Our lawyers provide sophisticated analysis, practical guidance and thought leadership on a wide range of topics. We encourage our readers to review this collection of client alerts, articles and white papers and benefit from the authors’ exceptional experience, market knowledge, practiced judgment and singular insights.
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Orange County partner Michele L. Maryott is the author of "Employer Perils in the Social Networking Age" [PDF] published in the January 2010 issue of the Orange County Business Journal.
Client Alert | January 14, 2010
In our "Mid-Year Review of SEC Enforcement," we reviewed the transformation that had begun at the SEC's Division of Enforcement under the agency's new Chairman, Mary Schapiro, and the Division's new Director, Robert Khuzami, as well as the measurable increase in enforcement activity that had resulted. Since then, Mr.
Client Alert | January 12, 2010
A recent court judgment passed by the District Court (Landgericht) Frankfurt in October 2009 may signal the end of a long-since established German corporate and financing practice, the notarization of limited liability company share transfers or share pledges in Switzerland.
Client Alert | January 12, 2010
Los Angeles partner Maurice Suh is the author of "Corporate Counsel: In the Crosshairs of a Criminal Investigation" [PDF] published in the Winter 2010 issue of Business Torts Journal.
Client Alert | January 12, 2010
In 2009, the United States government invested trillions of dollars into the economy. Coupled with this unprecedented spending came increased demands for transparency and accountability.
Client Alert | January 8, 2010
Paris partner Jérôme Delaurière is the author of "France Revises Transfer Tax Rules for Foreign Companies With French Real Estate Holdings" [PDF] published in January 8, 2010 edition of the Worldwide Tax Daily/Tax Analysts.
Client Alert | January 8, 2010
Although Deferred Prosecution Agreements ("DPAs") and Non-Prosecution Agreements ("NPAs") were rarely used and hardly discussed a decade ago, in the last several years they have become a hot topic and common aspect of corporate prosecutions: Congress, legal academics, and practitioners—from prosecutors to defense counsel—have weighed in on the Department of Justice's ("DOJ's") use of the agreements. DPAs and NPAs are types of pre-trial agreements whereby the government agrees not to pursue charges against a corporation so long as the corporation abides by the terms of the agreement. Although often similar in content, the emerging difference between a DPA and an NPA is whether a criminal information is filed in a federal court. With
Client Alert | January 7, 2010
San Francisco associate Rebecca Justice Lazarus is the author of "Discovery Prior To Class Certification: New Considerations And Challenges" [PDF] published in the January 7, 2010 issue of Mealey's Litigation Report: Class Actions.
Client Alert | January 7, 2010
This decade's breathtaking pace of aggressive enforcement of criminal antitrust laws in the United States and around the world continued through 2009. This update provides an overview of criminal antitrust enforcement in 2009 and a discussion of the key trends we see from that activity over the next year and beyond. Among the most notable developments from 2009 are the following:The first part of fiscal year 2009 ("FY 2009") continued the dramatic pace of huge criminal fines imposed by the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division ("DOJ" or "Antitrust Division") in recent years, resulting in over $1 billion in fines for the year;Although that pace tapered off in the second half of FY 2009, the Antitrust Division had a strong start to the
Client Alert | January 5, 2010
On November 24, 2009, the Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, Office of Policy issued a proposed amendment to the existing exemption in Section 125.4(b)(9) of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations ("ITAR") permitting the export of technical data under the ITAR for use by U.S.
Client Alert | January 5, 2010
United States Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper has approved the Joint Plan of Reorganization (the "Plan") filed by General Growth Properties, Inc. and certain affiliated debtors (collectively, "GGP") to restructure approximately $11.6 billion in mortgage loans on 110 retail and office properties.
Client Alert | January 4, 2010
"One can say without exaggeration that this past year was probably the most dynamic single year in the more than thirty years since the FCPA was enacted." So began Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in a recent recap of 2009 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA") enforcement. Indeed, for the fourth time in the last five years, the Department of Justice ("DOJ") and Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), the statute's dual enforcers, set a record by bringing more FCPA prosecutions than in any prior year in the FCPA's history. Foreign anti-corruption prosecutions also have reached unprecedented levels. Once an erratic enforcement priority, combating international corruption has now garnered attention at the highest leve
Client Alert | January 4, 2010
On December 21, 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a proposed amendment to paragraph (c) of Rule 163 under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.
Client Alert | January 4, 2010
Washington, D.C. partner Thomas Hungar and associate Nikesh Jindal are the authors of "Observations on the Rise of the Appellate Litigator" [PDF] published in the University of Texas School of Law's The Review of Litigation, Volume 29:3, Symposium 2010.
Article | January 1, 2010
On December 21, 2009, President Obama signed the 2010 Defense Appropriations Act. Among other things, the Act extends the eligibility period for the COBRA premium subsidy from December 31, 2009 to February 28, 2010 and expands the maximum duration of the subsidy from 9 to 15 months. The longer subsidy period applies retroactively and will require plan administrators to provide a supplemental notice to affected individuals.BackgroundThe COBRA subsidy initially was included in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (commonly known as the stimulus bill) and provided a temporary COBRA premium subsidy for employees who lost health plan coverage between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009 due to involuntary terminations of employment. Our February 24, 2009
Client Alert | December 22, 2009
Document preservation is one of the earliest and most important stages of document discovery. As federal courts continued to issue a steady flow of decisions in 2009 addressing the topic of document preservation and providing guidance to preserving parties, mastering the basic principles of document preservation is more important than ever.
Client Alert | December 22, 2009
The Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") recently announced that it is re-opening the comment period for its June 2009 proposal regarding shareholder access to company proxy materials for director nominations (also known as "proxy access"). The SEC's proposed rules, if adopted, would establish a federal proxy access right and permit proxy access shareholder proposals in company proxy materials. The SEC is re-opening the comment period to allow interested persons to comment on additional data and analyses that were submitted on or after the close of the original comment period. In particular, the SEC is seeking comments on the four reports summarized below.
Client Alert | December 22, 2009
Pending legislation could significantly increase the legal risks faced by foreign contractors doing business with the U.S. Government. On March 4, 2009, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) introduced S.
Client Alert | December 21, 2009
At an open meeting held on December 16, 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") approved a set of proposed rules to enhance the information provided to shareholders in company proxy statements regarding a number of risk oversight, compensation, board leadership and composition and other corporate governance matters. The SEC approved the final rules by a 4-to-1 vote, with Commissioner Kathleen Casey dissenting. The SEC released the text of the final rules on the same date they were adopted, with the 129 page adopting release available here. The new rules have an effective date of February 28, 2010, except that a rule change on how equity awards are reported in the Summary Compensation Table applies to all companies with fiscal years ending after Dece
Client Alert | December 16, 2009
New York associate Farrah Pepper is the author of "To Have and to Hold: A Romantic Guide to Document Preservation" [PDF] published online by ALM on December 16, 2009 at law.com.
Client Alert | December 16, 2009