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January 29, 2010
Bureau of Industry and Security Revises SNAP-R Recordkeeping Requirements
International Law Office
On December 4, 2009, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security proposed a rule that would change certain recordkeeping requirements applicable to exporters and reduce the use of paper documents in the agency’s licensing program. The proposed rule, intended to reduce agency mailing costs and free up staff time, will also impact exporter compliance practices if implemented.
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Articles
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January 25, 2010
Recent EPA Objections To Title V Permits
Law360
On Dec. 15, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency objected, in part, to two Clean Air Act (the Act) Title V permits for new electricity generating capacity. The EPA found each state agency had not adequately considered alternatives to the proposed source during the Best Available Control Technology analysis required by the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program under the Act.
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Articles
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January 22, 2010
Federal Reserve and Federal Trade Commission Issue Risk-Based Pricing Notice Rule
International Law Office
On December 22, 2009, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Trade Commission jointly issued a final rule to implement the requirements of Section 615(h) of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Section 615(h) was added by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act and provides for so-called 'risk-based pricing' notices. The rule will come into effect on January 1, 2011.
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Articles
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January 22, 2010
Omnibus Appropriations Act May Increase US Exports to Cuba
International Law Office
The recently signed Omnibus Appropriations Act may increase sales to Cuba of agricultural commodities, medicine and medical products by reversing a 2005 interpretation of “cash in advance” as used in the Trade Sanctions Reform Act of 2000. On December 16, 2009, the President signed into law H.R. 3288, which provides fiscal year 2010 appropriations for several departments in the U.S. government. Section 619 of this act reverses a 2005 rule by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control defining “cash in advance” to require that U.S. suppliers receive payment before goods are loaded onto a carrier for export to Cuba, thereby making trade with Cuba more difficult.
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Articles
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2010
Wider Prospects for ICSID Arbitration Under China’s BITs
An Extract from The Asia-Pacific Arbitration Review 2010
Despite the economic downturn, cross-border investment throughout Asia remained strong in 2008. Notably, intraregional investment, particularly investment originating from Hong Kong and mainland China, grew in 2008. FDI outflows from China to its Asian neighbours more than doubled from US$22 billion in 2007 to US$52 billion in 2008. Similarly, inbound investment to both mainland China and Hong Kong also continued to grow in 2008.
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Articles
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December 2009
Energy Prosecutions: Is the CFTC Out of Gas?
Futures & Derivatives Law Report
Beginning in 2002, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has brought attempted manipulation and false reporting enforcement cases against 42 public energy companies and 31 individual traders alleging violations of Section 9(a)(2) of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) with respect to their privately negotiated, principal-to-principal, bilateral energy product transactions, assessing $445 million in civil monetary penalties. Section 9(a)(2), entitled “Criminal Penalties,” has distinct prongs for manipulations, corners, false reporting of commodity prices and general antifraud violations under the CEA. This article will discuss whether the CFTC has exceeded its authority in bringing these cases against traders based on offexchange, negotiated bilateral transactions that fall outside of the CFTC’s jurisdiction.
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Articles
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December 18, 2009
Congressional Focus on Export Controls May Lead to Greater Domestic Sales Scrutiny
International Law Office
U.S. companies should expect enhanced export enforcement activities focusing on domestic sales as the result of a recent undercover investigation by the Government Accountability Office. With congressional and administration interest in the control of sensitive items and technologies on the rise, U.S. companies should review their screening and know-your-customer procedures, even for domestic sales. U.S. companies should also be prepared for increased industry outreach by U.S. law enforcement agencies and requests to participate in “sting” operations.
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Articles
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December 18, 2009
The Battle Brewing Over Kyocera
Law360
On Oct. 14, 2008, the Federal Circuit in Kyocera Wireless Corp. v. U.S. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 545 F.3d 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2008) held that the U.S. International Trade Commission exceeded its statutory authority when it found the only named respondent, Qualcomm, in violation of Section 337 but issued a limited exclusion order (“LEO”) barring cell phones from entry into the United States made by third parties if they contained the infringing Qualcomm chips.
