Practitioner Contributions

In a world dominated by Twitter tweets, Facebook status updates and a proliferation of reality television shows, a commentator may naturally wonder whether the traditional bounds between private and public have fallen away. As we are securities lawyers, we tend to be more focused on the blurring of lines between private placements and public offerings, than on whether the Kardashians are sharing too much information.

On May 1, Pfizer announced the settlement of a $450 million lawsuit with Brigham Young University over development of the blockbuster painkiller Celebrex. The settlement avoided an eight-week trial after a six-year lawsuit to determine whether Brigham Young Professor Daniel Simmons was an inventor on patents covering Celebrex.

For many years, the United States government has interpreted the definition of “foreign official” in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act very broadly, meaning that the payment of any remuneration to a wide range of individuals abroad could violate the act. Despite the fact that this broad definition makes compliance difficult, it long went unchallenged until defendants in a few recent cases disputed the government’s position.

Christina M. Carroll is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP. She represents insurance companies in coverage and bad faith litigation and counsels clients, including insurers, on climate change and sustainability issues. She is a co-author of the forthcoming ABA book Climate Change and Insurance. Christopher Baker is an [...]

Larry Downes is a consultant and author, most recently, of “The Laws of Disruption: Harnessing the New Forces that Govern Life and Business in the Digital Age.” Two years ago, the Federal Communications Commission’s National Broadband Plan raised alarms about the future of mobile broadband. Given unprecedented increases in consumer demand for new devices and [...]

James Schurz is a partner in the San Francisco office of Morrison & Foerster LLP, where he is the co-chair of the firm’s Commercial Litigation Group. Commercial arbitration is going through a transformation. Faced with broad criticism that it has failed to deliver the speed, efficiency, and flexibility that ADR proponents have long promised, arbitrators [...]

John M. Vine (jvine@cov.com) is the senior member, and former head, of the Employee Benefits Group of Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C. His practice has concentrated on employee compensation and benefits for more than 35 years. He acknowledges with thanks the helpful suggestions he received from his colleagues, T.L. Cubbage, Jeffrey Huvelle, and Amy [...]

Karen-Lee Pollak leads Bell Nunnally & Martin LLP’s immigration practice, providing legal immigration counsel to large corporations, small businesses and individuals. She focuses her practice on both family and corporate based immigration matters obtaining immigrant and non-immigrant visas for foreign workers wanting to live and work in the United States. Pollak also assists corporations in [...]

Anand Agneshwar, a partner in Arnold & Porter LLP’s New York office, co-chairs the firm’s product liability litigation practice group. He can be reached at Anand.Agneshwar@aporter.com. Paige Sharpe, a litigation associate in Arnold & Porter’s Washington, D.C., office, focuses her practice on complex commercial litigation, including product liability cases. She can be reached at Paige.Sharpe@aporter.com. [...]

Caplan is a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington office of Epstein Becker & Green PC. He may be reached at jcaplan@ebglaw.com. Schlanger is an Associate in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the Washington office. She may be reached at sschlanger@ebglaw.com. For more [...]

Mark A. Srere is a partner at Bryan Cave LLP and a member of the White Collar Defense & Investigations/Securities Enforcement and Litigation Client Service Group. He provides a full range of services to individual and corporate clients that are targets of criminal prosecution, from grand jury appearances to trials, and counsels corporate clients on [...]

Robert M. Buchanan Jr. is the leader of the Antitrust Practice at Choate, Hall & Stewart LLP, Boston. He can be reached at rbuchanan@choate.com. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision about one year ago, on April 27, 2011, in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion.1 The high court endorsed AT&T’s arbitration program, which prevents [...]

Bruce Czachor is a Banking & Debt Capital Markets partner in Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe’s New York office. He focuses his practice on capital markets and mergers and acquisitions transactions. Bruce’s experience also includes general corporate and securities law advice, including Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance, equity financings, high yield debt and investment grade debt financings, convertible [...]

Keith M. Korenchuk is a partner with Arnold & Porter LLP in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. He advises global companies on regulatory and compliance matters, with a focus on compliance program effectiveness, compliance program implementation, operations, and evaluation, and related regulatory counseling and advice. Kathleen J. Harris is a London based partner at Arnold [...]

Pablo Quiñones is a partner and Jennifer L. Achilles is a senior associate at Reed Smith LLP in New York. Both are members of the firm’s global government investigations and white collar criminal defense practice group. Quiñones previously served as a federal prosecutor in the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force of the U.S. Attorney’s [...]

D. Michael Lynn has served as United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth since 2001. During his tenure on the bench, he has presided over such large Chapter 11 cases as Texas Rangers Baseball Partners, Mirant Corporation, and Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, as well as thousands of consumer cases. Prior [...]

Evan Hoffman Schouten is a vice president at Analysis Group Inc., an economic consulting firm. Senior Analyst Adam Weisman contributed research to this article. Introduction When a consortium of technology leaders, including Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp., and Research In Motion Ltd., proposed a winning bid of $4.5 billion for 6,000 patents owned by [...]

Paul Wierbicki is a partner in the Restructuring Group of Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago. Jennifer Bisenius is a former associate in Kirkland & Ellis LLP’s Restructuring Group. Ever since its passage in 2010, discussions regarding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Act”) have focused primarily on its effects on patients. What [...]

Daniel I. Prywes is a partner in Bryan Cave LLP’s Washington, D.C., office. He concentrates his practice in commercial and employment litigation. Many employers currently look at job applicants’ public profile on social-media sites, such as Facebook, to gain insight into their character and suitability for employment. Now, however, some employers are going a giant [...]

Lena Carlsson is Vice-President of Domain Strategy at Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services and a former Vice-Chair of ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee. She can be contacted at lena.carlsson@melbourneit.com.au. There are currently more than 225 million global domain registrations today. More than 20 million new domains have been added since the end of 2010 alone. The [...]