Soon after emergency response teams scramble into action to address chemical fires, explosions, or other toxic events, attorneys begin gathering and analyzing information either to mitigate corporate risk or to seek remedies for anyone impacted by such an event.

Listen to my interview with Edgar C. "Ed" Gentle III and Katherine "Kip" Benson of Gentle, Turner & Benson LLC, about legal activity that goes on in the immediate aftermath of a toxic event, using as a backdrop the recent chemical plant disaster that forced 17,000 Conyers, Georgia, residents to evacuate and many more to shelter in place as a toxic plume hung stubbornly over the homes of as many as 100,000 residents. Ed and Kip draw on their deep experience resolving this type of litigation -- including the settlement of a 20-year-old disaster at the same location -- to discuss the flurry of activity that unfolds at law firms and inside legal departments within hours of a disaster. They also share the impact on such cases of a recent $600 million court-approved settlement of claims that followed the highly publicized toxic train derailment that occurred in East Palestine, Ohio, in early 2023.

This is Ed Gentle's second appearance on the podcast. He spoke with me on Episode 48 titled Medical Monitoring for Modern Times. He was the featured speaker on that subject for an HB CLE webinar distributed on the West LegalEdcenter, then Kip Benson joined him for an advanced level webinar on the Medical Monitoring Tort Remedy. You can download his article on the subject for free as published in the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation, a brand of Critical Legal Content (a custom legal content service for law firms and service providers) and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
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People. We’re complicated creatures. We can be compassionate. We can fall in love. Sometimes we don’t care for each other, but here we are.

Also, some people cross the lines of propriety, causing emotional or even physical harm to others on our teams, whether we work with them, for them, or whether we supervise them. And sometimes we work more than regular hours, either because we’re directed to or because we’re willing to do what it takes to help our teams succeed. The workplace can be a labyrinth of tricky situations, and employers need to know how to make sure workers are able to navigate them smoothly, appropriately, and within changing laws and regulations.

Our guest is Leah M. Stiegler, a principal attorney at Woods Rogers, who comes to the podcast with extensive experience across a broad spectrum of employment law matters. Leah is a trusted advisor to employers, providing guidance on complex personnel issues, performance management challenges, and fostering a positive work culture. Leah earned her J.D. from University of Richmond School of Law, cum laude, Order of the Coif, and her B.A. and B.S. degrees from Virginia Tech, summa cum laude.

Listen as Leah shares practical solutions for a variety of challenges, like love at work, pregnancy at work, discord at work, harassment at work, and working overtime. She talks about gender identity protections, implicit biases, and microaggressions, plus conducting administrative investigations, and ideas to mitigate risk, stay out of court, and maintain a positive work environment.

Thanks to Leah for sharing her insights on issues that arise where many of us spend most of our waking hours – at work! Her enthusiasm and passion for this work will be obvious to anyone who listens. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did producing it.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation, a brand of Critical Legal Content (a custom legal content service for law firms and service providers) and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
Subscribe on your favorite platform.

The United Nations and World Economic Forum calculates that the cost of corporate corruption globally is $5 trillion a year, or 5% of the world’s 2022 GDP.

Corruption can hamper economic growth by discouraging investment, increasing transaction costs, and distorting market competition. It can perpetuate poverty by diverting resources away from essential services and benefiting the wealthy and powerful. It can undermine democratic institutions and erode public trust in governments. It can hinder sustainable development by diverting resources away from essential infrastructure and social services.

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or the FCPA – the government’s leading weapon in this global war on corporate crime – has far-reaching implications for companies engaged in international business. For those who violate it the consequences can be severe. And with the recent addition of the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA), the federal government has even more to work with.

I had the pleasure of learning more about this fascinating and complex area of the law by speaking with two attorneys with Reed Smith who practice in the firm’s Global Regulatory Enforcement Group.

Mark E. Bini is a former federal and state prosecutor in New York, has led multiple multi-year cross-border investigations of corporations and individuals and has particular experience in investigations involving potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations. As a prosecutor, he worked closely and in parallel with many domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies and regulators, including the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority and Brazil’s Ministerio Publico Federal.

Thomas H. Suddath, Jr., is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, has extensive experience conducting international and domestic internal investigations and frequently counsels companies on compliance and voluntary disclosure issues related to the FCPA. He has handled FCPA and other internal investigations in many countries including Russia, Poland, Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Czech Republic, Mexico and Colombia.

Thanks to Mark and Tom for sharing their insights based on decades of experience.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation, a brand of Critical Legal Content (a custom legal content service for law firms and service providers) and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
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The DOJ’s annual report for 2023 revealed that the agency’s Health Care Fraud Unit was its busiest criminal enforcement section, responsible for convicting more than $3.8 billion in False Claims Act and whistleblower claims. There has reportedly been an uptick in whistleblower work among law firms and a record number of whistleblower cases. Still, some healthcare providers and hospital systems tend to hide their heads in their scrubs after being served.

Today we’re going to talk about how whistleblower cases come about, the benefits of rewarding whistleblowers, how things are done differently outside the U.S., what’s driving the acceleration of this area of law, and best practices when your company is served.