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Articles
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December 14, 2009
Spotlight On Hedge Fund Trading Activities
Law360
Criminal and civil complaints filed by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission against 20 individuals in two separate waves during the last two months signal a new, aggressive posture taken by the federal agencies in pursuing insider trading activities at hedge funds.
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Articles
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December 11, 2009
DHL Settles Export Controls Case for $9.4 Million
International Law Office
On August 6, 2009, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a joint settlement agreement of allegations that DHL unlawfully aided and abetted the unauthorized exportation of goods to Syria, Iran and Sudan in 2004 and also failed to comply with applicable recordkeeping requirements with respect to hundreds of exports.
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Articles
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December 2009
TALF Master Loan and Security Agreement
Real Estate Finance
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) recently posted on its website a revised version of the Master Loan and Security Agreement (MLSA) for the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), a lending program launched by the Federal Reserve Board in March 2009 and supported in part by an agreement of the Treasury Department to provide certain credit protection to the FRBNY. The MLSA expands on certain of the terms set forth in the FRBNY’s Terms and Conditions and Frequently Asked Questions relating to the TALF and contains specific provisions governing borrowers’ obligations in respect of TALF loans.
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Articles
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November 20, 2009
General Exclusion Orders in the Wake of Kyocera
International Law Office
In 2008 the US Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit held that the US International Trade Commission did not have the statutory authority to bar entry to downstream products of non-respondents that contain infringing components, except under the exceptional circumstances of a statutory general exclusion order. As expected, the commission no longer issues limited exclusion orders extending to downstream products of third parties. However, at the same time, and perhaps rather unexpectedly, the commission appears to have tightened the requirements for issuance of general exclusion orders against infringing goods from all sources.
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Articles
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November 13, 2009
Departments of Treasury and Commerce Ease Cuba Restrictions
International Law Office
On September 3, the Departments of Commerce and Treasury issued rules aimed at increasing communication between the U.S. and Cuba, which may open up new business opportunities for U.S. telecommunications providers in Cuba. The rules also created two general licenses authorizing travel to Cuba related to the sale of telecommunications, agricultural and medical items. However, these new general licenses are subject to reporting requirements. The rules also relax restrictions on travel to Cuba to visit family members. However, the broad U.S. embargo against Cuba remains in place.
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Articles
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November 6, 2009
Court Challenges Commerce over Imports from Non-market Economy Countries
International Law Office
In what could be a very significant development with respect to antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) investigations against imports from non-market economy (NME) countries, such as the People’s Republic of China and Vietnam, the U.S. Court of International Trade last week issued a decision that instructs the U.S. Department of Commerce (Commerce) to reconsider several aspects of its application of countervailing duties to NMEs. The most contentious of the Court’s directions may be its requirement that Commerce develop methodologies to prevent double-counting of subsidies if it applies AD and CVD duties simultaneously on imports of the same product.
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Articles
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November 3, 2009
After-Hours Work: A Potential Liability Hazard
Employment Law360
In today’s climate of exploding litigation under the Fair Labor Standards Act, many employers neglect to consider exactly how to compensate nonexempt employees for the time they spend attending to work matters while away from work. This article discusses potential problems and possible solutions on the subject.
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Articles
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2010
The European Commission and Investment Treaties
An Extract from The European & Middle Eastern Arbitration Review 2010
Over the past year, the European Commission (the Commission) has continued to take an interest in the relationship between bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and European Union (EU) law. During that time, there have been at least three notable developments. First, the European Court of Justice issued a judgment regarding the consistency of certain provisions in BITs entered into by Austria and Sweden with provisions of EU law. Second, the Commission has continued to take the position that intra-European BITs are unnecessary because of the protections embodied in the EC Treaty, a position that a number of member states have pushed back against. And finally, the Commission has submitted written comments in at least two investor-state arbitrations.
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Articles
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November 2009
PRC Mergers: MOFCOM Takes Control
Asian-Counsel
After over a decade of deliberation, China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) was enacted in 2007 and finally came into force in August 2008. The new law was quickly hailed as a milestone in China’s transition to a fully-fledged market economy. So far, however, the AML’s implementation and enforcement has been gradual. Only in the area of merger control has there been a substantive level of activism, with the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) – in charge of merger reviews – active on both the legislative front as well as in individual enforcement cases. This article explains why companies planning transactions with potential effects in China must be mindful of MOFCOM's growing sophistication and assertiveness.
