Archive for the ‘Electronic Discovery’ Category

Margaret Raymond-Flood explains why and what e-discovery skills are essential for every litigator in her interview with The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel.  Should you be involved in cross border litigation, either as a U.S. plaintiff or defendant, you and your counsel must know and have an “in-depth” knowledge of e-discovery.

Editor: Why do clients need counsel with expertise in the area of e-discovery?

Raymond-Flood: It’s very important because companies are generating more and more documents electronically, rather than on paper. Some are migrating to pure electronic methods for the future, and others are even transferring older paper documents to an electronic format. Thus, e-discovery is taking priority in litigations, and it will continue to do so.

E-discovery has a unique effect on the budget and on litigation strategy, and it is very important to manage the e-discovery element of the litigation right from the beginning of the case. Incorrect handling will increase litigation costs, cause duplicative work and, in a worst-case scenario, lead to problems that cannot be fixed later on.

To learn more, read the rest of the article E-Discovery Expertise: An Essential Skill for Litigators.

A United States District Court Judge for the Judicial District of New Jersey has sentenced a former employee of Sanofi-Aventis (“Sanofi”) to 18 months in prison for attempting to sell Sanofi’s trade secrets for her own gain.  In announcing the sentencing, the United States Attorney explained that the defendant, a foreign national working in the U.S., had been a research chemist at Sanofi for five years, assisting in the development of several compounds that Sanofi considered its trade secrets.  The defendant accessed internal, confidential databases and copied 144,000 chemical compounds to her personal computer.  She then offered to sell the compounds over a website owned by a company in which she was a fifty percent owner.  The criminal complaint filed by the government detailed the extensive protections Sanofi employed to protect the theft of its trade secrets.  This is the second criminal case this year brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against a foreign national working in the U.S., concerning the theft of trade secrets from a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey.

Norton from Symantec released The Norton Cybercrime Report: The Human Impact yesterday.   For a quick summary of the findings, you can read the cnet news column Insecurity Complex by Elinor Mills, “Study: Two-thirds of Web surfers fall prey to online crime.”

The World Gathers In Brazil For The Congress On Electronic Crimes And Protection
An Interview with Brazilian Cyber Law Attorney Renato Opice Blum

BwoB had occasion recently to sit down with cyber law expert Renato Opice Blum to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing his international clients with regard to cybercrimes.  He shared with us some useful ways to address the growing proliferation of these tech crimes.

Renato chairs an international summit this month in São Paulo, Brazil sponsored by Fecomercio, a premier Brazilian business organization that represents over 600,000 companies in the trade, commerce, and tourism and hospitality sectors.  The summit will gather the world’s experts to address issues related to cyber crimes and security.

Q: Thank you, Renato, for sitting down with me to discuss the latest developments in tech crimes and what experts like you are doing to help businesses and individuals prevent these crimes and address them when they hit home.  Tell me a little bit about your background and the composition of your law practice.

A: My name is Renato Opice Blum and I am a Brazilian attorney and economist who specializes in high tech law. I am CEO of Opice Blum Attorneys at Law, one of the most respected South American firms.  Opice Blum Attorneys at Law has many years of solid experience in the main areas of law, and is recognized as a pioneer for its work in law as it relates to technology, electronic and digital law, information technology, computer law, and their variations.  We handle mediations, arbitrations, oral sustaining in Court, crisis management, cybercrimes, and corporate matters. Opice Blum Attorneys at Law handles matters throughout the Brazilian territories and maintains close relationships with international legal correspondents in main financial centers, such as in New York and Miami.  More detailed information can be found on the Opice Blum website.

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Guest Blogger: Kenneth N. Rashbaum, Esq., Rashbaum Associates, LLC

Email, text messages, instant messages or even social media communications from or about one’s place of employment may be fraught with peril, depending upon the country from which the communication is sent.  The recent criminal prosecution against Google in Italy, stemming from an upload of a YouTube video, is a stern lesson in the reach of Italian privacy law.  It, among other things, proscribes the export beyond the country’s borders of “personal information,” a broad category which includes visual likeness (in this case, a video), as well as emails which indicate the identities of the Italian sender and recipient.  Similar laws also exist in other European Union member states.

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