Bloomberg BNA will present a complimentary event to discuss the widespread corporate apathy towards antitrust risks — and why the business community needs a collective wake-up call.

The event will be at the Bloomberg LP offices at 731 Lexington Ave. in New York on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, 8-10 a.m.

Robins Kaplan LLP is an underwriter of the event, will carries up to 1.5 CLE credits.

“Companies rely on their sales personnel to drive business growth and generate new revenue, while the in-house compliance team must prevent, detect, and report actions that could draw scrutiny from antitrust enforcement agencies,” Bloomberg says on its website. “But what if those employees don’t even know what types of conduct is problematic under the antitrust laws?”

Bloomberg BNA and Robins Kaplan LLP conducted a survey of corporate sales and compliance professionals, and the results show a widespread lack of awareness of antitrust guidelines. Among the alarming findings: 25% of respondents are engaged in pricing activities that could rise to the level of illegality.

The event is designed for in-house counsel, compliance and business executives responsible for antitrust compliance.

Register for the event.

 

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A new University of Iowa study demonstrates for the first time that financial shenanigans at companies decrease markedly in the years after truth tellers come forward with information about wrongdoing inside their operations, according to a report in The New York Times.

While government whistle-blower programs reward some individuals providing tips about corporate fraud, the costs for those people can be high, due to retaliation from their employers and their industry, writes Gretchen Morgenson. But companies subjected to whistle-blower investigations had less financial wrongdoing after being reported, the Iowa study found.

An analysis of the study found that the decrease lasted for at least two years, the period for which data had been collected for all the companies.

Read the NYT article.

 

 

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider putting sharp new limits on where patent-infringement lawsuits can be filed, accepting a case that may undercut patent owners’ ability to channel cases to favorable courts, reports Bloomberg.

The case involves an appeal by TC Heartland LLC, an Indiana-based maker of water flavorings that says a Kraft Heinz Co. unit shouldn’t be allowed to sue it in Delaware, reports Greg Stohr.

“A victory for Heartland would also bar most patent owners from pressing cases in the Eastern District of Texas, a patent-friendly jurisdiction where more than a third of all infringement suits are now filed,” Stohr explains. “Heartland’s appeal has support from a group of internet retailers and software companies, as well as the financial-services industry.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

 

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Navex Global has published its 2017 edition of the annual Top 10 Ethics & Compliance Predictions and Recommendations white paper and made it available for free downloading.

These 10 insider tips and predictions from experts present insight on how to prepare now — and get ahead of the trends that will impact the workforce and industry.

Some of the topics discussed include:

• Deliver a Return on Compliance (ROC)
• Thrive in a Five Generation Workplace
• Sort Through the Alphabet Soup of Global Standards
• Be More Than Just the People Who Say ‘No ’
• Mitigate Cyber Mayhem

Download the report.

 

Join Our LinkedIn Group

 

Law firm partners have figured out how to increase profits per partner in the face of a declining demand. Firms, on the other hand, have an unsustainable model that remains largely intact even as clients are seeking options, writes Mark A. Cohen for Forbes.

He sees the explosive growth of in-house legal departments as possibly the biggest impact of the fiscal crisis.

“It’s easy to dismiss ‘insourcing’  legal work as labor arbitrage. But the more fundamental reason for in-house growth is law firms’ inability to deliver legal expertise and value — as well as to integrate technology and process in delivery. The value deficiency is linked to the traditional firm model and culture,” he writes.

He lists some of the reasons corporate legal departments now comprise about 45 percent of total legal spend.

Read the Forbes article.

 

 

 

General Motors Co. said late Tuesday it has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that has opened GM to potentially billions of dollars in lawsuits related to pre-bankruptcy claims over defective ignition switches, reports The Detroit News.

Reporter Melissa Burden explains that GM was protected from some liabilities prior to its bankruptcy restructuring, but that protection did not extend to post-restructuring after 2009.