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Articles
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2010
CAFTA-DR Provides Strong Investor Protections But No Flurry of Cases
An Extract from The Arbitration Review of the Americas 2010
The free trade agreement among the United States, the Dominican Republic, and Central American countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua) (known as CAFTA-DR) was signed on 5 August 2004, and has now entered into force in all of the signatory countries. It includes a chapter (chapter 10) setting out minimum standards of protection for member country investors in each other’s territories – including, importantly, an option for the investor itself to enforce those treaty protections directly in binding international arbitration against a host state. This is a powerful tool for CAFTA-DR investors in protecting their investments, and it means that host states must take the promised investor protections seriously.
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Articles
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November 2009
Why Shareholders Should Not Share the Blame in the EU
GCP
Should an independent shareholder which is not itself a party to an antitrust infringement be held liable for the misconduct of a company it jointly owns? The question might raise eyebrows of practitioners in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, where corporate separateness prevails as a general rule and the proverbial corporate veil can be pierced only as an “extreme remedy.” For European counsel and their clients, however, the question has become highly relevant and any nervousness on their part seems justified. The European Commission seems to have adopted an everexpanding theory of “liability by association.” In addition to parents of wholly‐owned subsidiaries and partners in general partnerships, shareholders in jointly‐owned companies increasingly find themselves in the line of fire.
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Articles
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October 29, 2009
Judicial Review of Merger Decisions in EU Member States
e-Competitions
In a landmark judgment of 19 March 2009, the Irish High Court annulled a prohibition decision of the Irish Competition Authority (CA) blocking the acquisition by Kerry Group of Breeo Foods. As a result of the annulment, Breeo Foods became part of the Kerry Group on 26 March 2009, just seven days after the High Court's judgment and less than seven months after the CA's initial decision to prohibit the transaction.
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Articles
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2009
Legal and Economic Perspectives Concerning U.S. Government Investigations of Alleged Off-Label Promotion by Drug Manufacturers
Pharmacoeconomics
Sidley partner and global coordinator of the firm's Healthcare practice, Paul Kalb, has co-authored an article in Pharmacoeconomics which discusses the legal and economic perspectives concerning U.S. government investigations of alleged off-label promotion by drug manufacturers.
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Articles
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October 2009
District Court Dismisses Insider Trading Complaint Against Mark Cuban
Financial Fraud Law Report
The S.E.C. v. Cuban insider trading case is discussed in this article. According to the authors, the case is significant because it reaches important conclusions — at odds with positions taken by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) — about the nature of the duty the SEC must establish in a misappropriation case.
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Articles
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October 2009
Hernandez v. Hillsides Inc: Expectations of Privacy in the Workplace?
BNA International's World Data Protection Report
The California Supreme Court has made it clear that, although employees may have an expectation of privacy in the workplace, this expectation is not unlimited.
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Articles
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October 2009
Federal Court Dismisses Data Breach Class Action Brought Against J.P. Morgan Chase Based on Federal Preemption
Privacy & Data Security Law Journal
This article discusses a recent New York district court case holding that the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requirements for data disposal will preempt similar state laws, thereby making it more clear that financial institutions may be able to rely upon the federal data disposal requirements for credit report information without regard to the growing number of state data disposal laws.
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Articles
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September 2009
New Revenue Procedure Expands Tax-Safe Modifications for REMIC-Held Commercial Mortgage Loans
Practical U.S./Domestic Tax Strategies
On September 15, 2009, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service published Revenue Procedure 2009-45 (Rev. Proc. 2009-45), expanding a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit's (REMIC) ability to modify troubled, commercial mortgage loans without jeopardizing the REMIC's tax status or exposing it to prohibited transaction taxes.
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Articles
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September 15, 2009
The International Climate Change Negotiations and Intellectual Property: Another Climate Change Risk?
