Duane Morris will present a complimentary webinar on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on Thursday, June 20, 2019, at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time.

Led by an interdisciplinary team of Duane Morris attorneys, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 Webinar Series offers an in-depth discussion and analysis of the CCPA, along with timely and practical strategies to prepare your business for compliance with this complex rule, the firm said in a release.

The CCPA of 2018 is the strictest privacy law in the United States and has national impact for anyone doing business in California. The new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2020, and gives consumers greater control over their personal information while establishing stringent rules and significant penalties for the companies that handle consumer information.

The second session topics include:

– Brief CCPA overview
– Examination of the CCPA requirements for privacy policies and third-party agreements
– Practical strategies for reviewing and updating your privacy policies and third-party agreements to comply with the CCPA

The first session of the series, Understanding the New California Consumer Privacy Act: Why The CCPA Applies to You and Practical Steps You Can Take Now to Comply, can be viewed on the firm’s website.

Register for the June 20 webinar.

Many leases contain renewal language, allowing the lessee to renew the lease term after the original lease term expires, points out James O. Birr III of Jimerson Birr in Florida.

“These provisions sometimes contain notice requirements and fulfillment of certain conditions precedent. In some instances, the leases may automatically renew. In any case, the terms of the lease renewal require certainty and specificity,” he advises.

He discusses a recent Florida appellate ruling that points out that parties must be specific in negotiating renewal terms and what the rent to be paid during the renewal period will be.

Read the article.

If technology vendors will have access to the personal information of their customers’ end users (regardless of whether the end users are employees or customers), treatment on caps on liability take on heightened importance, points out Janine Anthony Bowen in a post on the Data Privacy Monitor blog of BakerHostetler.

“Vendors have become increasingly reluctant to provide unlimited liability to protect customers against harms caused by security incidents, going to great lengths to narrowly tailor the situations under which the vendors will bear risk,” she writes.

She cites the 2019 Data Security Incident Report for guidance on decision-making regarding acceptable financial risk allocation.

Read the article.

The Miami Herald reports that a federal judge ordered top Carnival Corporation executives, including chairman Micky Arison and president Arnold Donald, to appear in court on June 3 because the company is charged with violating its probation.

“Federal prosecutors announced last week that they had reached a deal with Carnival Corp. on the charges, which include dumping plastic into Bahamian waters and falsifying records. At the June 3 hearing, Judge Patricia Seitz will review the deal, and she wants Carnival Corp.’s C-suite to be there,” explains the Herald‘s Taylor Dolven.

The world’s largest cruise company was put on probation for its 2016 conviction for environmental crimes on its Princess Cruises ships. Carnival paid $40 million as part of its guilty plea and began its five-year probation in April 2017. It was Carnival Corp.’s third conviction for the same crime of dumping oily waste into the ocean since 1998.

Read the Miami Herald report.

Bloomberg Law reports that Walmart has hired former Justice Department prosecutor David Searle as its international ethics and compliance officer.

The former assistant U.S. attorney prosecuted cases involving fraud, money laundering, extortion, export violations, worksite violations and human trafficking, as well as evaluating corporate compliance programs to make sure they conformed with the law.

Bloomberg’s Elizabeth Olson writes that Walmart has been adding experienced lawyers in recent months, hiring three female general counsel since last year, starting with Rachel Brand, formerly No. 3 at the Justice Department.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Image by Mike Mozart

Reuters is reporting that Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory “agency said the herbicide is not a public health risk.

“Some legal experts believe Bayer will have a tough time convincing appellate courts to throw out verdicts and lawsuits on those grounds,” writes Reuters’ Tina Bellon. “Bayer has a better shot if a business-friendly U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, experts said. But that could take years.”

Bayer acquired Monsanto, the manufacturer of Roundup, last year, and the litigation involving 13,400 plaintiffs went along with the deal. The plaintiffs allege the product causes cancer. So far, three consecutive U.S. juries have found the product to be carcinogenic, resulting in verdicts amounting to billions of dollars.

