Understand Your Rights. Solve Your Legal Problems
A Trump-era bid by the US government to ban social media app TikTok were put on hold on Wednesday, indicating that the Biden administration is backing off the pressure on the company.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) told appeals courts for the Third Circuit and the District of Columbia to freeze government appeals of lower court rulings that blocked restrictions imposed on TikTok parent company ByteDance by the Trump Administration.
Under former President Donald Trump, the US Commerce Department sought to ban Apple and Google app stores from hosting the TikTok app and bar technical transactions necessary to its operation in the US. Yesterday, the DOJ said in court filings that the Commerce Department “plans to conduct an evaluation of the underlying record justifying those prohibitions”.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a Wednesday briefing that there is no specific timetable for the Biden administration’s review of TikTok and other issues related to Chinese companies.
Aside from ByteDance, the previous US administration levied restrictions against many Chinese-owned tech firms, citing their potential use by the Chinese government to obtain the private data of US citizens.
The move by the Trump administration to ban TikTok led to the proposal of a deal where US companies Walmart and Oracle would take over the app’s US operations. However, the terms of this agreement were not fully revealed, and its status during the current round of reviews is unknown.
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TikTok, which has over 100 million active US users, has denied allegations that its users’ data could be obtained by the Chinese government.
Katya Linossi, CEO and co-founder of ClearPeople, explores how firms can use technology and effective communication to enhance employee productivity and focus.
The pandemic has resulted in a necessary digital evolution within the legal sector - experiencing more technological advancement over the last year than in the previous decade.
The firms that take advantage of new solutions are able to rise above competitors and establish themselves as leaders in their sector. By using new solutions, firms can enhance many aspects of their day-to-day work, including employee attention, to continue developing during challenging times.
A simple yet significant example is the approach to working from home - something that is still relatively new for the sector. The forced requirement of immediate changes to habits has naturally caused significant disruption for many.
Whilst working away from the office, employees have never been more connected with the world, whilst also less connected with one another. With an increase of data and constant communication streams open between colleagues and clients, an unconsidered issue for many is how employees are at risk of being overwhelmed and unable to remain as productive as they were.
The opportunity is to utilise new innovations in work effectively. Technology has the ability to enhance employee attention by enabling greater access to knowledge and data through simple systems like the cloud, but it must be understood and structured effectively.
Whilst working away from the office, employees have never been more connected with the world, whilst also less connected with one another.
Having worked closely with the legal sector for almost seventeen years, I've witnessed the success and failures of firms exploring new solutions. The obstacle is often simply understanding what is required by focusing on your users and how to best implement these solutions. With the pandemic, everyone was forced into making these decisions immediately, without the ability to truly understand or analyse their impact on productivity. It’s clear that we’ll be working remotely for the foreseeable future, so now is the time to truly engage with the solutions available to the legal sector.
Working from home has become the norm for most industries, but some firms were initially reluctant to utilise cloud systems due to security concerns. Firms have used temporary workarounds such as VPNs or hybrid-cloud logins, allowing access to their data in the short-term.
Patchwork solutions like this can cause more issues than they solve and place significant challenges on the most basic tasks. It is therefore essential for law firms to provide employees with simple access to the tools and information that they need.
Examples like these demonstrate why a fully digital workspace is the solution to overcoming the burden of remote work. A “digital workspace” is not just an intranet or ‘comms’ platform, but a collection of evolving technologies, acting as a hub for employees so that they have instant and secure access to everything they need to get work done.
Organisations who have taken this leap and have invested in digital workspaces have realised it is easy to make the most of this cloud infrastructure platform. This ability to break down barriers to knowledge sharing and data silos convinced firms like Weightman’s - a top 45 UK law firm - to commit to full digitalisation.
It is essential for law firms to provide employees with simple access to the tools and information that they need.
Weightman’s IT director Kevin Brown explained: “We really wanted to remove the firm-wide reliance on network shares, duplications and out-of-date documents. Since switching to a fully digital workspace, it has allowed us to manage our documents more easily and make them more useful and accessible within our teams.”
