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Taking Advantage of ADR in the Entertainment Industry
July 16, 2013
As courts throughout the U.S. have become more and more backlogged with cases, and as the financial stakes in litigation have grown increasingly larger, so too has the need for quality ADR mechanisms. Certain substantive legal areas lend themselves particularly well to ADR, which include Intellectual Property/Entertainment matters. The importance of secrecy and privacy, the need for expertise and the flexibility that ADR offers are three reasons why IP and entertainment practitioners should...
July 16, 2013
As courts throughout the U.S. have become more and more backlogged with cases, and as the financial stakes in litigation have grown increasingly larger, so too has the need for quality ADR mechanisms. Certain substantive legal areas lend themselves particularly well to ADR, which include Intellectual Property/Entertainment matters. The importance of secrecy and privacy, the need for expertise and the flexibility that ADR offers are three reasons why IP and entertainment practitioners should...
Reflections on 2013 Supreme Court Arbitration Decisions
July 16, 2013
I have had a few days to digest the Supreme Court’s most recent opinions interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act (Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, see blog post here; and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, see blog posts here and here) and offer the following reflections: Sutter affirmed the broad power of the arbitrators to decide issues properly submitted to them even if the resulting decision seems implausible. Italian Colors affirmed the power of parties...
July 16, 2013
I have had a few days to digest the Supreme Court’s most recent opinions interpreting the Federal Arbitration Act (Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, see blog post here; and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, see blog posts here and here) and offer the following reflections: Sutter affirmed the broad power of the arbitrators to decide issues properly submitted to them even if the resulting decision seems implausible. Italian Colors affirmed the power of parties...
Washington Legislature Says Statute of Limitations Applies to Arbitration Proceedings
July 16, 2013
An interesting arbitration-related development has come out of the Washington Legislature. In an apparent response to a 2010 Washington Supreme Court ruling, lawmakers have amended the state’s Uniform Arbitration Act to allow statutes of limitations to apply to arbitral proceedings. The bill was purportedly filed in response to the holding in Broom v. Morgan Stanley DW, Inc. which said a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel exceeded its authority when it dismissed arbitral claims based...
July 16, 2013
An interesting arbitration-related development has come out of the Washington Legislature. In an apparent response to a 2010 Washington Supreme Court ruling, lawmakers have amended the state’s Uniform Arbitration Act to allow statutes of limitations to apply to arbitral proceedings. The bill was purportedly filed in response to the holding in Broom v. Morgan Stanley DW, Inc. which said a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority panel exceeded its authority when it dismissed arbitral claims based...
Categorize Your Case to Learn Its Value
July 16, 2013
The Problem: You think that your client’s pain is so severe and different than the typical client that you value the case higher than the other side will pay. The Solution: Understand what category your adversary has put your case in and either accept it or try and create a new category of value. Insurers have defined market values of cases in strict categories depending on a host of factors that have been vetted by actuarial specialists with complex software programs. This provides a reasonable...
July 16, 2013
The Problem: You think that your client’s pain is so severe and different than the typical client that you value the case higher than the other side will pay. The Solution: Understand what category your adversary has put your case in and either accept it or try and create a new category of value. Insurers have defined market values of cases in strict categories depending on a host of factors that have been vetted by actuarial specialists with complex software programs. This provides a reasonable...
Supreme Court Affirms Commitment to Narrow Judicial Review of Arbitration Awards in Sutter Decision
July 15, 2013
Today, the Supreme Court in Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/oxford-health-plans-llc-v-sutter/, affirmed its commitment to narrow judicial review of arbitration decisions. In Sutter, the arbitrator interpreted an arbitration agreement to permit class arbitration. Because the parties asked the arbitrator to interpret the agreement, the only question for a court, according to the Supreme Court, is whether the arbitrator interpreted the parties’ agreement,...
July 15, 2013
Today, the Supreme Court in Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/oxford-health-plans-llc-v-sutter/, affirmed its commitment to narrow judicial review of arbitration decisions. In Sutter, the arbitrator interpreted an arbitration agreement to permit class arbitration. Because the parties asked the arbitrator to interpret the agreement, the only question for a court, according to the Supreme Court, is whether the arbitrator interpreted the parties’ agreement,...
New Article: “Managing Disputes in a Flat World”
July 15, 2013
Royal Dutch Shell Legal Director Peter Rees and CPR Institute President Kathy Bryan have co-authored a very good article called “How to Manage Disputes in a Flat World.” Much of its appeal lies in its emphasis on management of risk rather than resolution of disputes. And its premise is compelling: Business is truly global, yet the legal function has not kept up. This is rapidly changing, and informed companies are getting ahead of the curve by taking a global approach to dispute management. The...
July 15, 2013
Royal Dutch Shell Legal Director Peter Rees and CPR Institute President Kathy Bryan have co-authored a very good article called “How to Manage Disputes in a Flat World.” Much of its appeal lies in its emphasis on management of risk rather than resolution of disputes. And its premise is compelling: Business is truly global, yet the legal function has not kept up. This is rapidly changing, and informed companies are getting ahead of the curve by taking a global approach to dispute management. The...
SEC to Limit Ability to Settle Without Admission of Wrongdoing
July 15, 2013
At a recent Wall Street Journal CFO Network conference [login required], U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...
July 15, 2013
At a recent Wall Street Journal CFO Network conference [login required], U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...
Second Life Avatars Class Action Settles
July 15, 2013
A federal judge certified a class at least 57,000 Second Life property owners who lost their virtual property, which led to a settlement of 43 million Linden dollars, or $172,000 according to the American Lawyer. In November 2012 US Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu in the Northern District of California in case of Evans v. Linden Research certified the following class: All persons whose assets, including virtual items, virtual land, and/or currency in lindens and/or U.S. dollars, have been deliberately...
July 15, 2013
A federal judge certified a class at least 57,000 Second Life property owners who lost their virtual property, which led to a settlement of 43 million Linden dollars, or $172,000 according to the American Lawyer. In November 2012 US Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu in the Northern District of California in case of Evans v. Linden Research certified the following class: All persons whose assets, including virtual items, virtual land, and/or currency in lindens and/or U.S. dollars, have been deliberately...
Handling the Oncoming Tide of Generic Top-Level Domain Name Disputes
July 15, 2013
As early as late summer 2013, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit entity that...
July 15, 2013
As early as late summer 2013, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit entity that...
BYOD Policies: A Litigation Perspective
July 14, 2013
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies are an emerging solution to a new problem: How can an employer control the movement of company data when employees use their own personal devices instead of company-issued devices? With the growing ubiquity of smart phones and digital appliances, it is more and more common to see employees managing their lives through their personal devices, which are often newer and more user-friendly than company-issued devices. Many employees do not want to carry multiple...
July 14, 2013
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies are an emerging solution to a new problem: How can an employer control the movement of company data when employees use their own personal devices instead of company-issued devices? With the growing ubiquity of smart phones and digital appliances, it is more and more common to see employees managing their lives through their personal devices, which are often newer and more user-friendly than company-issued devices. Many employees do not want to carry multiple...
