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July 03, 2013
Publication - Business, Public & Project Finance
This podcast will focus on two recent SEC public finance enforcement actions that reflect a common theme - issuers are liable under the securities laws for material misstatements or omissions made outside of an official statement or other offering document.
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July 03, 2013
Publication - Intellectual Property - Health Care & Life Sciences
On June 24, 2013, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court in Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., Inc. v. Bartlett held that state-law design-defect claims based on the inadequacy of a generic drug’s labeled warnings are pre-empted by federal law. This decision reversed the 1st Circuit’s affirmance of a jury verdict awarding Bartlett more than $21 million on her design-defect claim against Mutual Pharmaceutical under New Hampshire law.
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July 03, 2013
Publication - Employment Litigation, Labor & Employment
The scene is not uncommon, a beautiful hotel with several floors of luxurious rooms, restaurants and bars, and cascading waterfalls out at the pool. It is not your typical office, yet it is critical that hotel employers understand that the men and women who work in this setting are employees and that the hotel is a workplace. So, as informal, perhaps even as romantic, as the scene may be, employment laws proscribing harassment in the workplace apply in hotels as equally as they do in a medical practice, a law firm or an insurance brokerage house.
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July 02, 2013
Publication - Labor & Employment, Labor Relations & Disputes
Remember that group of employees laid off a few months ago? One has applied for a new job opening and was not rehired. Now that employee is claiming that the company has engaged in unlawful, discriminatory action in failing to rehire her. This scenario is all too real. Indeed, Gonzalez v. Molded Acoustical Products of Easton, 118 FEP Cases 877 (E.D. Pa. 2013), a recent case out of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, should remind employers of the risk exposure associated with hiring for positions that were previously impacted by reductions-in-force.
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July 02, 2013
Publication - Tax
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed per curiam a decision that the burden of proving a change of domicile is on the person claiming the change. Hvizdak v. Commonwealth, 92 MAP 2012 (Pa. June 17, 2013) (per curiam), aff’g 50 A.3d 788, (Pa. Commw. 2012).
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July 01, 2013
Press Release - Appellate, Business, Corporate, Subrogation & Recovery
Cozen O’Connor continues to grow with the addition of two senior lateral attorneys: corporate transactions attorney Jahan S. Islami, who joins the firm as a partner in the Florida office, and commercial litigator Matthew S. Steinberg, who joins the firm as a partner in the Los Angeles office. Mr. Islami previously was with K&L Gates.
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June 28, 2013
Publication - Professional Liability Insurance Coverage - Insurance
Law 360 reports that policyholders have chalked up major wins at the New York Court of Appeals and the Illinois Supreme Court this year, clinching rulings that widen coverage for defense costs, statutory damages and disgorgement losses, while excess insurers are cheering the Second Circuit for shielding their policies from being triggered early.
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June 26, 2013
Publication
Lawyers and law firms are increasingly using blogs, also referred to as "blawgs," along with social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, to build their visibility and brand. While blogs do not have the traditional look and feel of attorney advertising, they certainly have at least some measure of commercial purpose. After all, it is unlikely that law firms would expend resources on this new form of communication if they did not at least hope to receive some return on their investment. Yet, blogs may not fit neatly inside regulations on attorney advertising that were written with more traditional media formats in mind.
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June 26, 2013
Publication - Professional Liability Insurance Coverage - Insurance
On June 11, 2013, the New York Court of Appeals, in J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc., et al. v. Vigilant Insurance Company, et al., reinstated a declaratory judgment action against D&O Liability insurers, reasoning that an SEC order requiring Bear Stearns & Co., Inc. (Bear Stearns) to pay $160 million in disgorgement did not conclusively establish that the payment was uninsurable.
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June 25, 2013
Publication - Employment Litigation, Labor & Employment
On June 20, 2013, in a 5-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) does not permit courts to invalidate a contractual waiver of class arbitration on the ground that the plaintiff’s cost of individually arbitrating a federal statutory claim exceeds the potential recovery.
