Firm News

India Supreme Court decision signals pro-arbitration turn

In an important reversal of precedent, the Supreme Court of India held that Indian courts may not exercise supervisory jurisdiction over foreign-seated arbitrations pursuant to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The ruling, issued in Bharat Aluminum Co. v Kaiser Aluminum Technical Service Co., Civil Appeal No. 7019 of 2005, marks a pro-arbitration turn by […]

FCPA update — August 2012

This issue represents the first installment of a new feature of FCPA Update: our regional spotlight series. In this inaugural spotlight issue, we provide Part I of an overview of anti-corruption developments and general background pertaining to key enforcement authorities in the Asia-Pacific ]region. Look for Part II of our APAC review in September 2012, […]

Senior SEC official comments on key public reporting disclosure issues

By Ed Batts At a recent American Bar Association meeting, a senior Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official reviewed various aspects of interest for public company reporting and compliance purposes. As is customary, such staff comments were on a non-attribution basis and were represented to be personal views only and not those of the SEC as […]

FCPA update — July 2012

In this issue: the SFO’s latest bribery related settlement; The difficulty of recovering damages from the government when an FCPA prosecution misfires; German High Court ruling on pharmaceutical industry and doctors. Click on the link above to download this Debevoise & Plimpton briefing.

Work emails to spouses may not be protected by marital privilege

Yesterday in a criminal case, United States v Hamilton, 2012 WL 6000731, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that emails the defendant sent to his wife over his employer’s email system were properly admitted as evidence against him. At the time he sent the emails, his employer had no computer usage […]

EU commission ends antitrust proceeding after Areva and Siemens agree to limit scope of non-compete and confidentiality obligations

On 18 June 2012, the European Commission announced its decision to accept commitments offered by Areva SA and Siemens AG limiting the scope and duration of non-compete and confidentiality obligations agreed to in the context of a nuclear technologies joint venture. This case serves as an important reminder that parties entering into a joint venture […]

New ESMA guidance signals more flexible approach on global depositary receipts

On 20 June 2012, the European Securities Markets Authority published new guidance on the use of ‘up to amount’ listings of global depositary receipts (GDRs) which provides much needed clarity to issuers and participants in the European GDR markets. The ESMA guidance states that, if an issuer issues new shares after the date of its […]

On your marks, get set, go — preparing for the London 2012 Olympics

This is our 3rd Olympics briefing, dealing with how to prepare for issues that may arise once the Olympic Games are underway, for example unauthorised absence, performance issues, discrimination and misuse of computer systems. It is important that your managers are prepared to deal with all these issues should they arise. Click on the link […]

Federal agencies and Congress accelerate defence against cyber attacks — every private company will be affected

By Sydney White, Jim Halpert, Vincent Sanchez and Steven R Phillips Cyber attacks by both private actors and nation states against US critical infrastructure and individual communications users are on the rise. In Washington, DC, policymakers are increasing their focus on cyber threats on multiple fronts. While in recent days lawmakers have been somewhat distracted […]

Federal agencies and Congress accelerate defence against cyber attacks — every private company will be affected

By John A Merrigan, Lawrence E Levinson and Sydney M White Online espionage has become a common threat for US corporations. FBI director Robert Mueller said: ‘There are only two types of companies — those that have been hacked and those that will be.’ The problem for companies is serious and goes beyond espionage by competitors and foreign […]

Spiders, bots and other creepy crawlers: protecting your company website

By Gina Durham Websites contain a wealth of information. Unfortunately, the human internet users you hope are accessing your site are not the only ones attracted to it. Automated tools, frequently referred to as spiders, bots and screen scrapers, may be crawling your company website too. Given the potential of the internet to consolidate and […]

Committee recommendations on Derivatives Transactions Bill

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services (Committee) has released the recommendations from its inquiry into the Corporations Legislation Amendment (Derivative Transactions) Bill 2012 (Cth) (Bill). The Committee was tasked with inquiring into and reporting on the Bill. It received submissions from stakeholders and has released six recommendations based on those submissions and […]