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OECD RELEASES NEW REPORT REGARDING VIRTUAL CURRENCY TAX ISSUES
By: Jacob King
Over the past decade, virtual currency has exploded as one of the primary forms of payment used online. Virtual currency is preferred by online consumers due to its pseudo-anonymity and convenience. While many consider the pseudo-anonymity and convenience of virtual currency to be advantageous, pseudo-anonymity and convenience are among the many issues presented when it comes to the taxation of virtual currency. . .
GETTING REAL ABOUT DIVERSITY
By: Adina Weisberg
BigLaw has been slow on improving diversity; top law firms will not even be close to mirroring law school classes until 2057 (for gender diversity) and 2084 (for racial diversity). To address this issue, five firms will work with Diversity Lab, through its Move the Needle Fund (“MTN”), on incorporating experimental methods based on research and data.
Big-Tech Mergers and Acquisitions in the Era of Covid-19
By: Matthew French
2020 began with a surging economic climate that appeared to foreshadow a heavily prosperous set of fiscal quarters that would likely present not only an opportunity for growth in the startup technology spectrum, but also one which would naturally give rise to countless mergers and acquisitions. However, as the world began to experience the true impact of the emerging Coronavirus pandemic, that optimistic outlook slowly transposed into a bleak twilight of economic uncertainty. The following months showcased the utter fragility of the inter-personal corporate marketplace, as social distancing restrictions forced capable entities to transition to remote-work platforms and catalyzed less fortunate corporations into bankruptcy. To the average entrepreneur, this landscape appeared to set the stage for a surge of innovative opportunities arising out of the startup and Big-Tech spectrums; after all, social distancing cultivated both an optimal setting for technological need and a captivated consumer marketplace. Yet the reality of the startup and Big-Tech spectrum was far more constricted.
DARK CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON FOR BIG TECH: PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN INHERITS A CULTURAL MOVEMENT CALLING FOR INCREASED ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT AGAINST TECH MONOPOLISTS
By: William Bassoff
As the next president of the United States, Joe Biden will have a great deal of influence over his administration’s antitrust enforcement. Antitrust enforcement against tech companies’ perceived market power is an increasingly popular idea in the United States. During the current presidency, the Department of Justice and eleven state Attorneys General have brought a civil antitrust suit against Google. Democratic committee members on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust recommended sweeping changes to US antitrust laws in order to prosecute Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook – perceived tech monopolists. This places the United States in a historic moment for antitrust law, with both political parties clamoring for increased antitrust enforcement against tech giants.
How Will the CARES Act Change Consumer Bankruptcy?
By: Kate Peterson
The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27th, 2020, intended to provide quick economic assistance to American individuals and businesses. The Act amended the Bankruptcy Code to provide relief to those who file for bankruptcy, with a sunset provision of one year from enactment. In consumer bankruptcies, these changes have implications for both individual debtors and their creditors, who are often businesses of all sizes.
Amendments to Regulation S-K Amid a Pandemic
By: Dallin Hendricks
Regulation S-K provides detailed instructions for the registration statement and prospectus issuers use in an offering of securities. On November 9, 2020, three amendments to Regulation S-K will go into effect. The SEC explained that these amendments were intended to “modernize the description of business, legal proceedings, and risk factor disclosures that registrants are required to make pursuant to Regulation S-K.”
DO BUSINESSES NEED TO BE ESSENTIAL?
By: Grace Michele Duval
During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and the close of “non-essential” businesses mark a new normal in American public life. The dictionary defines essential as “absolutely necessary, indispensable.”[1] Essential has yet to become a legal term of art concerning classification of corporate entities but there has been some guidance.
PEN MEETING PAPER MIGHT NOT PROVE A MEETING OF THE MINDS
By: Matthew Bartley
On August 21, 2019, a Delaware Chancery Court ruled that a fully executed written agreement—signed by relatively sophisticated parties—can be deemed unenforceable if uncertainty exists in the agreement’s formation. In Kotler v. Shipman Associates, LLC, C.A. No. 2017-0457-JRC (Del. Ch. Aug. 21, 2019, corrected (typo on page four) Aug. 27, 2019), the court ruled that an equity warrant agreement between an employee and her former employer was unenforceable because it did not codify the required objective intent of both parties to be bound by its provisions.
EVALUATING PERFORMANCE ESCAPE OPTIONS IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19
By: Benjamin Hill
As of April 2, 2020, the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has sickened over 981,000 people on 6 continents worldwide, and has killed over 50,000. The virus has also had a substantial economic impact, hitting industries such as movie theaters, airlines, and hotels especially hard. In such an economic climate, companies may find themselves hard pressed to fulfill all of their contractual obligations, and wondering whether the virus triggers any contractual clauses that may terminate their duties to perform. Three such potential options are force majeure clauses, the doctrine of impossibility, and the doctrine of frustration.