Competition

Expert Analysis

• How Every Law Firm Employee Can Prepare For Cyberthreats

  

  In a recent survey of 150 legal firms, it was revealed that “careless employees” was the No. 1 cybersecurity concern for firms by a wide margin. Law firms are smart to be worried about the risks their employees — from the interns to the partners — can pose, usually unintentionally, says Tom DeSot, chief information officer of Digital Defense Inc.

• Lessons From Uber’s Wrong Turn With A Private Investigation

  

  In litigation the best defense is often not a good offense, and gathering irrelevant and potentially harmful information about the other side can backfire. A New York federal court's recent decision to sanction Uber should send a message to any litigant who is thinking about doing an investigation into the other side of a pending case, say Barbara Hoey and Hanna Furst at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.

• An Important Case For Both Wall Street And Amateur Sports

  

  The outcome of Gold Medal v. USA Track & Field in the Ninth Circuit would be critical to ensure the continued application of implied antitrust immunity to the securities industry as well as to amateur sports organizations like the U.S. Olympic Committee, says Paul Kaplan of Locke Lord LLP.

• FERC Maxim Ruling Hints At Shift In Favor Of Defendants

  

  A Massachusetts district court's order in Federal Energy Regulatory Commission v. Maxim Power is an important first in an FERC enforcement matter. With Maxim, the tide may be turning toward defendants despite a series of court orders favorable to FERC enforcement in various manipulation cases, say Gregory Lawrence and Thomas Lemon at Greenberg Traurig LLP.

• Protecting The Class: Why 2nd Circ. Nixed A $7B Settlement

  

  The Second Circuit’s recent rejection of a $7.25 billion settlement of antitrust claims brought against Visa, MasterCard and various banks is the latest in a series of cases reflecting a growing tendency among judges to scrutinize the real benefits to class members in the settlement context, say Gregory Markel and Heather Murray of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP.

• BigLaw’s (Crowded) Passage To India?

  

  The imminent green light for foreign firms to get into India’s market will be a bellwether of law firm behavior. The impulse to follow the crowd into the new frontier will be great, but smart firms will take a long hard look at who they are before making the passage to India, says Mark A. Cohen, an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School and founder of Legal Mosaic LLC.

• FTC Continues Focus On 'Traditional Supermarkets'

  

  In calculating market shares and concentration, the Federal Trade Commission continues to limit its product market to "traditional supermarkets," including supermarkets located within Walmart and Target supercenters and excluding stores like Whole Foods and Costco. This product market definition — used in the recent Ahold/Delhaize investigation — has not changed even though there has been rapid growth by nontraditional supermarkets... (continued)

• A 'Smoking Gun' In Reverse-Payment Settlements

  

  The authors of a recent Law360 guest article take issue with our interpretation that in some reverse-payment cases, a stock price jump could be so telling as to merit the label “smoking gun.” They are incorrect in theory, empirically and legally, say experts at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, American University and Greylock McKinnon Associates.

• Shedding Further Light On The FCPA Pilot Program

  

  The different outcomes for BK Medical and Johnson Controls in recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act settlements suggest that the U.S. Department of Justice is serious about rewarding full cooperation as it has defined the phrase in its “pilot program,” say attorneys with Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP.

• Prevent Litigation From Becoming A Threat To Data Security

  

  Recent headline-grabbing data security incidents have shed light both on direct and collateral impacts to companies and their employees. Attorneys should take steps to ensure that their role in the conduct of litigation does not in itself lead to similarly damaging disclosures of sensitive information, say Dante Stella and Sherrie Farrell of Dykema Gossett PLLC.