Read the Reuters article.

Eric D. Mulligan of Hudson Cook, LLP writes about a case that illustrates the importance of drafting a contract that will avoid questions of interpretation by making the terms clear and apparent from the face of the text.

The case involves the default on a mobile home retail installment contract. The purchaser returned the home to the vendor with $40,000 left on the contract. Then the company sold the home for $53,000 and did not return the surplus to the buyer.

The Montana Supreme Court found that the terms of the release did not end the parties’ debtor-creditor relationship, and the purchaser was allowed to retain a surplus.

Read the article.

Greenberg Traurig offers a wide-ranging discussion of commercial contracts in a post on the Lexology website.

Using a question-and-answer format, the post covers such commercial contract topics as: contract formation, statutory controls and implied terms, limiting liability, payment terms, termination, subcontracting and assignment and third-party rights, disputes, and remedies.

Read the article.

Reuters is reporting that a group of U.S. state attorneys general are investigating Expedia Group and hotel chains like Hyatt Hotels Corp and Marriott International Inc for alleged violations of antitrust law in online travel booking, according to a court filing.

“The filing in a state court in Utah relates to a dispute originally filed in Texas in which Travelpass accused the hotel chains last year of agreeing with each other, and with online travel groups like Expedia, to not advertise to consumers who searched for another company’s hotel,” according to the report.

Court documents name the hotel chains Hyatt, Marriott, Caesars Entertainment Corp and Choice Hotels International Inc.

Read the Reuters article.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s board to tour the Butte County community where the company’s equipment is suspected of starting a historically devastating California wildfire last year.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that “U.S. District Judge William Alsup made the decision at a sentencing hearing he held for the utility regarding a violation of its probation arising from the 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. Alsup previously found the utility did not properly report a settlement it reached over a small 2017 fire.”

Alsup said he wanted the energy company executives to “see the gravity of what happened up there” and indicated he likely will join the tour.

Read the SF Chronicle article.

In a podcast on the website of the University of Chicago Law School, consumer contract experts Omri Ben-Shahar and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler discuss several types of consumer contracts, enforceability of terms, and the potential consequences of agreeing to these terms without reading the fine print.

“Consumer contracts are everywhere,” they write in the introduction. “The number of contracts you enter into today may surprise you. Most of the contracts you enter into no longer involve a pen and paper. Purchasing a morning coffee, visiting a website, or scheduling a delivery are just a few daily transactions that more often than not include contract terms.”

Listen to the podcast.

U.S. contractors should proceed with caution when seeking to expand their footprint to an international stage, especially in developing countries where the local infrastructure may not promote a sustainable, stable environment, or a sustainable business model for the contractor, warns Rachael E. Stack in a website post for Faegre Baker Daniels.

But by considering three factors, contractors can mitigate exposure to the various risks involved in an international project.

Stack discusses the elements of contract form and language, governing law, and impact on the local community.

Read the article.

Facing an onslaught of lawsuits and a criminal investigation, Boeing announced the appointment of a newly created czar to oversee all legal matters arising from two deadly crashes of 737 MAX jetliners, reports The Seattle Times.

J. Michael Luttig, 64, a former federal appeals court judge who has served as Boeing’s general counsel since 2006, is now the new counselor and senior adviser to Boeing Chairman and CEO Dennis Muilenburg and the company’s board of directors, according to the Times Steve Miletich.

Dozens of lawsuits seeking monetary damages have been filed against Boeing in U.S. courts, alleging negligence on the part of the company. Statements indicate Boeing plans to take an aggressive stance in responding to civil allegations and any potential criminal accusations.

Read the Seattle Times article.

Entering into a clearly drafted lease agreement at the outset of the relationship helps to set expectations, which minimizes the possibility of disputes over how the lease should be interpreted, writes Eric J. Remington for Ward and Smith.

The article lists some of the issues that can often result in disputes in commercial leases.

