Following the close of the Supreme Court's 2014 Term, Gibson Dunn's Supreme Court Round-Up provides summaries of the Court's opinions, the questions presented in cases that will be heard by the Court next Term, and other key developments on the Court's docket.
July 17, 2015
On July 2, 2015, in Hill International, Inc. v. Opportunity Partners L.P., No. 305, 2015, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed a Court of Chancery decision that Opportunity Partnership L.P.
July 16, 2015
Over the past half year, the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") sustained their enforcement efforts against both businesses and individuals, raking in significant civil recoveries while pursuing criminal cases against industry participants.
July 16, 2015
This client alert provides an overview of shareholder proposals submitted to public companies for 2015 shareholder meetings, including statistics, notable decisions from the staff (the "Staff") of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on no-action requests, and information about litigation regarding shareholder proposals.
July 15, 2015
Progress on Some Fronts, But Significant Dangers Remain, and New Dangers EmergeE-discovery remains an incredibly rich and rapidly developing field, as the many developments on which we report from just the first half of 2015 attest.
July 15, 2015
The first half of 2015 has proved yet another eventful period in securities litigation. Chief among significant developments in the first half of the year is the U.S.
July 14, 2015
On July 14, 2015, the E3/EU+3 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States) signed a landmark agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran to ease sanctions on the country in exchange for limitations on its nuclear program. This agreement was the result of intense negotiations beginning in November 2013. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ("JCPOA" or "the Agreement") removes many of the nuclear-related economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union in the past decade. As Iran complies with various provisions of the agreement--including caps on its uranium enrichment capabilities and inspections of its key nuclear facilities to ensure that no prohibited activity is occurring--the E
July 14, 2015
Enforcement of the criminal antitrust and competition laws continues to deliver headline grabbing news. Just six months ago, we reported as dominant trends the unrelenting expansion in international enforcement, the increasing severity of punishments, and the rising level of coordination among global competition authorities when it comes to detecting and investigating companies that engage in horizontal collusion.
July 13, 2015
Midway through the 2015 calendar year, the SEC Enforcement program has often been finding itself garnering more public attention for the manner in which it sources, litigates, and resolves cases than for the cases themselves.
July 13, 2015
Earlier today, the Internal Revenue Service ("IRS") released Notice 2015-49, announcing that defined benefit pension plans will no longer be permitted to offer lump sum cash out windows to retirees who are already receiving benefits in the form of an annuity. The IRS had previously issued a number of private letter rulings stating that such lump sum window programs were permissible under Treasury Regulations issued under Internal Revenue Code ("Code") section 401(a)(9). Code section 401(a)(9) generally requires distribution of an employees' interest in a tax qualified retirement plan to commence by no later than April 1st of the calendar year following the later of (a) the year in which the employee attains age 70 ½ or (b) the
July 9, 2015
2015 came in like a lion, bringing with it remarkable policy changes regarding corporate non-prosecution agreements ("NPA") and deferred prosecution agreements ("DPA").
July 8, 2015
I. INTRODUCTION There is no end in sight to the False Claims Act gold rush. After a record-setting 2014, which saw $5.7 billion in recoveries under the federal False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C.
July 8, 2015
Although a country's criminal laws typically apply to entities and individuals within that country, the long arm of US anti-corruption legislation can apply to non-U.S.
July 7, 2015
At an open meeting held on July 1, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") issued a concept release addressing the prospect of enhanced disclosures for audit committees.
July 7, 2015
For years, U.S. regulators have been encouraging their foreign counterparts to pick up the mantle of international bribery enforcement and more evenly distribute the balance of prosecutions. With 2015 potentially shaping up to be a year in which transnational bribery prosecutions by foreign authorities match if not exceed U.S.-initiated actions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act ("FCPA"), it appears that their calls have been heeded. But the shifting balance between domestic and foreign regulators does not portend a lull for U.S.
July 6, 2015
Brussels associates Pablo Figueroa and Alejandro Guerrero are the authors of "EU Merger Control in the Pharmaceutical Sector" [PDF] published in the July 2015 issue of The Merger Control Review.
July 1, 2015
In 2014, total leveraged lending in the United States filled out to approximately $940 billion. A large portion of this market, roughly $340 billion in 2014, consisted of "Term Loan B" loans, driven by investors in non-traditional lending markets, particularly hedge funds, institutional investors and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs). As the market has matured, Term Loan B loans, once almost exclusively a US market phenomenon, have gradually established themselves in the European market and made inroads into new markets, particularly the Asian/Pacific markets. For example, in 2014, Goodpack, Ltd., a Singaporean enterprise, became one of the first Asian/Pacific companies outside of Australia to access the US Term Loan B market
July 1, 2015
On the last day of its Term, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision that is likely to be an important precedent in litigation challenging agency rules that impose unreasonable costs.
June 29, 2015
On June 24, 2015, in a highly anticipated move, the State of Delaware enacted legislation that (1) allows corporations to require that internal corporate claims be brought in the courts of Delaware while also prohibiting the use of any other jurisdiction as the exclusive jurisdiction and (2) prohibits stock corporations from including fee-shifting provisions for internal corporate claims in their certificates of incorporation or bylaws.
June 26, 2015
Gibson Dunn continues to monitor important developments in the EB-5 space as the September 30, 2015, deadline for reauthorization approaches. The EB-5 program allows for foreign investment in the United States in exchange for permanent resident status if, among other criteria, an investor invests at least $500,000 or $1,000,000 in a new commercial enterprise that produces at least 10 U.S.
June 17, 2015