International Finance & Treasury
In the context of ongoing negotiations to supplement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), many developing countries, including China and India, are making proposals that, if accepted, would undermine important intellectual property rights needed to provide sustainable incentives to develop climate-related technology. These proposals may also redefine key principles contained in international intellectual property agreements, including the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).
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Articles
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September 14, 2009
An Uneasy Peace: Maine’s Act to Prevent Marketing to Minors and the Continuing Problems of Privacy for Children and Teens
BNA's Privacy & Security Law Report
Although Maine’s new law banning most collection and use of personal data of minors for marketing purposes has been put on hold and may likely never be implemented, the statute has been overwhelmingly successful in increasing the focus on the issues of child and teen privacy, the authors write.
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Articles
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September 2009
Accessing the U.S. Capital Markets
Accessing the U.S. Capital Markets is a basic primer for financial institutions, corporations and governmental entities interested in accessing the U.S. capital markets through conducting a securities offering, listing on a U.S. securities exchange or acquiring a U.S. company.
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Books
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September 2009
Developments in Data Breach Liability
Privacy & Data Security Law Journal
As data breaches continue apace, so do enforcement action and litigation. This article describes a recent data breach settlement under the consumer protection statutes of 41 jurisdictions, as well as recent federal and state court judicial opinions addressing liability for data breaches under Maine and District of Columbia law.
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Articles
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September 2009
The Administration’s Financial Regulatory Reform Proposals
Financial Fraud Law Report
On June 17, 2009, the Obama administration outlined its much-anticipated framework for Financial Regulatory Reform (the Financial Reform Plan or Plan) in its release “Financial Regulatory Reform, a new Foundation: Rebuilding Financial Supervision and Regulation” and the accompanying fact sheets. This article summarizes the key provisions of the Plan proposed.
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Articles
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August 2009
A General "Reservation of Rights" Clause Does Not Reserve "Have Made" Rights Under a Patent License
Intellectual Property Counselor
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held that a customary “reservation of rights” clause in a patent license is not sufficient to reserve “have made” rights under a patent license.
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Articles
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Summer 2009
The Dragon Rises: China’s Merger Control Regime One Year On
Antitrust, an ABA Magazine
Coming into effect with the Olympic fanfare of August 2008, the Anti-Monopoly Law (AML) of the People’s Republic of China is now settling into the mundane world of case-specific analysis and decision. The approaching anniversary of the AML’s effective date provides an opportunity to review how the AML has developed during these first 12 months.
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Articles
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August 20, 2009
Bundled Discounts and Combination Products: Implications of Norvir for Drug Manufacturers
BNA's Health Law Reporter
Like other sellers of products and services, pharmaceutical manufacturers face significant uncertainty in the application of antitrust laws to ‘‘bundled’’ discounts—i.e., discounts offered only when multiple products are purchased together.
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Articles
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August 11, 2009
Obama Administration’s Securitization and Credit Rating Agency Reform Proposals
BNA's Real Estate Law and Industry Report
In the wake of the recent financial meltdown and the ensuing recession, lawmakers and the Obama administration are formulating proposals that would reform critical features of the financial system. In this analysis, the authors examine legislation the administration has advanced to assure that those who securitize assets have ‘‘skin in the game’’ and to bolster the regulatory regime for credit rating agencies.
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Articles
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August 2009
The Treatment of Pharmaceutical Life Cycle Management Strategies In the European Commission’s Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry Final Report: An American Perspective
Bloomberg Law Reports/Antitrust & Trade
In July, 2009, the European Commission issued its long-awaited Pharmaceutical Sector Inquiry Final Report, which claims to examine “the reasons for observed delays in the entry of generic medicines . . . and the apparent decline in innovation as measured by the number of new medicines coming to the market.” This article addresses the Report’s suggestion that originator companies may be guilty of anticompetitive conduct when they patent, and then promote, Second Generation Products in order to compete against generic competitors – i.e., when they engage in common product life cycle management strategies. The conclusion is that the Report has not uncovered conduct, and the EC has not articulated a theory, that could reasonably support any sort of enforcement or remedial action.