It also examines a recent opinion that addresses insurance and liability clauses and provides guidance on how courts should interpret insurance and liability provisions in commercial leases.

Read the article.

A recent Delaware Court of Chancery ruling is a stark reminder that courts will enforce the terms of a merger agreement as written, and that the failure to comply with seemingly ministerial formalities can have severe consequences, according to a post on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.

The authors, partners at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, discuss Vintage Rodeo Parent, LLC v. Rent-A-Center, Inc., which involves a proposed merger. The agreement included a prescribed “end date,” means for extensions, and a reverse termination fee of $126.5 million.

The article expands on key takeways from the ruling, including the need for struct compliance with notice provisions, the lack of implied duty to warn a counterparty of its mistake, the discoverability of text messages, and enforceability of reverse termination fees.

Read the article.

Mark A. Cobb of Cobb Law Group writes that whenever he’s negotiating construction contracts on behalf of a client or discussing a construction collection matter with a potential client, the conversation inevitably includes a discussion of the construction contract’s dispute resolution clause.

In an article in the Georgia Construction, Bond & Lien Law Blog, he discusses several of the questions that can arise; e.g., What is a dispute resolution clause and why is it important? What types of construction contracts should include the clause? What are construction arbitration and mediation?

He also offers an example of a mandatory mediation provision.

Read the article.

The use of so-called “morals” clauses in services agreements, licenses, and other contracts is one of the primary means by which corporations that do business with high-profile performers seek to protect their investments against the talent’s appetites, foibles, weaknesses and, in certain cases, criminal impulses, points out Bloomberg Law.

In drafting the agreements, advises Steven S. Sidman, of counsel in Carlton Fields’ Atlanta office, “the parties should prepare agreements that not only clearly state what constitutes a violation (accusation of a crime versus actual conviction; what constitutes actionable public contempt or image tarnishing, and can it be measured objectively?), but also the remedies available to an aggrieved party.”

Read the article.

The law firm of Thompson & Knight LLP has assisted Frog Scooters, Inc. with the launch of operations in Chile and Portugal.

In a release, the company said Frog is the first company to provide commercial-grade scooters and is the only micro-mobility solutions company that custom designs, manufactures, and manages its fleet of electric scooters. Chile and Portugal represent Frog’s initial markets, and the Firm is currently assisting with Frog’s proposed expansion in the United States and four additional continents.

The cross-border Thompson & Knight team assisting Frog is led by John P. Vacalis and Mickey Baden and includes John R. Cohn, Jason Patrick Loden, Jeremiah M. Mayfield, Andrew Melsheimer, Gabriel Ruiz, Michael C. Titens, Alejandro A. Sánchez-Mújica A., Thomas J. (TJ) Auner, Craig Carpenter, Murtuza Hussain, Paloma Martinez, Leslie Reynolds, and Karen Pruett.

The Supreme Court of Texas in its recent IBM v. Lufkin Indus. decision provided further clarity to what contracting parties must say in their contracts to disclaim fraudulent inducement claims, according to a post on the website of King & Spalding.

Craig Stanfield and Chad Stewart write that the court endorsed provisions that disclaim reliance on any representations other than those explicitly made in the agreement, further clarifying its previous holdings on this issue.

They explain that the court “held that the contractual language at issue must ‘clearly and unequivocally express[] the party’s intent to disclaim reliance on the specific misrepresentations at issue.’ The Court further noted that it must look to the contract language and the totality of circumstances surrounding the contract.”

Read the article.

The importance of the terms in a state of work is sometimes overlooked by both business and legal teams because an SOW is commonly considered a business document rather than a legal document, writes Stephen F. Pinson in a Scott & Scott blog post.

He writes that it’s important for an SOW to address who will be providing the services, the scope of work being provided, the start date and timeline for the work, where the services will take place, the scope of work and the exact deliverables, and how the service ultimately be performed/delivered and paid.

Read the article.