The controversy surrounding the allegedly defective shrapnel-slinging exploding air bags continues to grow, now that Nissan says it will add another 52,000 vehicles to its recall effort.

Nissan reported the plan to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times.

“Meanwhile, a group of senators is asking the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation into reports that the air bag supplier conducted secret tests on ruptures a decade ago but didn’t take action or report the results to safety regulators,” The Times reports.

Read the story.

Executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. will lead the search to find a new general counsel to succeed General Motors Co.’s Michael P. Millikin, who will retire early next year, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Leading the effort for Heidrick & Struggles are Victoria Reese, global head of the firm’s legal, risk, compliance and government affairs practice, and Lee Hanson, a Heidrick vice chairman and former investment banker, reports The Journal, citing sources who asked not to be identified because the information hasn’t been made public.

Millikin, who has been with GM since 1977 and has served as general counsel for five years, has announced his retirement.

“The 66-year-old has been one of Chief Executive Mary Barra’s closest allies as she took on the CEO position earlier this year and has dealt with the continuing ignition-switch debacle,” according to The Journal‘s report.

Read the story.

PwC will host a complimentary webinar titled “Fit for $50 oil: Is your company in shape?”

The webinar will be Wednesday, Nov. 19, at 1 p.m. Central time.

The discussion will explore the dynamic levers impacting the current price of oil, and introduce PwC’s “stress test” that evaluates financial, operational, commercial, portfolio, and talent factors to reveal the indicators that signal the ability of a company to withstand a period of sustained low prices, the company says on its website.

The recent decline in oil prices has reinforced two realities: commodity prices change and the energy industry is a cyclical business. When prices go down, companies are faced with different challenges and opportunities than the preferred $90+/bbl environment presents.

Register for the webinar.

Some media companies, including CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co., have sought a court order to stop the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from disclosing programming contracts as part of its review of Comcast Corp.’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc.

Bloomberg News reports that the companies will suffer “substantial harm” if distribution agreements are disclosed, lawyers for media companies wrote yesterday in a request for an order in the U.S. appeals court in Washington blocking release of the information.

“The FCC repeatedly has recognized that distribution agreements are entitled to the highest level of confidential treatment,” the companies said in the filing.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable-TV company, proposed buying No. 2 Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion in February.

Read the story.

The bankruptcy of GT Advanced Technologies Inc. wiped out 92 percent of its value in a single day last month, leading to a loss in investor confidence in Apple Inc. suppliers and vendors.

Bloomberg reports that shares of 21 companies that get at least 20 percent of their revenue from Apple have fallen 2.8 percent since the Oct. 6 bankruptcy filing by GT Advanced, which had a contract with the iPhone maker to supply synthetic sapphire that was never used in its devices.

“At the heart of the concerns are agreements between GT Advanced and Apple, including a $578 million loan, that the supplier said caused its bankruptcy,” Bloomberg reports.

The case is shining a spotlight on contracts between technology companies and their suppliers, details of which aren’t typically disclosed in securities filings.

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Google and LG have entered into a patent cross-licensing deal, the latest partnership seeking to reduce the threat of lawsuits between major tech companies, reports PC World.

The companies announced the agreement on Nov. 4.

According to PC World, it covers “a broad range of products and technologies” built on the two companies’ existing patents as well as those they file over the next 10 years, they said. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

“The agreement is likely to stave off any potential patent lawsuits between the two companies like the drawn out, costly legal battles that have ensued between Apple and Samsung or Google and Oracle.” the site reported. “Google’s Android OS is in a number of LG smartphones and the South Korean company owns patents covering smartphones, consumer electronics and other portable gadgets.”

Read the story.

Sanofi is one of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies,has fired CEO Christopher A. Viehbacher amid tensions over the company’s international strategy.

The New York Times reported that Serge Weinberg, the chairman, will serve as chief executive until a replacement is found.

Viehbacher focused the French company more on international business. He also was a major force in Sanofi’s embrace of biotechnology, helping engineer the takeover of Genzyme, an American biotechnology company, for $20.1 billion — a deal widely seen as a success for Sanofi.

That acquisition gave Sanofi a presence in the Boston area, a hot spot for pharmaceutical research because of the universities and biotechnology companies there. He made efforts to shift more of Sanofi’s research there and personally moved to Boston this year, the Times reported.

But those actions led to dissatisfaction among labor unions and some government officials in France, who were concerned about a loss of jobs in their country.

Read the story.

Fortune has posted a detailed examination of how former Home Depot CEO Frank Blake took ownership of the company’s customer data breach in the latter days of his tenure and, in the process, cemented his reputation as a straight-shooter.