Providing employees with the right information at the right time ultimately helps to focus employees’ attention when it is needed the most.
Attention is not just about the ability to focus on work, but also about the engagement of employees. Efficient communication helps to channel focus, as well as empower colleagues through knowledge sharing.
Although some firms have moved to a more modern approach, many law firms have been slow to adapt and are still using legacy approaches, such as emails, to communicate with each other. This is a method that many want to change but may not know how.
By using a digital workspace, firms can enhance the collaboration between colleagues by fostering more connections from anywhere in the world - something we have seen be particularly helpful for international firms. By opening up communication channels, firms can drive the collaborative culture required for a disparate team to succeed and enhance productivity.
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It is important to note that there is a balance between too much and too little communication and knowledge. Individuals either have limited knowledge, leaving them unable to act, or too much, delaying any progress due to information overload. Distracting employees from their work has a massive impact on key relationships, especially when they need to be maintained for the long term. Firms, therefore, need to create boundaries and specific channels of communication for queries, general chat and clients. Employers should also encourage their staff to turn off notifications when their work requires high attention to detail and focus.
Looking forward, law firms have an opportunity to assess how they can tie these communication streams together when returning to the office, with a ‘hybrid’ model of working likely to become the norm for most firms. Law firms who support their employees in these transitions, and who are at the forefront of change, will make work accessible for all by creating a flexible working environment. By opening these doors to skilled workers, such as working mothers, firms will be able to attract new talent for future generations - ultimately leading to long term success and profitability.
Attention is scarce and the mindset around working from home needs to change. The industry needs to understand that previous systems that were used to work pre-pandemic are no longer relevant. Firms need to accept that taking the time to assess their habits and make the leap to a digital transition is essential to rise above their competition. One approach to do this is simple - by adopting the correct digital strategies to enhance worker’s attention, they will ultimately help to foster greater productivity.
As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said: “Data is plentiful. Attention is scarce, and we'll never get more of it.”
Nasdaq Inc, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Cboe Global Markets have each sued the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), seeking to halt the regulator’s planned overhaul of public data feeds that broadcast stock prices to investors, according to court filings.
Under the SEC plan, which was approved by the regulator in December, public feeds would be expanded to include supply and demand data for stocks, allowing greater access to information that the exchanges currently sell to professional traders at a premium.
The companies that have filed suit against the SEC are seeking to block the new rules on the grounds that they constitute an overreach of authority by the regulator.
“The rule is arbitrary, capricious and otherwise not in accordance with law and does not promote efficiency, competition and capital formation,” the NYSE said in its suit.
A spokesperson for Nasdaq echoed the sentiment in a statement to The Wall Street Journal. “The SEC exceeded its authority with this ill-conceived remake of market structure,” they said. “This will make markets more complex and costly.”
Cboe and the SEC declined to comment on the litigation.
The new lawsuits are the latest move in a series of legal actions made by the three companies against the SEC in recent years over attempts to curb their market power. Last year, the companies won a separate legal challenge against a proposed experiment by the SEC that would have capped trading fees on 1,400 different stocks.
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The SEC is also dealing with other lawsuits, including action from Citadel Securities in October over the regulator’s approval of a new stock order type introduced by stock exchange operator IEX Group Inc.
The companies filed their complaints in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The family of a 20-year-old man who committed suicide last year have sued trading app Robinhood over his death.
The complaint states that 20-year-old Alex Kearns was led to believe he had fallen $730,000 in debt when he took his life in June. Alex’s parents, Dan and Dorothy Kearns, said their son was unable to receive adequate support from customer services before his suicide.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, also alleges negligent infliction of emotional distress and unfair business practices, claiming that Alex was lured into using Robinhood through the app’s strategy of “gamifying” their services to attract inexperienced investors.
