Does your company have a formal policy for properly disposing of records containing consumer information?  If not, it may be in violation of the new Final Rule implemented by the Federal Trade Commission under the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (the FACT Act), which very recently took effect.

On July 27, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued its latest decision on whether government contract pricing information should be disclosed to the public, including competitors, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). <I>McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. U.S. Dept. of the Air Force</I>, D.C. Cir. No. 02-5342 (decided July 27, 2004) (Ginsburg, J.) (Garland J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

In a comprehensive opinion issued after a ten-week bench trial, Chancellor William B. Chandler III of the Delaware Court of Chancery held that the directors of The Walt Disney Company, and its general counsel, did not breach their fiduciary duties to stockholders in connection with the hiring and subsequent termination without cause of well-known Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz.

In its first trademark decision since <I>Moseley v V Secret Catalogue Inc</I>, the US Supreme Court has clarified some of the most disputed points relative to the fair-use defence.

The FTC has set a June 15 deadline for comments on two sets of proposed rules that, while they arise from the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act or the Act), should be followed closely because of their broader implications for authentication and data destruction issues and their potential effect on virtually all companies that interact directly or indirectly with consumers.

Recipients of dividends from controlled foreign corporations under Internal Revenue Code Section 965 should consider the ramifications of state income tax laws regarding dividend exclusions or deductions as well as taxation of interest income earned on the repatriated cash pending investment pursuant to the Section 965 domestic reinvestment plan.

In <EM>Swallows Holding Ltd. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service</EM>, 126 TC No. 6 (January 26, 2006) the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) attempted to disallow all deductions claimed on certain late filed tax returns by a foreign corporation because the returns were filed after the expiration of the 18-month grace period set forth in Treasury Regulation 1.882-4(a).

Reacting to "changing events, a shift in demographics, improvements in technology and changes in society," that have conspired to marginalize the report in the 29 years since its last revision, on November 16, 2005, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) approved changes to the Employer Information Report," commonly known as the EEO-1 Report.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) asked the staff of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for an opinion regarding who is considered to be the "sender" of a commercial electronic mail message under the CAN-SPAM Act, Pub. L. No. 108-187, when a single message consists of one or more advertisements from different companies and the recipient has provided permission to receive the e-mail message.

As discussed in this year's Presidential campaign, substantial U.S. job creation occurs in corporations electing to be S corporations for income tax purposes. Therefore, it is not surprising that the recently-enacted American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (the "2004 Tax Act") continues the legislative trend of liberalizing qualification standards for S corporations and that it also enhances the utility of S corporations in a number of ways.

Franchisors in Illinois seeking to arbitrate rescission claims under the Illinois Franchise Disclosure Act (IFDA) have been faced with substantial uncertainty regarding the arbitrability of such claims ever since the holding in <I>Barter Exchange, Inc. of Chicago v. Barter Exchange, Inc</I>., 238 Ill. App. 3d 187 (1st Dist. 1992), that compliance with the IFDA was a "condition precedent" to the franchise agreement’s effectiveness, and therefore the effectiveness of the arbitration agreement cont

The Federal Trade Commission has approved for publication new rules requiring a filing under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976 (the HSR Act) in connection with certain acquisitions and transfers of interests in, and formations of, "unincorporated entities". Under the new rules, the term .unincorporated entity. includes, among others, partnerships, cooperatives, business trusts, and LLCs. The objective of the new rules is to reconcile, as far as practicable, the treatment o

Franchisors in Illinois seeking to arbitrate rescission claims under the Illinois Franchise Disclosure Act (IFDA) have been faced with substantial uncertainty regarding the arbitrability of such claims ever since the holding in <I>Barter Exchange, Inc. of Chicago v. Barter Exchange, Inc</I>., 238 Ill. App. 3d 187 (1st Dist. 1992), that compliance with the IFDA was a "condition precedent" to the franchise agreement’s effectiveness, and therefore the effectiveness of the arbitration agre

Every holder of a Title V Operating Permit is required by 40 C.F.R. 70.6(c)(5) to submit an annual compliance certification to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the relevant state permitting authority. In the annual compliance certification, the entity certifying compliance must identify each permit term and condition and state whether the facility was in continuous or intermittent compliance (or .not applicable.) with permit terms and conditions throughout the year.

On July 1, 2004, the first online privacy law in the country that applies to the collection of information from consumers over the age of 13 will take effect.

In the mergers and acquisition context, undiscovered export control violations can be the source of serious liabilities, which can arise years after the transaction. Although the civil and criminal fines for such violation can be quite high, the additional penalties for export violations can have a profoundly negative impact.

Two recent cases involving inadvertent disclosures of personally identifiable consumer information further underscore the importance of implementing security programs to protect personally identifiable information and ensuring that your company’s statements about privacy and security are an accurate reflection of your practices. As these cases attest, technical glitches and security design flaws may still form the basis of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or state attorney general enforcement ac