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Have you ever wanted to learn the basics about blockchain? Do you think it’s all hype and a passing fad? Whatever your view, take a look at my new article, Beyond Bitcoin: Leveraging Blockchain to Benefit Business and Society, co-authored with Rachel Epstein, counsel at Hedera Hashgraph.  I became interested in blockchain a year ago because I immediately saw potential use cases in supply chain, compliance, and corporate governance. I met Rachel at a Humanitarian Blockchain Summit and although I had already started the article, her practical experience in the field added balance, perspective, and nuance. 

The abstract is below:

Although many people equate blockchain with bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and smart contracts, the technology also has the potential to transform the way companies look at governance and enterprise risk management, and to assist governments and businesses in mitigating human rights impacts. This Article will discuss how state and non-state actors use the technology outside of the realm of cryptocurrency. Part I will provide an overview of blockchain technology. Part II will briefly describe how public and private actors use blockchain today to track food, address land grabs, protect refugee identity rights, combat bribery and corruption, eliminate voter fraud…

I had planned to write about the Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation signed by 200 top CEOs. If you read this blog, you’ve likely read the coverage and the varying opinions. I’m still reading the various blog posts, statements by NGOs, and 10-Ks of some of the largest companies so that I can gather my thoughts. In the meantime, many of these same companies  will be at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights touting their records. I’ve been to the Forum several times, and it’s worth the trip. If you’re interested in joining over 2,000 people, including representatives from many of the signatories of the Statement, see below. You can register here:

The UN annual Forum on Business and Human Rights is the global platform for stock-taking and lesson-sharing on efforts to move the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights from paper to practice. As the world’s foremost gathering in this area, it provides a unique space for dialogue between governments, business, civil society, affected groups and international organizations on trends, challenges and good practices in preventing and addressing business-related human rights impacts. The first Forum was held in 2012. It attracts more…

     Last week, I led a “legal hack” for some of the first year students during orientation. Each participating professor spoke for ten minutes on a topic of our choice and then answered questions for ten minutes. I picked business and human rights, my passion. I titled my brief lecture, “Are you using a product made by slaves, and if you are, can you do anything about it”?

     In my ten minutes, I introduced the problem of global slavery; touched on the false and deceptive trade practices  litigation levied against companies; described the role of shareholder activists and socially responsible investors in pressuring companies to clean up supply chains; raised doubts about the effectiveness of some of the disclosure regimes in the US, EU, and Australia; questioned the efficacy of conscious consumerism; and mentioned blockchain as a potential tool for provenance of goods. Yes. In ten minutes. 

     During the actual hack later in the afternoon, I had a bit more time to flesh out the problem. I developed a case study around the Rana Plaza disaster in which a building collapse in Bangladesh killed over 1,000 garment workers six years ago. Students brainstormed solutions …

I’m at the tail end of teaching my summer transactional lawyering course. Throughout the semester, I’ve focused my students on the importance of representations, warranties, covenants, conditions, materiality, and knowledge qualifiers. Today I came across an article from Practical Law Company that discussed the use of #MeToo representations in mergers and acquisitions agreements, and I plan to use it as a teaching tool next semester. According to the article, which is behind a firewall so I can’t link to it, thirty-nine public merger agreements this year have had such clauses. This doesn’t surprise me. Last year I spoke on a webinar regarding #MeToo and touched on the the corporate governance implications and the rise of these so-called “Harvey Weinstein” clauses. 

Generally, according to Practical Law Company, target companies in these agreements represent that: 1) no allegations of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct have been made against a group or class of employees at certain seniority levels; 2) no allegations have been made against  independent contractors; and 3) the company has not entered into any settlement agreements related to these kinds of allegations. The target would list exceptions on a disclosure schedule, presumably redacting the name of the accuser to preserve…

A recent Tennessee court decision subtly notes that limited liability companies (LLCs) are not, in fact corporations. In a recent Tennessee federal court opinion, Judge Richardson twice notes the incorrect listing of an LLC as a “limited liability corporation.”  

First, the opinion states:

The [Second Amended Complaint] alleges that Defendant Evans is a resident of Tennessee, Defendant #AE20, LLC is a California limited liability company, and Defendant Gore Capital, LLC is a Delaware limited liability “corporation.”3

3 Gore Capital is in fact a limited liability company.

FERNANDO CAMPS, Pl., v. GORE CAPITAL, LLC, KARL JAMES, ANGELA EVANS, and #AE20, LLC, Defendants., 3:17-CV-1039, 2019 WL 2763902, at *1 and n.3 (M.D. Tenn. July 2, 2019) (emphasis in original). 

Judge Richardson later notes, in footnote 11:

Plaintiff states that he was sent documents that listed Gore’s (not #AE20’s) principal place of business as being in Chattanooga, Tennessee, although the SAC lists Gore as a “Delaware limited liability corporation (sic)[.]”
Id. 2019 WL 2763902, at *6 n.11 (M.D. Tenn. July 2, 2019). 
 
Given all the times I have complained about courts not correcting such mistakes, I figured I should give this opinion a well-deserved shout out for getting this

So, this post is about shameless self-promotion and a cautionary tale.  A while back I was asked to write the West Virginia section of Texas A &M Journal of Property Law’s Oil and Gas Survey.  It’s a short overview of recent developments, and one of the many perils of the law review process is how long such things take to get to print.  

