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Because I am having significant Internet access issues through the Wi-Fi in Terminal A at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport (where I am waiting to board a flight to France to present a crowdfunding paper later in the week), I am writing a short “preview” post this week. I am typing this on my cell phone. Please forgive typos, etc.

I have promised a number of folks that I would write a post about the food delivery services I have been using for a bit more than a year now–Blue Apron, Plated, and Hello Fresh. My idea is to write about the business model, comparative attributes, legal aspects, and anything else that might make sense. So, I post today to ask you what you want to know. You can suggest a business, legal, or personal topic. Have at it! And if you’d rather PM me, just send an email. I will keep a folder and use your ideas to plan my post.  Or maybe I will end up with enough for more than one post. Who knows?

Anyway, thanks in advance for your ideas. And I apologize for the short post. But this proves to be a…

To draft end of semester exams.  So while I frantically try to develop fact-patterns that are simple and coherent and yet simultaneously engage a semester’s worth of material, I offer three links that interested me recently.

First, Vice Chancellor Laster’s ruling in Wilkinson v. Schulman (pdf).  In this opinion, VC Laster denied a books and records request on the grounds that the purposes of inspection belonged to Wilkinson’s counsel, and not Wilkinson himself.  Wilkinson had complaints about the company, but the purposes of inspection raised in the demand letter were different, and developed by the attorneys without Wilkinson’s involvement.  As Laster concluded, “Wilkinson simply lent his name to a lawyer-driven effort by entrepreneurial plaintiffs’ counsel.”  This strikes me as the kind of ruling that could have broader implications – we’ll see if future cases pick up these threads.

Second, Bloomberg recently reported on an organization called “Protect Our Pensions,” which purports to be a grassroots effort to fight against fossil fuel divestment, but is in fact industry-backed astroturf.   The reason I find this fascinating is that the standard argument against divestment is that it conveys no new information to the market and therefore will not affect prices.  But the fact…

I’m proud to be part of this project and to have written a chapter on corporate social responsibility in Latin America that stemmed from my time in Guatemala two years ago. 

 

2018 SNX (South-North Exchange Conference)

Antigua, Guatemala

May 18-19, 2018

 

From Extraction to Emancipation: Development Reimagined 

 

Call for Papers

 

Sponsored by:

Latina & Latino Critical Legal Theory, Inc. (LatCrit), the UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy, and _________ [other sponsorships are under consideration, and please suggest your own school or program]

 

In July 2015, a delegation of law professors and lawyers from the United States and Canada traveled to Guatemala to study sustainable development. That study inspired the group to produce an edited volume, to be published in early 2018 by the ABA Section of International Law, that considers Guatemala as a case study to examine broad global themes arising from development practices in emerging economies around the world. The 2018 SNX conference provides an opportunity to continue the discussions and further engage and involve the local victims of unfettered globalization. 

 

This project offers important lessons to policy makers, corporate investors, …

The PSLRA requires that complaints alleging Section 10(b) violations plead facts that raise a “strong inference” that the defendant acted with intent or recklessness.  15 U.S.C. § 78u-4.  A “strong inference” is one that, taking into account “plausible opposing inferences,” is “at least as compelling as any opposing inference one could draw from the facts alleged.”  Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308 (2007).

It has long been an axiom of PSLRA pleading that a strong inference may be raised by alleging that the defendant knew his or her statements were false, or knew facts that contradicted his or her public statements.  See, e.g., Novak v. Kasaks, 216 F.3d 300 (2d Cir. 2000); Miss. Pub. Emples. Ret. Sys. v. Boston Sci. Corp., 523 F.3d 75 (1st Cir.2008); Fla. State Bd. of Admin. v. Green Tree Fin. Corp., 270 F.3d 645, 665 (8th Cir.2001); Zucco Partners, LLC v. Digimarc Corp., 552 F.3d 981 (9th Cir. 2009); Pugh v. Tribune Co., 521 F.3d 686 (7th Cir. 2008).  Indeed, allegations of actual knowledge of falsity are sufficient to plead scienter even in the context of forward-looking statements, which are subject to…

Greetings from Barcelona. Perhaps it’s the time diference and it’s still early in the U.S. but for the first time in days I haven’t been overwhelmed with text messages from news outlets about another senator, congressman, policial candidate, actor, talk show host, porn star, or other public figure being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.  

I spent twenty years in the employment law field investigating and defending harassment claims both as outside counsel and in house. None of what I’m hearing now surprises me. I am surprised by some of the jaw dropping settlement amounts for some single-plaintiff cases.

I agree with the sentiments in this recent NPR story. Sexual harassment training often fails because employees believe it’s a check the box exercise, especially, I would imagine in states like California where it’s mandatory for certain employers every two years. More important, it fails because until now, very few men in power paid any consequences for their actions. Dov Charney of American Apparel was a notable exception of a CEO who cost the company so much in settlements that the board had to oust him. 

When I conducted training, I told employees that if they didn’t want…