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Articles
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August 2009
Agencies Release FAQs on Identity Theft, “Red Flags,” Change of Address, and Address Discrepancies Under the FACT Act
Privacy & Data Security Law Journal
Recently, several agencies released guidance in the form of “FAQs” to address certain recurring questions regarding compliance with the identity theft and red flags rules, card issuer rules regarding change of address, and address discrepancy rules implementing Sections 114 and 315 of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003. This article provides an overview of this guidance.
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Articles
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August 2009
Pharmaceutical Patent Settlements - A Presumption in Reverse
GCP
On July 8, 2009, the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition issued the much-anticipated Final Report (consisting of a Commission Communication and Staff Working Document) of its sector inquiry into competition in pharmaceuticals (Sector Inquiry). One of the areas examined in detail during the course of the Sector Inquiry was the conclusion among originator and generic manufacturers of settlement agreements relating to patent litigation.
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Articles
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July 29, 2009
SEC Proposes Rules Facilitating Shareholder Director Nominations
The Lawyer's Brief
On June 10, 2009, the SEC published the text of its proposals to amend the proxy rules under the Exchange Act to facilitate shareholder nominations of directors with measures that would require inclusion of shareholders' nominees on a company's proxy card and in its proxy statement. Public comments concerning the proposed amendments are due by August 17, 2009. This article describes the SEC's proposal in detail.
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Articles
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July 15, 2009
End of the Notice Paradigm? : FTC’s Proposed Sears Settlement Casts Doubt On the Sufficiency of Disclosures in Privacy Policies and User Agreements
BNA's Electronic Commerce & Law Report
The Federal Trade Commission’s recent proposed settlement with retailer Sears regarding an alleged failure to adequately disclose the scope of consumer personal information collected by marketing research software is at odds with established industry and regulatory practice. The settlement has the potential to create substantial uncertainty for online commerce, and thereby undercut the clear rules that have helped the Internet become a robust engine of economic growth and consumer choice.
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Articles
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July 2009
Reconciling European Data Privacy Concerns with US Discovery Rules: Conflict and Comity
Global Competition Litigation Review
The need for multinational corporations to prepare for, manage and vigorously prosecute transnational litigation is often in tension with cultural norms. Few areas have provoked as much attention as the recent conflict between the intensely adversarial truth-seeking function of US litigation and European efforts to protect spheres of personal privacy.
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Articles
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June 26, 2009
Ascertainability: An Overlooked Requirement for Class Certification
BNA Class Action Litigation Report
In the realm of class action litigation, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 (Rule 23), and its state equivalents, outline the major requirements for class certification. The explicit requirements of Rule23 therefore frame the classic battle ground for determining whether a law suit qualifies for class treatment.
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Articles
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June 18, 2009
Attorney-Client Privilege: Issues in Bankruptcy-Related Proceedings
BNA's Bankruptcy Law Reporter
In the current economic climate, many corporate officers and directors are facing tough decisions. Faced with the potential for insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings, issues implicating various privileges can rise to the forefront, and must be given careful consideration to avoid waiver.
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Articles
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June 2009
Pub Football Cases Highlight European Commission’s Lack of Guidance on New Media Distribution
Competition Law International
In recent months, two very interesting English cases concerning the parallel import of satellite decoder devices (set-top boxes) have been referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Depending on their outcome, these cases have the potential to turn the established practices for licensing sports rights (and also other types of content, eg, films) on their heads.
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Articles
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June 2009
Cost-Caps and Salary-Caps - Coming to Europe’s Biggest Sports?
Sport et Citoyenneté
The recent developments regarding the proposed introduction of a cost-cap in Formula One have led to increased media attention on salary-capping and financial controls in European sport more generally.
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Articles
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June 2009
Headline-Grabbing Intel Fine Hides Article 82 EC Enforcement Concerns
GCP
The recent decision by the European Commission to impose on the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer, Intel Corporation, an eye-watering EUR 1.06 billion fine for breaching EC competition law made headlines around the world.