"Though Alex was merely a senior in high school when he opened an account with Robinhood and had little or no income, Robinhood determined he was qualified enough to enter into the world of trading sophisticated financial options," the Kearnses said in the complaint. "Not only did Robinhood permit Alex to open the account, but when Alex was a freshman in college later that year, it permitted him to trade options."
Not only was Alex put in a position to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars without investment guidance or effective customer service, the suit claims, but he was misled into thinking that he had. The app showed that he had a $730,000 negative cash balance, which is not the same as regular debt, but caused Alex to panic and reach out to Robinhood, who did not explain the distinction and instead demanded large cash deposits to cover the balance.
In a statement to the BBC, Robinhood said they were “devastated” by Alex’s death and hade made improvements to their platform.
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The Robinhood app, which describes itself as being “on a mission to democratise finance”, recently made headlines for limiting sales of certain shares to its users after US retailer Gamestop saw an unprecedented surge.
A man who left a negative review of law firm Summerfield Browne Solicitors on the Trustpilot website has been ordered to pay £25,000 in libel damages.
Philip James Waymouth hired the firm for advice in a dispute over the enforcement of a court order for a £200 fixed fee.
He then left a review on Summerfield Browne’s Trustpilot page, accusing the firm of being “another scam solicitor” and a “total waste of money”.
The firm launched brought a claim against Waymouth at the High Court in London, arguing that Waymouth’s statements were untrue and defamatory, and that its number of business enquiries had dropped since the review’s publication.
Judge Master David Cook, ruling in favour of Summerfield Browne, stated that the words used in the review "had a clear tendency to put people off dealing with the claimant firm" and that Waymouth had “never fully articulated” why he was unhappy with Summerfield Browne’s work.
Waymouth did not attend the online hearing or send a legal representative.
Following attention from news outlets, Summerfield Browne’s Trustpilot review page has been bombarded with one-star reviews . Numerous reviewers also alleged that the firm’s website tracks user sessions using Google Analytics without asking permission, a violation of GDPR.
Trustpilot first placed a notice on the Summerfield Browne page urging only genuine clients to leave a review, before disabling reviews altogether.
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“Although we understand you want to voice your opinion about things in the news and issues trending on social media, Trustpilot is a place for feedback based on genuine buying and service experiences,” Trustpilot said.
In a subsequent statement, the review site voiced opposition to the High Court's judgement, noting that it had not been given the opportunity to make any representation in the case and that Waymouth's review had not been flagged through its complaints process.
"We believe there are a number of errors within the judgement, and it raises significant concerns around freedom of speech," Trustpilot said. "Whilst the circumstances of this case are highly unusual, the outcome will ultimately not lead to a positive position for anyone - consumers or businesses - and it is much better for businesses to engage, respond and improve upon the feedback they receive, rather than using legal action to silence consumers."
Trustpilot also announced its intention to challenge any order it might receive to remove Waymouth's review.
Summerfield Browne Solicitors is a commercial and private law firm with offices in London, Birmingham, Cambridge, Leicester and Oxford.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the California Resources Board have ended their investigations into Ford Motor Company’s gas mileage and emissions certification processes.
In its annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Ford said that it had been notified that the DOJ and California had closed their investigations and “do not intend to take further action” but added that probes by the US Environmental Protection Agency and its Canadian counterpart will continue.
In 2018, a group of Ford employees reported possible problems with a mathematical formula used by the company to calculate mileage and pollution. Ford launched an investigation into whether it had understated emissions and overstated gas mileage across a range of its vehicles.
The company declined to release the findings of its own investigation and said that it has not changed any of its fuel economy ratings in light of it.
However, Ford still faces a class action lawsuit from vehicle owners who claim the company “cheated on its fuel economy testing on some of its best-selling and most popular trucks”. The lawsuit has claimed that independent testing on Ford vehicles showed that the firm did not follow appropriate coastdown testing procedures in its design process.
In an email with Law360. A Ford spokesperson said the company was pleased to learn that the investigations had been closed. "This is consistent with the company's own investigation and conclusion that we appropriately completed our certification processes,” they said.