“A number of injury, wrongful death and economic loss lawsuits have been filed against GM over its faulty ignition switches and recall of nearly 2.6 million older vehicles in 2014,” she writes. “GM has admitted it knew of the defect for years but did not recall the cars for more than a decade and has paid fines to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Department of Justice.”

Read the Detroit News article.

 

 

A company’s board of directors is supposed to act in the best interests of shareholders, but that doesn’t always seem to be the case in Silicon Valley, where some chief executives are capable of driving boards to act in their own interests, according to a commentary in MarketWatch.

As an example of worrisome corporate governance in the tech mecca, writers Therese Poletti and Jeremy C. Owens point to new information that shows the relationship between a Facebook Inc. board member and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg. Reports cover recently unsealed documents in a shareholder lawsuit that contends Facebook’s recent stock split with a new class of nonvoting stock is tantamount to “granting Zuckerberg billions of dollars in equity, for which he will not pay anything.”

The reports also reveal that board member and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen helped Zuckerberg prepare for questions from a Facebook special committee of the board that reviewed the three-way stock split.

Read the MarketWatch article.

 

 

The president and chief operating officer of Texas-based Adeptus Health is the latest executive out the door at the nation’s largest operator of freestanding emergency facilities, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Graham Cherrington is the second executive to leave the embattled company suddenly in recent months, following a disappointing $11.7 million loss in third quarter. He follows longtime chief executive officer Thomas Hall, whose retirement was accelerated to November, writes reporter Sabriya Rice.

“The company went public with its freestanding emergency room model in June 2014, and now operates more than 90 facilities across the United States.  In 2015 it generated $365 million in revenue,” she writes. “Shares plummeted in November following the disappointing loss and an unexpected request to secure $27.5 million in emergency financing from investors.”

Read the Dallas News article.

 

 

A study by market research firm Equilar found that 2015 compensation for general counsel rose 6.9 percent and exceeded $1 million, reports Bloomberg Law.

In examining data from more than 1,400 lawyers, the report — with commentary from legal recruiting firm BarkerGilmore — found that:

• At companies with less than $1 billion in revenue, median total direct compensation for GCs was $725,021.
• At companies with between $1 billion and $5 billion in revenue, it was  $1.2 million.
• At companies with between $5 billion and $15 billion, it was $1.7 million.
• At companies with revenues above $15 billion, it was $2.5 million.

On its website, BarkerGilmore explains that the study considered compensation trends by practice area, the average annual in-house counsel salary increase, how well company compensation compares to those of similar size, and what gaps may exist and how to address them.

Read the Bloomberg article.

Download the BarkerGilmore report.

 

 

 

 

As most legal departments’ workload increases and resources diminish, it’s no surprise that running an efficient legal department is challenging. Old processes tracked on Excel spreadsheets or rudimentary databases will no longer cut it. Many legal departments find themselves struggling under the weight of legacy technologies that simply do not work or are expensive to upgrade.

Onit has published an eBook (see the form below) that discusses how ELM solutions are positively impacting corporate legal departments like Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), The Home Depot and Under Armour.

The eBook, available for free downloading, covers:

• Why ELM is more than just legal e-billing and spend management and “should” include contract management, legal holds, NDA creation, legal service requests, etc.
• Why “process automation” and collaboration is critical for performance
• Cues from the industry, market trends and Gartner’s predictions
• The new technology curve and future of legal operations technology

Download the eBook:

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The 2016 report on a comprehensive survey of law department operations, “Trying to Take the Leap from Small Changes to Major Disruptions,” can be downloaded from Blickstein Group at no charge.

Since 2008, Blickstein Group has worked in cooperation with Consilio to survey hundreds of law departments solely on the operations function to provide benchmarks that are useful to all law departments.

In addition to releasing the survey report, Blickstein Group will host a live webinar on Dec. 14 to provide exclusive analysis of survey results by five industry leaders. The complimentary online event will be Wednesday, Dec. 14, at 1 p.m. EST.

