The Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher Financial Markets Crisis Group is closely tracking government responses to the turmoil that has catalyzed a dramatic and rapid reshaping of our capital and credit markets.
January 21, 2010
While compliance professionals are grappling with developing, implementing and monitoring effective compliance programs and the reality of reduced resources and budgets, the risks involved in non-compliance are higher than ever.
January 20, 2010
As the German economy continues to suffer heavily from the consequences of the global financial crisis, 2009 saw the introduction of many changes in the fields of corporate, securities and banking law.
January 20, 2010
Los Angeles partners Michael Farhang and Debra Wong Yang were panelists in the "White Collar Roundtable 2010" [PDF] published in the January 2010 issue of California Lawyer.
January 18, 2010
Paris partner Jérôme Delaurière is the author of "La TVA sur marge des marchands de biens est-elle conforme au droit communautaire?" [PDF] published in the January 18, 2010 issue of Option Finance (n°1060).
January 18, 2010
Electronic discovery is one of the most rapidly developing and increasingly important areas of interest for our clients. The past year featured the continued refinement of best practices in e-discovery law, as both courts and litigants continued their struggle to balance cost-effective approaches to discovery with the right to equitable access to discoverable information. The coming year is poised to be another one of significant developments. Our Electronic Discovery and Information Law Practice Group will be carefully watching and reporting these developments to you throughout the year.This 2009 year-end update provides an overview and analysis of the recent trends in e-discovery law, as well as a survey of case law developments. For more in-depth treatment of the
January 15, 2010
I. Overview of DevelopmentsEnforcement in the health care compliance arena exploded in 2009, with more enforcement actions, bigger financial penalties, tougher settlement terms, and higher stakes for individuals--including prison sentences. Many of the top companies in the health care industry found themselves in the government's crosshairs this year, with some entering into record-breaking settlements. But smaller players were hardly immune from scrutiny, with many similarly targeted in 2009. This increased regulatory and prosecutorial emphasis on health care compliance was hardly an anomaly; all signs point to a continuation of this upward trend in 2010 and beyond.With the current push for reform, health care's significance in the American dialogue has increased m
January 14, 2010
Plaintiffs Sanctioned for Failure to Implement Proper Litigation Hold and for Conducting Discovery in an "Ignorant and Indifferent Fashion"Although 2010 has just begun, there has already been a significant development in the area of electronic discovery. Judge Shira Scheindlin of the U.S.
January 14, 2010
The SEC yesterday formally released an anticipated new initiative designed to encourage individual and company cooperation with SEC investigations and enforcement actions. The initiative, laid out in a new section of the enforcement manual for the Division of Enforcement entitled "Fostering Cooperation," (the "Initiative") establishes incentives for early, substantial, robust cooperation with the stated goal of ensuring "that potential cooperation arrangements maximize the Commission's law enforcement interests." The Initiative provides guidance for evaluating an individual's cooperation and authorizes new cooperation tools, including cooperation agreements, deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements.
January 14, 2010
Orange County partner Michele L. Maryott is the author of "Employer Perils in the Social Networking Age" [PDF] published in the January 2010 issue of the Orange County Business Journal.
January 14, 2010
In our "Mid-Year Review of SEC Enforcement," we reviewed the transformation that had begun at the SEC's Division of Enforcement under the agency's new Chairman, Mary Schapiro, and the Division's new Director, Robert Khuzami, as well as the measurable increase in enforcement activity that had resulted. Since then, Mr.
January 12, 2010
A recent court judgment passed by the District Court (Landgericht) Frankfurt in October 2009 may signal the end of a long-since established German corporate and financing practice, the notarization of limited liability company share transfers or share pledges in Switzerland.
January 12, 2010
Los Angeles partner Maurice Suh is the author of "Corporate Counsel: In the Crosshairs of a Criminal Investigation" [PDF] published in the Winter 2010 issue of Business Torts Journal.
January 12, 2010
In 2009, the United States government invested trillions of dollars into the economy. Coupled with this unprecedented spending came increased demands for transparency and accountability.
January 8, 2010
Paris partner Jérôme Delaurière is the author of "France Revises Transfer Tax Rules for Foreign Companies With French Real Estate Holdings" [PDF] published in January 8, 2010 edition of the Worldwide Tax Daily/Tax Analysts.
January 8, 2010
Although Deferred Prosecution Agreements ("DPAs") and Non-Prosecution Agreements ("NPAs") were rarely used and hardly discussed a decade ago, in the last several years they have become a hot topic and common aspect of corporate prosecutions: Congress, legal academics, and practitioners—from prosecutors to defense counsel—have weighed in on the Department of Justice's ("DOJ's") use of the agreements. DPAs and NPAs are types of pre-trial agreements whereby the government agrees not to pursue charges against a corporation so long as the corporation abides by the terms of the agreement. Although often similar in content, the emerging difference between a DPA and an NPA is whether a criminal information is filed in a federal court. With
January 7, 2010
San Francisco associate Rebecca Justice Lazarus is the author of "Discovery Prior To Class Certification: New Considerations And Challenges" [PDF] published in the January 7, 2010 issue of Mealey's Litigation Report: Class Actions.
January 7, 2010
This decade's breathtaking pace of aggressive enforcement of criminal antitrust laws in the United States and around the world continued through 2009. This update provides an overview of criminal antitrust enforcement in 2009 and a discussion of the key trends we see from that activity over the next year and beyond. Among the most notable developments from 2009 are the following:The first part of fiscal year 2009 ("FY 2009") continued the dramatic pace of huge criminal fines imposed by the Department of Justice, Antitrust Division ("DOJ" or "Antitrust Division") in recent years, resulting in over $1 billion in fines for the year;Although that pace tapered off in the second half of FY 2009, the Antitrust Division had a strong start to the
January 5, 2010
On November 24, 2009, the Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, Office of Policy issued a proposed amendment to the existing exemption in Section 125.4(b)(9) of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations ("ITAR") permitting the export of technical data under the ITAR for use by U.S.
January 5, 2010
United States Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper has approved the Joint Plan of Reorganization (the "Plan") filed by General Growth Properties, Inc. and certain affiliated debtors (collectively, "GGP") to restructure approximately $11.6 billion in mortgage loans on 110 retail and office properties.
January 4, 2010