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Articles
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June 2009
Weathering the Storm: Insurers Accessing TARP
Bloomberg Law Reports
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, unleashing chaos in the financial markets. In response to the financial turmoil, and in conjunction with other actions taken by agencies of the U.S. federal government and the U.S. Federal Reserve, on October 3, 2008, Congress passed, and President Bush signed into law, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, or EESA. The U.S. Treasury began implementing programs under EESA almost immediately. Following the change in administrations, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has unveiled additional programs. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of these programs in effect at the time of this writing and how insurance companies may access these initiatives.
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Articles
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May 22, 2009
Massive Losses Happen: Delaware Chancery Court Reaffirms The Business Judgment Rule’s Protection Against Claims of Undue Risk Taking
BNA
Sidley lawyers Andrew Stern and Alex Kaplan have authored an article for BNA's Corporate Accountability Report and Corporate Governance Report.
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Articles
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May 21, 2009
Loss Causation Experts After Dura
Law360
A crucial element of any securities class action — especially one that survives an initial motion to dismiss — is the role of the expert witness on loss causation.
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Articles
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May 4, 2009
First Cases Under Federal Rule of Evidence 502 Reflect Variety of Approaches, Underscore Importance of "Clawback" Orders
Bloomberg Law Reports/Litigation
The electronic age has vastly expanded the scope of document discovery in complex litigation. This expansion has led to an increase in the number of inadvertent disclosures of privileged and work-product documents, and the time needed for privilege review of voluminous electronic documents in order to prevent such inadvertent disclosures has contributed significantly to skyrocketing discovery costs.
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Articles
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May 2009
Predatory Pricing after linkLine and Wanadoo
GCP
On April 2, 2009, the European Court of Justice issued its decision in the Wanadoo case. This judgment is just the last of a series of developments in the field of predatory pricing on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Articles
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May 2009
Capturing the Online Opportunities: Report on E-Commerce Provides Ammunition for the Review of Vertical Restraints
Bloomberg European Law Journal
The Internet continues to develop as a powerful distribution and communication channel. We have only seen a fraction of what it can be used for, but we know it is here to stay: “Internet use for retail shopping is destined to become pervasive.” This is beneficial to both European consumers and businesses. The European Commission’s recently published report on cross-border e-commerce in the EU (E-Commerce Report) finds that the Internet expands the size of the market and gives consumers access to more providers and more choice.
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Articles
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April 27, 2009
Using Exculpatory Clauses in Defending Against Breach-of-Fiduciary-Duty Claims
Corporate Officers & Directors Liability
A director’s responsibilities in serving on a corporation’s board are accompanied by significant personal financial risks. When shareholders disagree with the director’s actions or believe that the director harmed the corporation by inaction, they can assert a variety of breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims. Many corporations provide their directors with a defense to claims of negligent breach of fiduciary duty in the form of an exculpatory clause or, in the parlance of Delaware law, a Section 102(b)(7) defense.
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Articles
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April 2009
Revisiting the First Sale For Export Rule: An Attempt to Remove Fairness in the Interests of Raising Revenues, Without Improving Legal Certainty
World Customs Journal
The World Trade Organization (WTO) Valuation Agreement sets out rules to determine the customs value of imported goods. However, imports of the same goods in different countries are valued using different valuation methodologies. Currently, major trading nations of the world ― the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and Japan ― accept some form of a ‘first sale rule’. This article summarises the current application of the first sale rule in the EU and the US, analyses and rebuts the position taken in the World Customs Organization (WCO) Commentary 22.1, and discusses recent developments in both the EU and the US. It concludes that the reasoning of the Commentary is flawed and that the first sale rule should not be discarded.
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Articles
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April 2009
Comments on the CRA Paper Entitled “An Economic Analysis of the Use of Selective Distribution by Luxury Goods Suppliers”
Published with permission of European Competition Journal, Hart Publishing
The debate about vertical restraints is heating up in the EU. The latest issue of the European Competition Journal (April 2009) contains two articles considering the economic aspects of this topic. One is authored by Coscelli, Buettner, Vergé and Winer (the CRA paper), as part of an exercise conducted on behalf of the LVMH Group. The CRA paper claims that vertical restraints are adopted by suppliers in the interests of consumers. The following article, authored by Sidley lawyers and economist, is an effort to formulate a practical approach to a real problem. It looks at the CRA paper’s arguments and finds that various key conclusions of the paper are either plainly wrong or at least dubious and should not be attributed to mainstream economics. In contrast to the CRA paper, our article also looks at what is happening in the real world and finds that policymakers are well-advised to adopt a cautionary approach to vertical restraints and internet restrictions.
