inventors to divulge the unique details of an invention
• Tell a story that clearly illustrates why a patent is warranted

CLE credit has been approved for California and Illinois and is pending in Nebraska. Other states may also award CLE credit upon attendee request. There is no fee to attend, but registration is required.

Following the live event, a recording of the webinar will be available to view for one year at www.fitcheven.com.

Register for the webinar.

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A review of 10 trademark databases shows that President Trump’s enterprise has 157 trademark applications pending in 36 countries, reports The New York Times.

This business enterprise poses legal and moral perils to the president, even though that business now is run by his two sons. A team of constitutional lawyers and ethics lawyers brought litigation arguing that the Constitution prohibits the president from accepting any economic benefit, including trademark approvals, from foreign governments, write Sharon LaFraniere and Danny Hakim.

“The legal question is whether new foreign trademark registrations and other transactions between Mr. Trump’s businesses and foreign governments violate the emoluments clause of the Constitution,” according to the Times. “The clause prohibits federal officials from accepting ‘any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state.’”

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In an interview with The New York Times, Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, remains mystified by the circumstances of his firing by the Trump administration, saying he had never been told why President Trump changed his mind about wanting him to stay on.

He characterized his ouster as an example of the chaos that has defined some of the administration’s decisions: “a direct example of the kind of uncertain helter-skelter incompetence, when it comes to personnel decisions and executive actions, that was in people’s minds when this out-of-the-blue call for everyone’s resignation letter came.”

Bharara also disclosed that Trump, after having asked him to remain in his post, telephoned him three times, raising concern that such calls could run afoul of strict Justice Department protocols, write Benjamin Weiser and William K. Rashbaum.

Read the NYT article.

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A provision of the “energy independence” executive order signed by President Trump is so broad in scope that legal experts say it could affect numerous government responsibilities far beyond those that deal directly with energy and climate change, according to a post by Climate Central.

Under the order, federal agencies must review all of their actions that have the potential to “burden” both the development and use of domestic fossil fuels and nuclear energy in the U.S., writes Bobby Magill.

“For example, it could affect the speed with which the government permits oil and gas drilling, how much information about energy development the government provides to the public, and other decisions federal employees make on a daily basis,” Magill explains. “It may also affect the willingness of the government to allow wind and solar development to go forward because more use of renewable energy could lead to less use of fossil fuels.”

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Senate Democratic opposition to Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee swelled Friday as Democrats neared the numbers needed to block Judge Neil Gorsuch with a filibuster, reports the Associated Press.

“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm Gorsuch anyway — a rules change that could prove momentous for the Senate and would allow all future Supreme Court nominees to get on the court regardless of opposition from the minority party,” write Mary Clare Jalonick and Erica Werner.

Democrats worry that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could respond to a Democratic filibuster by changing Senate rules to allow  a simple majority to determine the nomination, rather than requiring a minimum of 60 votes.

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President Trump has named Makan Delrahim, a former government antitrust enforcer and corporate lobbyist, to lead the Justice Department’s review of mergers and acquisitions, The New York Times reports.

Companies are hoping that the new Republican administration will be more permissive with mergers than the Obama administration was, writes Cecilia Kang. Trump’s predecessor blocked dozens of blockbuster deals over the past eight years, including AT&T’s bid for T-Mobile in 2011 and Comcast’s merger with Time Warner Cable in 2015.

“Mr. Delrahim, who serves as legal counsel to the president, will be quickly tested in his new position by AT&T’s $85 billion bid for Time Warner, which is set to be reviewed this year. Other mergers under review include Dow Chemical’s bid for Dupont and Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto,” Kang writes.

Read the NYT article.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia recently dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint that the statutory requirement that the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission recover its annual operating costs directly from the entities it regulates results in perceived or actual bias against plaintiffs who contest applications for needed certificates from FERC.

Anthony B. Cavender and Amy Pierce wrote about the case in Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP’s Gavel2Gavel blog.

The case is Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al., v. FERC.