Even worse than a slow timeline, a miscommunication meant that my final round of edits did not make it into the piece, and there are a couple of errors. The editors were appropriately apologetic, and I know it all happened in good faith.  I take some ownership, too, in that I was not at all demanding about knowing the schedule for the next round of edits or the overall timeline.

Ultimately, despite the (nonsubstantive) errors, I hope the piece will be helpful to some folks. There are some interesting oil and gas cases happening in West Virginia (and around the country), and how they turn out could have a significant impact on the oil and gas business.  

Here’s the abstract to my article, which you can find here: 

This Article summarizes and discusses

…

 

 

 

Join me in Miami, June 26-28.

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Managing Compliance Across Borders

June 26-28, 2019

Managing Compliance Across Borders is a program for world-wide compliance, risk and audit professionals to discuss current developments and hot topics (e.g. cybersecurity, data protection, privacy, data analytics, regulation, FCPA and more) affecting compliance practice in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Latin America. Learn more

See a Snapshot: Who Will Be There?
You will have extensive networking opportunities with high-level compliance professionals and access to panel discussions with major firms, banks, government offices and corporations, including:

  • BRF Brazil
  • Carnival Corporation
  • Central Bank of Brazil
  • Endeavor
  • Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
  • Eversheds Sutherland
  • Fidelity Investments
  • Hilton Grand Vacations
  • Ingram Micro
  • Jones Day
  • Kaufman Rossin
  • LATAM Airlines
  • Laureate Education, Inc.

 
  • MasterCard Worldwide
  • MDO Partners
  • Olin Corporation
  • PwC
  • Royal Caribbean Cruises
  • Tech Data
  • The SEC
  • TracFone Wireless
  • U.S. Department of Justice
  • Univision
  • UPS
  • XO Logistics
  • Zenith Source

 

Location
Donna E. Shalala Student Center
1330 Miller Drive
Miami, FL 33146

 

CLE Credit
Upwards of 10 general CLE credits in ethics and technology applied for with The Florida Bar

 

Program Fee: $2,500 

This was a busy semester, but I still managed to read a few books. Always open to recommendations. 

Enough. John Bogle (Business) (2009). Vanguard’s founder reflects on business, money, satisfaction, and life. Easy read. Read this during a 2+ hour faculty meeting.   

Dandelion Wine – Ray Bradbury (Novel) (1957). A Walter Effross recommendation. A story of boyhood and summer and wonder and magic.

Half an Inch of Water – Percival Everett (Fictional Short Stories) (2015). A series of stories situated in the western U.S.–about loss, love, youth, aging, corruption, animals, and the wilderness. My favorite story is “A High Lake” because it reminds me of my grandmothers’ independence, intelligence, and care before they died.  

The Enduring Community – Brian Habig and Les Newsom (Religion) (2001). Co-authored my a minister to two of my siblings while they were at the University of Mississippi (Newsom). Attempts to clarify the roles of the Church in community.

Heavy – Kiese Laymon (Memoir) (2018). Raw memoir in which the author struggles with his weight, abuse, racism, addiction, and depression. Laymon was raised in Jackson, MS and is an English professor at University of Mississippi, after a number of years on the faculty …

I blogged two weeks ago about whether we were teaching law students the wrong things, the wrong way, or both. I’ve been thinking about that as I design my asynchronous summer course on transactional lawyering while grading asset and stock purchase agreements drafted by the students in my spring advanced transactional course. I taught the spring students face to face, had them work in groups, required them to do a a negotiation either in person or online, and am grading them on both individual and group work as well as class participation. When I looked at drafts of their APAs and SPAs last week, I often reminded the students to go back to old PowerPoints or the reading because it seemed as though they missed certain concepts or maybe I went through them too quickly— I’m sure they did all of the reading (ha!).  Now, while designing my online course, I’m trying to marry the best of the in person processes with some of the flipped classroom techniques that worked (and tweaking what didn’t).

Unlike many naysayers, I have no doubt that students and lawyers can learn and work remotely. For the past nine years, I have participated as a…

Okay, not really. But my daily Westlaw search for “limited liability corporation” recently started delivering contract award announcements from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) related to contract awards. DHHS reconds many “business types” for their records, such as “Minority Owned Business” and “For Profit Organization. And now, apparently, “limited liability coroporation” is one of them.  ARRRRRGHH! LLCs are “limited liability companies” and are not corporations.  An internet search shows that there are at least 78 of these DHHS designations out there (and I’ll wager there are more).  

Following is an excerpt of one such announcement.  You’ll note that, according to the announcement, Seba Professional Services LLC is both a “Partnership or Limited Liability Partnership” and a “Limited Liability Corporation.”  Sigh.  Really, they’re making my stomach hurt: 

Department of Health and Human Services awarded contract of IGF::CT::IGF PATIENT MESSENGER AND TRANSPORT SERVICES to SEBA PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LLC

Washington: This contract was awarded to seba professional services llc with a potential award amount of $6,117,056. Of this amount, 100% ($6,117,056) has been obligated.
 
Awarding Agency:
Department of Health and Human Services
 
. . . .
 
Recipient:
SEBA PROFESSIONAL SERVICES LLC
. . . .

…