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Articles
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Issues in Insurance Company Mergers & Acquisitions
Euromoney's International Investment & Securities Review 2009
The completion of a successful merger or acquisition involving insurance companies requires careful planning and specialised skill sets to deal with the many important ways insurance companies differ from other entities. This article summarises the primary concerns that may arise in connection with the acquisition of an insurance company or lines of insurance business.
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Articles
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March 30, 2009
National Security Letters: Practical Advice For Understanding and Handling Exceptional Requests
BNA Privacy & Security Law Report
National Security Letters (NSLs) were once an exceptionally rare form of federal administrative subpoena that few corporate attorneys and privacy officers would ever confront. In light of the U.S. response to international terrorism, the once infrequent use of NSLs and similar forms of process has increased significantly.
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Articles
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March 9, 2009
Assessing the EU Working Party’s Guidance on Harmonizing U.S. Discovery and EU Data Protection Requirements
BNA Privacy & Security Law Report
The European Union’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party has taken an important first step toward reconciling EU data protection obligations with the information disclosure requirements of U.S. discovery rules.
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Articles
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March 9, 2009
Regulation of Greenhouse Gases Under Section 115 of The Clean Air Act
BNA Daily Environment Report
The authors of this article say Section 115 of the Clean Air Act, among the various options under the current act, may offer EPA the most effective, flexible, economically reasonable and legally supportable means by which to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
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Articles
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March 2009
Cómo Constituir una Sociedad en China La WFOE
Partida Doble
In these times of financial difficulty and economic crisis, many companies are looking to China for opportunities to market their products to the millions of consumers in one of the world’s few economies in expansion. When companies do business in China, they soon discover the need to establish some sort of local presence. Above certain volumes of trade, importing through agents often becomes unpractical. This article, in Spanish, examines an increasingly frequent form of presence in China: the wholly-foreign owned enterprise (WFOE). It provides an overview of the numerous procedures that foreign investors need to go through to establish a WFOE in China and the key issues to be aware of.
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Articles
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March 2009
Getting the Deal Through - Vertical Agreements 2009
Sidley lawyers wrote four of the chapters in this year's edition of "Getting the Deal Through — Vertical Agreements," a book recently published by Global Competition Review. The book is intended for in-house counsel and provides an overview of antitrust regulation of distribution arrangements in 41 jurisdictions worldwide.
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Books
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March 2009
Hybrid Capital Product Development
Focusing on Tier 1 and Other Hybrid Capital Products
Hybrid Capital Product Development provides our clients with a general survey of the regulatory developments, both regional and country specific, and executed Tier 1 and other hybrid transactions that have taken place in the past year and is a readily accessible guide, organized by product type and country, of the Tier 1 and other hybrid products that have been executed since this book was first published in 1999.
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Books
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March 2009
Who's Afraid of the Internet? Time to Put Consumer Interests at the Heart of Competition
GCP
The on-going review of the Vertical Restraints Regulation has brought to the surface a conflict between traditional retail models where the consumer takes a back seat and modern ways of retailing where the consumer is given greater freedom to select the right product at the right price.
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Articles
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March 2009
A Mixed Result
China Law & Practice Magazine
The US has complained to the World Trade Organisation that China’s IP rights protection and enforcement legislation violates international agreements. A WTO panel has presented its report and both sides are claiming victory.
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February 2009
Seeing Green: Identifying and Anticipating Regulatory Issues and Risks in the Evolving Energy Efficiency Environment
Bloomberg Sustainable Energy Law Report
This article, authored by Sidley associate Mark R. Johnson, provides an overview of energy efficiency programs in the United States and a discussion of the regulatory issues utilities are encountering as they develop and seek regulatory approval of energy efficiency plans.
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