News

On October 17, 2014, the New Jersey District Court issued an order granting subpoenas seeking production of documents for use in a foreign arbitration. In this maritime dispute, the breach of time-charter agreements called for arbitration of all disputes arising out of the contracts in London under English law. The offended parties, two US companies, […]

On December 8, 2014, the UK Court of Appeal began hearing Google’s appeal against the High Court’s decision which allowed UK data subjects to sue Google Inc. in England for misuse of private information. In brief, at the beginning of 2013, several claimants alleged that Google used cookies to track their browsing activity without their consent. […]

On October 29h, 2014, the US District Court, S.D. West Virginia entered an order allowing both computer-assisted and linear review after the parties disagreed on the procedure for identifying privileged information. In this case, the parties met in an effort to “craft an agreement respecting the handling of attorney-client and work product information inadvertently disclosed”. […]

On December 4 and 5, 2014, the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council (one of the configurations of the Council of the European Union) made some progress on the EU data protection framework and the Proposal for a European Regulation. It discussed data protection in the public section and the “One Stop Shop” mechanism. The EU Council reached a […]

On November 21, 2014 the hearing board of the Illinois Registration and Disciplinary Commission has recommended a 3-year suspension for an Illinois patent lawyer who blogged about corruption in the probate court.  In re JoAnne Marie Denison. Among the others, she was charged with “making a statement the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless […]

At their meeting on October 31, 2014, the British Columbia Benchers adopted rule amendments based on the report and recommendations of the Law Society’s Cloud Computing Working Group. The amendments address the requirements for lawyers using electronic data storage and processing, producing records in a complaint investigation or forensic audit, and third-party storage providers and […]

On September 22, 2014, the Italian Data Privacy Authority suggested to the Italian Government to simplify the sanctions and the security measures of the  Privacy Code (Codice in materia di protezione dei dati personali, D.Lgs. n. 196/2003). The amendments’ inspirational principles are the following: Simplification of the different sanctions, which should be fairer. Simplification of […]

Senate Bill n. 1710 amended sections 1798.81.5, 1798.82, and 1798.85 of California Civil Code. Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1798.81.5, 1798.82, and 1798.85 (personal information privacy) will go into effect on January 1, 2015. The amendments enhanced the protection of California residents’ personal information by: requiring the entity notifying a data breach to provide appropriate identity theft prevention […]

A new website, LexShares, allows investment in legal claims. It helps connect plaintiffs with capital. How it works: LexShare reviews lawsuits and if it considers the case to have strong merit, the investment opportunity is posted on the website. Accredited investors review cases and decide how much to invest through private investment funds. If plaintiff loses her case, she does […]

On December 1, 2014, the US Supreme Court considered whether aggressive posting on Facebook should be considered as a “true threat” violating federal law or as a mere exercise of free speech right protected . Elonis v. United States. The posts in question were “directed” to the former wife of the author of the posting. While […]