Some of the topics covered will be:

• The role of the LDO
• Change management
• Alternative fee arrangements
• Technology and tools
• Metrics and reporting

Presenters at the webinar will be:

• Brad Blickstein – Principal, Blickstein Group and Publisher, Law Department Operations Survey
• Elizabeth Jaworski – Director, Legal Operations, Motorola Mobility and Member, Law Department Operations Survey Advisory Board
• Josh Rosenfeld – Vice President, Legal Services, QuisLex
• Robin Snasdell – Managing Director, Consilio
• Aaron Van Nice – Director of Legal Operations, Baxter Healthcare and Member, Law Department Operations Survey Advisory Board

Download the report or register for the webinar.

 

 

A Texas judge’s decision to block sweeping new overtime rules hadn’t been out for two hours Monday evening before Philadelphia employment lawyer Gina Ameci started getting phone calls from her employer clients, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Now what? “As of today, there is no law,” she said. “Anything is possible.”

“The judge’s decision came as a relief to industry groups, such as the Retail Industry Leaders Association, one of the 50 business groups that had sued the U.S. Labor Department,” writes reporter Jane M. Von Bergen.

“Ameci said her clients, now faced with a period of uncertainty, would now have to weigh their risks. Should they roll back new policies to save money and then face potential liability if the regulation is ultimately upheld? That risk might be worth it, she said, for nonprofits who often have people doing professional work, but earning in the $35,000 a year range,” the report says.

Read The Inquirer‘s article.

 

 

As the top lawyer for the Chicago Cubs, Lydia Wahlke spends most of her time protecting and enforcing the team’s brand, but she still gets to be a fan of the new World Series champions, according to an interview published in Bloomberg’s Big Law Business.

She spent four years at Miramax Films as a video editor and field producer before deciding to take the LSAT on a whim. That led to law school and then being hired as a litigation associate at Kirkland & Ellis in her home town of Chicago. Then in 2010 she joined the Cubs organization.

“One of the greatest challenges we have is also one of our greatest assets: our brand,” she told Bloomberg’s Casey Sullivan. “We have needed to find the right path to protecting and enforcing our brand, while allowing our fans to celebrate being fans and celebrate their love of the team. That can be challenging because we are 146 years old and it’s a really complex brand that has come about in many ways, including organically from fans celebrating the team. You have to find that dividing line between fighting people and protecting your licenses and protecting your brand long-term, but you don’t want to take the fun out of it. That can be deciding whether or not to enforce our mark.”

Read the Bloomberg article.

 

 

Mining giant Rio Tinto PLC said it fired one of its most senior operational executives and its head of legal and regulatory affairs based on the findings from a continuing internal probe into $10.5 million in payments to a consultant who helped acquire mining rights in Guinea, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The two executives are  energy and minerals chief executive Alan Davies and legal and regulatory affairs group executive Debra Valentine.

The company is reported to be investigating emails related to payments to a consultant who helped to acquire rights to mine the prized Simandou iron-ore deposit. Rio Tinto has notified law enforcement officials and regulators, including the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office, writes Rhiannon Hoyle.

Read the WSJ article.

 

 

Zapproved has published “The New Law Department Professional,” which discusses the savings corporate legal departments can realize by bringing e-discovery in-house.

“Although their primary duty has always been to protect the organization, in-house legal professionals commonly wear two hats,” the company says in a release. “In addition to their core responsibilities, they often are tasked with handling the administrative operations of the legal department. In the past, marrying these dual roles meant that this less substantive, ministerial work became less of a priority and was pushed down to lower levels or that this work was compartmentalized, leading to independent—and inefficient—silos. Today, however, things have changed.

“These days, legal professionals are expected to lead the charge in implementing corporate initiatives aimed at reducing costs, mitigating risk, introducing new technologies, and changing corporate culture. No longer are the administrative priorities secondary to the substantive work—they are an integral part of it. At the 2016 Conference on Preservation Excellence, panelists discussed ways the new breed of law department professionals are helping to transform their department so it runs like a business, from e-discovery to information governance and more.”