“Because of this bias, the plaintiff asked the District Court either to declare FERC’s reimbursement mechanism to be unconstitutional or declare its power of eminent domain or authority to preempt state and local laws to be unconstitutional,” the authors explain. “Holding that the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim because allegations of actual bias cannot create structural bias where the court determines there is none, and the law does not on its face create an unconstitutional funding mechanism, the District Court granted FERC’s motion to dismiss.”

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Amazon.com scored a big victory Thursday against the IRS in a case that the company says could have cost it about $1.5 billion, reports The Seattle Times.

The IRS contended that the e-commerce giant had inappropriately brought down its U.S. tax bill by grossly undervaluing the assets it transferred to its Luxembourg subsidiary, which the company created more than a decade ago.

“Judge Albert Lauber of the U.S. Tax Court ruled that the IRS’ determination of those assets’ worth was ‘arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.’ He also broadly sided with Amazon on the way the U.S. company calculates how it shares costs with its European subsidiary,” writes reporter Ángel González. “The ruling, in favor of Amazon, untangles part of the complex web of tax litigation the retailer faces as authorities in the U.S. and Europe review how they deal with global companies that straddle many jurisdictions seeking advantageous tax deals.”

Read the Seattle Times article.

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Employers who want to challenge their unfair labor practice complaints may want to delay their cases from being heard, if possible, until after November, recommends a labor lawyer, in light of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits powers of acting presidential appointees.

Allen Smith, writing for the Society for Human Resource Management, explains implications of the ruling, which found that the acting National Labor Relations Board general counsel did not have the authority to continue in that role once the president nominated him to be confirmed by the Senate to be general counsel.

That means that companies that have objected to the authority of Acting GC Lafe Solomon after he was nominated can challenge any unfair labor practice charge issued against them following his nomination January 2011, according to Phil Wilson, president and general counsel with the Labor Relations Institute in Broken Arrow, Okla.

Read the SHRM article.

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With Democrats outnumbered in Congress, a coalition of blue state attorneys general has emerged as the strongest resistance to Donald Trump’s conservative agenda, according to an article published by Bloomberg Businessweek.

“Together they’ve notched back-to-back victories against Trump’s two attempts to instill a travel ban against several Muslim-majority nations. They now hope to build on that success to form a united front against Trump’s expected efforts to roll back financial and environmental regulation, plus the GOP’s planned repeal of Obamacare,” says the article, written by Erik Larson, Esmé E Deprez and Kartikay Mehrotra.

They quote Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist who teaches political science at the University of Southern California, who says that by notching wins against Trump, state AGs can help make up for Democrats being in the minority in Congress

Read the Bloomberg Businessweek article.

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Reuters is reporting that more than 100 institutional investors opposed efforts by the U.S. securities regulator to delay a rule requiring companies to disclose a ratio comparing their chief executive’s pay with their workforce median.

The letter, signed by representatives of more than 100 unions, pension funds, activist investors, state treasurers and consumer advocacy groups urged Acting U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Michael Piwowar not to delay the implementation of the rule, writes Sarah N. Lynch.

The requirement went into effect in January and could result in disclosures in many companies’ 2018 proxy statements unless the rule is delayed.

Piwowar said earlier this year that the SEC was accepting public comments on the rule, with an eye possibly to delaying implementation.

Read the Reuters article.

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Omega Advisors Inc. founder Leon Cooperman must face a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the billionaire investor reaped more than $4 million in illegal profits after conversations with a company insider, a judge ruled in rejecting his request to throw out the case, according to a Bloomberg report.

A federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that the SEC had produced a “plausible claim for insider trading” and set a trial for November. The judge also dismissed claims that Cooperman failed to file required reports about his beneficial ownership of stocks of eight public companies.

Reporters Chris Dolmetsch and Patricia Hurtado write that the case will ultimately test the SEC’s novel theory that outsiders are liable for trading on inside tips even if they received the information before agreeing not to use it.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Shareholder activists are pushing back against a major business trade group’s request that the White House use its influence on the U.S. securities regulator to make it harder to get governance, political or environmental issues onto corporate ballots, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Reporter Sarah N. Lynch writes that existing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules have “given shareholders an important voice,” and should not be changed, the five investor groups said in a March 15 letter to the White House’s National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.