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Ford declined to comment on the class action lawsuit, but argues in court papers that should be dismissed as “implausible”.
The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) acted unlawfully when it attempted to compel US engineering company KBR to hand over documents held overseas during an investigation.
Supreme Court Judges unanimously disagreed with a 2018 High Court ruling that notices issued under section 2(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 1987. have extra-territorial reach. The ruling deals a blow to the SFO’s ability to gather evidence held outside the UK.
"The presumption against extra-territorial effect clearly applies in this case because KBR Inc is not a UK company, and has never had a registered office or carried on business in the UK," the court stated.
The court also rejected the argument that parliament had intended Section 2(3) to grant the SFO the power to compel foreign companies to produce documents held outside the UK. In judgement, Lord Lloyd-Jones pointed to successive acts of parliament that have developed structures in domestic law that allow the UK to participate in mutual legal assistance internationally, arguing that it was “inherently improbable” that the government would have intended for a parallel system to allow the SFO to obtain evidence from abroad without any recourse to courts.
The SFO argued that Section 2 extra-territorial powers were integral to its ability to investigate multinational corporations with complex international structures, but said that it welcomed the court’s clarification.
“Given almost all of its cases involve some element of overseas evidence gathering, this decision will be disappointing for the SFO – not least since, following Brexit, it no longer has access to European Investigation Orders,” former SFO general counsel Alun Milford told City A.M.
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The SFO opened a bribery and corruption investigation into KBR in 2017, initially with the company’s cooperation. However, when the SFO issued a Section 2 notice to a US-based senior executive during a meeting in Britain, KBR applied for a judicial review to have it quashed.
Florida-based voting machine company Smartmatic filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Fox News, three of its top hosts, and two former lawyers for former President Donald Trump for pushing a damaging conspiracy theory involving the company’s machines and their role in the 2020 US presidential election.
The 285-page complaint, which was filed in New York state, is one of the largest libel lawsuits ever undertaken in the US.
Smartmatic’s suit follows similar legal action from voting machine company Dominion, which also found itself at the centre of unsubstantiated claims of election fraud. Unlike Dominion, whose technology was used in 24 states, Smartmatic’s machines were only used in the heavily Democratic-leaning Los Angeles County.
According to the complaint, in the aftermath of the presidential election Fox News aired at least 13 reports falsely claiming that the company had colluded with Venezuela’s socialist government to steal the vote for then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020.
“Defendants’ story was a lie,” Smartmatic said in its complaint. “But, it was a story that sold.”
The company claimed that the disinformation jeopardised client contracts and caused a slew of death threats to be sent to employees and their families. It estimated that it will lose as much as $690 million in profits over the next five years as a result of the conspiracy theory.
Smartmatic is demanding $2.7 billion in damages and a full retraction of all false statements made by Fox News Network, its hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, and former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
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“Fox News’ disinformation campaign had a direct and harmful impact on Smartmatic’s ability to conduct business in the United States and around the world now and in the future,” Smartmatic said in a statement on its legal action.
Smartmatic will be represented by Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff, LLP.
David Howson, CEO of Six Degrees, looks back at the progress firms have made in the face of adversity and where they can improve further.
The last year has been a monumental jolt for businesses across the UK, and the legal industry is no different. An industry that has historically been conservative in its adoption of new technologies has had to quickly reevaluate its foundations and figure out how to move an entire workforce to remote working without disrupting the day-to-day. That being said, it has adapted and rebounded incredibly well in the face of disruption. Firms have ‘kept calm and carried on’, making sure that clients are still being serviced to the same standard as usual.
While technology has been pushed further up the agenda, one could worry that other longstanding sector priorities – attracting new talent, offering a better work-life balance, and finding ways to provide better client experiences – could be slipping off the agenda. In actual fact, however, we’re seeing the complete opposite.