The discussion features:

Moderator:

• Mike Quartararo, Director of Litigation Support Services, Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP

Panelists:

• David Castro, Associate General Counsel and Chief Litigation Counsel, Hess Corporation
• Dawn Radcliffe, Legal Operations Manager, TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd.
• Charisma Starr, Legal IT Manager, Exelon

Download The New Law Department Professional

 

 

“State Call to Action on Non-Compete Agreements” is the White House’s latest in a series of Executive Branch missives decrying the purported misuse of non-competition agreements by employers across the country, according to an article posted on the website of Jackson Lewis P.C.

Authors Clifford R. Atlas, David M. Walsh and Erik J. Winton write that the latest call to action repeats some of the Administration’s earlier conclusions on the subject: “including the view that use of non-compete agreements artificially restrict competition, restrict worker mobility, create barriers to changing jobs and weaken employees’ bargaining power. The stated goal of the White House issuances on non-competes is to address wage stagnation and boost the economy.”

“Many attorneys who represent companies in restrictive covenant litigation find the Administration’s conclusions and stated concerns about the evils of non-compete restrictions puzzling,” they write.

Read the article from Jackson Lewis.

 

 

The National Association of Corporate Directors has introduced the its new Strategic-Asset GC initiative, which recognizes the unique position general counsel hold relative to their boards of directors.

The new NACD initiation provides an exclusive view into how today’s general counsel are helping to craft boardroom strategy.

This NACD effort will aim to provide general counsel with valuable insights from directors, subject-matter experts, and fellow general counsel in order to help identify effective strategies for continued partnership. Led by a General Counsel Steering Committee, The Strategic-Asset GC initiative will include a quarterly webinar series, resources, and peer-to-peer events.

Sign up for access.

 

 

Navex Global has produced a benchmark report that can be used to help organizations judge how effective their third-party risk management systems are and how to make improvements.

On its website, Navex says one-third of organizations have faced recent legal action related to their third parties.

The new 2016 Third Party Risk Management Benchmark Report is available for free downloading.

Use this report to identify gaps, get buy-in for additional resources and make your program more efficient. The report discusses:

• Trends for screening and monitoring third parties
• About the program maturity model and how it impacts your due diligence programs
• How automated systems help increase performance satisfaction
• Recent developments in legal costs and number of incidents

Download the Navex report.

 

 

U.S. prosecutors are bearing down on generic pharmaceutical companies in a sweeping criminal investigation into suspected price collusion, a fresh challenge for an industry that’s already reeling from public outrage over the spiraling costs of some medicines, reports Bloomberg.

David McLaughlin and Caroline Chen write that the antitrust investigation by the Justice Department spans more than a dozen companies and about two dozen drugs. A grand jury is examining whether some executives agreed with one another to raise prices, and the first charges could emerge by the end of the year, sources told the reporters.

“Among the drugmakers to have received subpoenas are industry giants Mylan NV and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Other companies include Actavis, which Teva bought from Allergan Plc in August, Lannett Co., Impax Laboratories Inc., Covis Pharma Holdings Sarl, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Mayne Pharma Group Ltd., Endo International Plc’s subsidiary Par Pharmaceutical Holdings and Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.,” according to the report.

Read the article.

 

 

Exterro has published its “2016 In-House Legal Benchmarking Report,” which allows readers to compare their legal processes to their peers and learn how other legal departments are trying to become more productive and reduce legal spend without sacrificing defensibility.

The report, with the subtitle “Reducing Costs, Increasing Productivity in Today’s Complex Litigation Environment,” is available for free downloading.

The publication:

• is a 24-page comprehensive report, which surveyed 76 in-house legal professionals
• Key topics include how legal departments are allocating spend, techniques used to manage legal operations and much more…
• Interesting stats, including: 77% of respondents will invest or evaluate some type of legal project management software in the next 1 – 2 years

Download the report.