According to Fortune‘s report, “Blake’s response to the breakdown matches his approach to running Home Depot—an approach few foresaw when the board abruptly named him to replace Bob Nardelli in 2007. He tackled the hack with the same forthrightness, humor, and humility that he has displayed in reviving Home Depot.”

Some other companies have suffered greatly after similar disasters, but “Home Depot has shown no public signs of a decline. That is in part because it was the first of several hacking episodes to occur in rapid succession. But it is also because of Blake’s forthright approach,” the article says.

Read the story.

What if you had to return all the revenue you received from every customer in California for the last several years? A class action litigation alert from DLA Piper discusses the California Automatic Renewal Law, which applies to most individual consumer contracts that include an automatic renewal feature and for which the consumer authorizes a recurring automatic charge to the consumer’s credit card or bank account for the purchase of services, memberships, subscriptions or other products.

According to the alert, “in the event of non-compliance with the law, all services rendered by a merchant to an individual California consumer ‘shall for all purposes be deemed an unconditional gift to the consumer.’ ”

The alert, written by Paul J. Hall, Isabelle Ord and Alec Cierny, says, “The law creates a higher legal standard that the automatic renewal terms and cancellation rights be disclosed in a more conspicuous manner than the rest of the contract.  The law applies to contracts entered into by any consumer in California regardless of the location of the company.  Recent class action lawsuits allege that several national companies with consumer-interfacing websites are not in compliance with the enhanced disclosure requirements of the Automatic Renewal Law.”

Read the alert here.

Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery LLP presents a complimentary webinar, “Asserting Product Packaging and Labeling: An Overview of Current Legal Principles.” The one-hour webinar will take place on Wednesday, October 29, 2014, at 11 a.m. CDT.

Marketplace promotion of products can involve not only attractive packaging designs, but also a mix of labeling concerns including product performance claims, regulatory compliance, required disclosures, and identification of intellectual property rights. Product promotion not only drives sales, but seeks to develop brand loyalty and provide consumers with useful information about the product. As such, product packaging and labeling is tied to legal issues involving compliance with one or more government agencies, marking of IP rights, industry standards, and more.

During this webinar, we will provide an overview of current legal issues to consider when developing product packaging and will cover these topics:

• A summary of issue spotting of product packaging (claim substantiation, disclosures, comparative claims, endorsements, marking product IP)
• Trademark use as a source identifier of a product
• State and federal government compliance issues for food and medical products
• Digital and print labeling

Our speakers will be Fitch Even partners John M. Naber and John E. Lyhus. John Naber is a licensed patent attorney with extensive experience in patent prosecution, clearance, and opinion work. He also counsels clients on issues that arise in corporate advertising, marketing, and product labeling and marking. John Lyhus focuses his IP practice primarily on trademark clearance and prosecution, enforcement, and global brand protection. He also represents clients in domain name dispute resolution, unfair competition, and copyright matters.

There is no fee to attend, but please note registration is required.

Register for the webinar.

The George Washington University School of Law has posted online the slides of a webinar about changes to the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement.

Twenty years after the 1994 version of the WTO Government Procurement Agreement was signed, a new version of the international accord–probably the most important free trade agreement in world public procurement markets–has taken effect, the school says on its website.

The United States, the European Union and many other nations, industrialized and not, are members of the GPA, which has been revamped and revised. George Washington University Law School’s Government Procurement Law Program is pleased to host this free colloquium, where experts will discuss the new agreement, what is new in this revision, and the likely impact on procurement markets, here and abroad.

The event was sponsored by The George Washington University Law School Government Procurement Law Program, the International Procurement Committees of the ABA Section of International Law, and the ABA Public Contract Law Section.

See the webinar’s presentation slides.

Baker & McKenzie presents a free on-demand webinar on how companies can address antitrust issues and enforcement in their compliance programs.

The webinar includes discussion on cascading cartel investigations, iInformation exchange, dawn raid protocols, and  document management. This webinar is an installment in the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Strategies Series.

Presenters for the webinar are Edward W. Batchelor, a partner in the Baker & McKenzie Brussels office; Katherine Funk, a partner in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office; Dr. Akira Inoue, a partner in the Tokyo office; and María Carolina Pardo Cuéllar, a partner in the Bogota office.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

Thompson Coburn will present a complimentary webinar on the trade compliance issues associated with different Incoterms and the creative ways that they are often used.

The webinar will be Tuesday, Oct. 14, beginning at 1 p.m. Central time.

On its website, Thompson Coburn says the webinar is designed to answer several question on this topic, such as: What risks are associated with Routed Export Transactions? Can one ship a licensable product under the EXW term of sale? What is the term of sale, reportable value and invoicing policy for dropped shipments? What risks are associated with using a term of sale that differs from the way the business is actually handled? Can you create a right to make entry?

Register for the webinar.