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June 25, 2013
Publication - Hatch-Waxman & Biologics, Intellectual Property, Patents - Health Care & Life Sciences
On June 17, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that addressed a “reverse payment” settlement agreement between a brand-name pharmaceutical company and multiple generic drug companies. The Supreme Court held that a settlement agreement in which a patentee pays an accused infringer not to enter the market – even if the agreement allows market entry before the patent term expires – is not presumptively lawful and is still subject to antitrust scrutiny.
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June 24, 2013
Publication
It’s critical to investigate subrogation potential in natural disaster losses. Natural disasters do not automatically preclude subrogation. Running June through November, the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is predicted to be active or "extremely active," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
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June 19, 2013
Publication - Insurance Coverage, Professional Liability Insurance Coverage - Insurance
In a recent case before the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, the court held that jail employees were not entitled to coverage for sexual molestation of an inmate under the law enforcement coverage part of the jail’s liability insurance policy. In so holding, the court declined to apply an expansive interpretation to the policy’s “arising out of” language.
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June 18, 2013
News - White Collar Defense & Investigations
In an article titled, "Anti-Corruption as a Cottage Industry: Rise in FCPA Enforcement Generates Heavy Workloads for Outside Counsel," Stephen Miller of the firm's Commercial Litigation Department discusses the benefits of using lawyers with experience in government when seeking counsel on FCPA-related matters.
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June 18, 2013
Publication
In April, attorney Ross Booher participated in an Association of Corporate Counsel conference in New Orleans, speaking to 100 or so general counsel and corporate compliance officers about the Federal Corrupt Practices Act and what it means to US companies. He noticed that there were more attendees than there were when he spoke at last year’s confab, and that the questions he fielded from the audience were more sophisticated than last year.
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June 17, 2013
News - Labor & Employment
A. Martin Wickliff, Jr. has been recognized among “The Nation’s Most Powerful Employment Attorneys – Top 100” by Human Resource Executive magazine. The list is compiled based on evaluations by clients and peers, as well as independent research by Human Resource Executive and Lawdragon, a nationally recognized networking site for lawyers and clients. The list honors “lawyers who represent excellence in their craft and profession and have made the greatest impact in the prior year.
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June 14, 2013
Publication - Insurance Coverage, Professional Liability Insurance Coverage - Insurance
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently eliminated the foundation for policyholders’ arguments in favor of “functional exhaustion.” In Ali v. Federal Insurance Co., No. 11-5000-cv (2d Cir. June 4, 2013), the 2nd Circuit held that functional exhaustion as permitted in the 1928 decision in Zeig v. Massachusetts Bonding & Ins. Co., 23 F.2d 665 (2d Cir. 1928) does not apply to excess liability policies.
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June 14, 2013
Publication - Bad Faith, Insurance Coverage - Insurance
The New York Court of Appeals, New York’s highest state court, recently held – in what appears to be a new position in New York – that an insurer that breached its duty to defend could not later rely on otherwise applicable exclusions to deny coverage for indemnification.
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June 13, 2013
Publication - Appellate, Hatch-Waxman & Biologics
The U.S. Supreme Court is presently considering whether federal law pre-empts state design-defect claims targeting generic pharmaceutical products. Just two years ago, the court insulated generic-drug manufacturers from state-law failure-to-warn claims. It seems doubtful that any of the justices in that majority will treat this case differently, and, thus, generic drugmakers may soon enjoy a new immunity.
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June 12, 2013
Publication - Bad Faith, Insurance Coverage - Insurance
On certification from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, the Supreme Court of Connecticut recently issued an opinion holding that an insurer’s bad faith conduct in the investigation of a third-party liability insurance claim does not provide a basis for recovery under Connecticut law. Capstone Bldg. Corp. v. Am. Motorists Ins. Co., 2013 Conn. LEXIS 187 (Conn. June 11, 2013).
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