SEC rules now allow shareholders to submit proposals to corporate ballots if they own $2,000 or 1 percent of a company’s outstanding stock. The SEC can override a company’s objections if the proposal meets certain legal standards and should be on the ballot, Lynch explains.

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A Dallas attorney says Texas may have to ask for permission to change election laws after a panel of federal judges ruled the maps drawn for three congressional districts violate federal statutes, according to a post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

The judges found the maps used for the congressional districts covering parts of South and West Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters by either violating the U.S. Constitution or the Voting Rights Act.

Constitutional law attorney David Coale of Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst says the decision means that Texas may face a rare remedy referred to as a “bail-in,” which could lead to requiring prior federal approval of any changes to district lines.

“The issue here is not so much what the court said about these districts, since none of them were actually used in an election. It’s whether Texas’ process for drawing districts was so flawed that the federal government has to take over.”

Texas can appeal the ruling before early May, but that will mean more uncertainty and added delay to an already complicated case, adds Coale.

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Reforms in the U.S. tax code proposed by President Donald Trump and Republican Congressional leaders could have significant implications for the energy industry in the U.S., and worldwide, according to an article published on the website of Hogan Lovells.

Authors of the article are Washington partners Jamie Wickett, John Stanton and Robert Glennon.

“Full expensing of capital expenditures and a reduction in the U.S. corporate tax rate from the current 35 percent to 20 percent or 15 percent will on balance significantly reduce the tax cost of doing business in the U.S.,” they write. “On the other hand, the loss of the deduction for net interest expense proposed in the Blueprint — will raise the cost of debt in the U.S.”

Also, “The ability for U.S.-based corporations to repatriate profits from foreign subsidiaries on a tax free basis (after paying a one-time tax on all accumulated earnings and profits of foreign subsidiaries) should significantly increase the incentive for these companies to repatriate cash and use it to make U.S. investments (or perhaps to pay down debt or pay dividends).”

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A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted a former Hunton & Williams partner of insider trading charges of tipping off his financial adviser to his client King Pharmaceuticals’ then-pending $3.6 billion acquisition by Pfizer Inc., reports Bloomberg Law.

Robert Schulman of McLean, Va., was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy charges. Post-trial defense motions are due April 14.

Schulman had represented King Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a patent case against Purdue Pharma LP as a lawyer with Hunton & Williams, the report says.

The indictment says Schulman tipped off his investment adviser of Klein Financial Services in Valley Stream, N.Y., about a Pfizer takeover plan during a dinner in August 2010 after having learned of it from another Hunton lawyer. During that dinner Schulman had several glasses of wine when he blurted to his adviser, “It would be nice to be King for a day,’” according to the SEC.

The adviser traded on the information and made profits for himself, Schulman and some other clients.

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New York will seek to question top Exxon Mobil Corp. executives under oath as part of a probe into the accuracy of the company’s statements about climate change after discovering an email alias used by former Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson, according to a Bloomberg report.

“Tillerson, now U.S. Secretary of State, used the name Wayne Tracker for his secondary internal email account at Exxon, created for sending the most sensitive messages to and from company board members, including communications about the risks associated with climate change, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Monday,” writes reporter Erik Larson.

Carl Barnes, a former corporate general counsel who’s a lawyer at Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton PC, told Larson that someone in Exxon’s general counsel’s office knew or should have known about the alias account.

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Employees of Monsanto ghostwrote scientific reports that U.S. regulators relied on to determine that a chemical in its Roundup weed killer does not cause cancer, farmers and others suing the company claimed in court filings, according to a Reuters report.

Monsanto is involved in a mass litigation in federal court in San Francisco claiming the company failed to warn that exposure to Roundup could cause non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer, writes Reuters’ Brendan Pierson.

“Plaintiffs claim that Monsanto’s toxicology manager ghostwrote parts of a scientific report in 2013 that was published under the names of several academic scientists, and his boss ghostwrote parts of another in 2000,” Pierson reports.

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