Surprisingly – or perhaps not to all to the technology evangelists among you – growing technology adoption is having a knock-on impact on other priorities the legal sector has had for years. Over half of employees in the UK legal sector say working from home has improved their work-life balance, a tremendous feat for an industry that is synonymous with long working hours. The move to remote working is also pushing the sector to meet the expectations of flexibility that generation Z and millennials have of the workplace. While in-person client meetings have had to change to virtual meetings, the situation has also pushed the industry to carefully think about how they can differentiate themselves in improving the client experience and meeting their growing expectations.
While the sector has been adapting to today’s world, and even seeing some unexpected benefits, no one knows for sure what a typical business will look like in six months, a year, or beyond. The ratio of office to home workers may change several times internally and within client organisations, and the processes and technology that underpin businesses will need to flex to support these changes and enable them to grow.
Over half of employees in the UK legal sector say working from home has improved their work-life balance
A big part of any law firm’s mission is ensuring that it stays as safe as possible amidst all this change. UK law firms were attacked online nearly 700,000 times last year, 20% more often than in the previous year. Cybercriminals have seen the mass move to remote working as an opportunity and this trend doesn't look to be waning. While the types of threats haven’t changed, mass remote working has opened vulnerabilities that are much easier to exploit and have consequently led to this rise.
As many employees are no longer within the four walls of their firms, they are often therefore outside of their corporate networks. This fact, combined with the expected continued uncertainty 2021 poses for working patterns, means that IT departments need to expect the unexpected when it comes to devising their cyber security strategies.
Now for the good news – there are steps businesses can take to mitigate these rising risks, while also addressing one of the other industry priorities I mentioned earlier: enhancing the client experience. Many firms are seeing this situation as an opportunity to take back control of their IT, using it not just to keep the business running, but to provide it with a competitive advantage.
Security-first cloud solutions can provide clients with assurances of safety, reliability, and compliance during this tumultuous time. Having access to highly resilient architectures can minimise downtime, while agile solutions enable firms to maximise productivity – enabling their fee earners to get the absolute most out of each billable hour.
Your clients are no doubt facing similar concerns about security as they undergo similar organisational changes, and this is where demonstrating that your technology and infrastructure is ‘secure by design’ rather than security being a bolted-on extra will help to provide a competitive edge.
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2021 will be a year like no other for the UK legal sector. From the establishment of entirely virtual legal teams to the creation of new client-centric experiences, it will provide firms with more opportunities to differentiate and grow their businesses as a result of this unexpected disruption. Ensuring cyber security strategies are focused on aligning people, processes, and systems, and are set up to be as flexible as possible, will therefore be key this year. That way, firms can focus on the business priorities of today while feeling safe in the knowledge that they are also set up for a successful and exciting future.
Global consultancy firm McKinsey & Company has agreed to pay $573 to settle claims by more than 40 US states related to its role in the nation’s opioid epidemic, US media reported on Wednesday.
Sources familiar with the matter said that McKinsey’s settlement is with 43 states, the District of Columbia and three territories. Several attorney generals said they planned to make announcements on the opioid epidemic on Thursday, coinciding with the filing of the settlement.
$478 million of the settlement must be paid within 60 days, according to the New York Times. In total, the settlement will exceed any profits the firm made from its opioid-related work with pharmaceutical companies.
The company will not admit wrongdoing as part of the deal.
McKinsey has come under scrutiny for its role in advising drugmaker Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family which owns the company. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey claimed in a lawsuit that McKinsey advised the Sacklers on how they could “turbocharge the sales engine” for opioids.
Purdue reached an $8 billion plea deal with authorities in October to resolve its role in driving the opioid crisis.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that almost half a million Americans died due to overdoses from prescription and illegal opioids between 1999 and 2018.
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More than 3,200 lawsuits are still pending against US drugmakers, distributors and pharmacies for driving opioid addiction through deceptive marketing or ignoring signs that prescription drugs were being diverted for improper uses.
State and local governments have also been holding negotiations for settlements with drugmaker Johnson & Johnson and distributors Cardinal Health Inc, Amerisourcebergen Corp and McKesson Corp.