Drawing on his background as both public servant and private practitioner, my guest, Justin M. Lugar, counsel with WoodsRogers in Roanoke, Virginia, is going to walk through these issues and others.

Justin represents clients in all types of government investigations. He’s obviously well suited for the task. Prior to WoodsRogers he was Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Virginia, where he led the Affirmative Civil Enforcement team managing dozens of fraud investigations, many of which had parallel criminal investigations under the False Claims Act and related state statutes.

Justin served as the Department of Justice’s Civil Health Care Fraud Coordinator, Affirmative Civil Enforcement Coordinator, and Civil Rights Coordinator for the Western District of Virginia. Justin was recently recognized by the Drug Enforcement Agency for his efforts enforcing the Controlled Substances Act, leading to the largest fine assessed against a hospital system in the United States at the time.

When he was a federal prosecutor, Justin led investigations involving numerous state and federal agency partners, from the FBI to the IRS to the Department of Energy to the FDA and the Defense Department.

Justin started his career at a major global firm in London, conducting international investigations around the globe. But my favorite part of his background is – when he was a religious studies major in college – he lived at a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal. Not to brag, but I just returned from Vermont.

There is more to Justin’s background, like his LLM in international dispute resolution, which he earned at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, his J.D. from Liberty University School of Law, and his B.A. from the University of Virginia.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation, a brand of Critical Legal Content (a custom legal content service for law firms and service providers) and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
Subscribe on your favorite platform.

How secure is our nation's critical infrastructure? One recent event serves as a cautionary tale. In this episode, we tackle this pressing question in the context of cybersecurity. We'll address President Biden's recent National Security Memorandum on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, and its implications for sectors like energy, water, and transportation.

Our guest, Elizabeth Burgin Waller, from Virginia's WoodsRogers law firm, brings her extensive knowledge in privacy and cybersecurity law to the discussion.

Join us as we discuss ransomware as a service, shedding light on its franchise-like model and the significant challenges in tracking and prosecuting these cybercriminals, especially those hiding in countries like Russia. We discuss the recent takedown of the LockBit ransomware gang under Operation Kronos, and the persistent and growing complications of IoT security.

CrowdStrike's recent software glitch, while not a malicious attack, serves as a stark reminder of the importance of testing and transparency around cyber incidents, and the vulnerability of the systems that drive critical industries. Tune in for expert insights and reflections on the evolving regulatory landscape and what it means for mitigating risk in the Digital Age.

Beth is Principal and Cybersecurity & Data Privacy Practice Chair at WoodsRogers. In addition to a J.D. from William and Mary School of Law, she is certified as a Privacy Law Specialist by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), which is accredited by the American Bar Association, a Certified Information Privacy Professional with expertise in both U.S. and European law (CIPP/US & CIPP/E), and a Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM), also from the IAPP. Beth also graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in creative writing, so maybe I should have let her write the show notes.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation, a brand of Critical Legal Content (a custom legal content service for law firms and service providers) and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
Subscribe on your favorite platform.

Listen as intellectual property attorneys Tiffany Gehrke and Kelley Gordon of Marshall Gerstein in Chicago share their insights into three matters relevant anyone watching copyright and trademark law, or anyone fond of branded t-shirts and fancy French beverages.

I talk to Tiffany Gehrke about two cases. One is Vidal v. Elster, better known as the “TRUMP TOO SMALL” case. Just decided by the Supreme Court, this deals with whether a mark containing criticism of a government official or public figure – which is barred by the “names clause” of the Lanham Act – violates free speech. Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion, which Tiffany outlines.

The other case is Penn State v. Vintage Brands, which is pending in Pennsylvania federal court and is expected to have wide-reaching implications for retailers and brand owners alike. Vintage Brand uses Penn State’s registered Nittany Lions trademarks on t-shirts, hats, and other goods, and argues that use of the trademarks constitute a defensible “ornamental use.” We shall see!

Finally, I ask Kelley Gordon for her take on a dispute between a popular Instagram influencer, Lauren Holifield, and champagne brand Veuve Clicquot. Holifield temporarily and surprisingly lost her IG account after Veuve Clicquot raised trademark infringement concerns on three of Holifield's videos. This was a big deal for her. She was earning six figures. OMG. Hear what Kelley has to say.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation Conferences and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
Subscribe on your favorite platform.

Everyone knows that price fixing is against the law, chiefly Section 1 of the Sherman Act.

Competitors may not collude, i.e., agree, to keep prices where they want them, but there are relatively new pricing platforms that some companies maintain take them out of the equation, so they do not have to share private information directly with competitors. Instead, they claim, they feed their data to a third-party which uses algorithms to come up with pricing for these competitors based on data they all contribute. The subject has been getting a lot of attention as cases mount against a company called RealPage, a firm that provides shared pricing services for landlords. The company faces dozens of suits in multidistrict litigation and has also captured the attention of federal antitrust law enforcers. But they are not the only company finding themselves in litigation.

As our guest recently wrote: “When pricing algorithms are used by individual firms, such as airlines, e-commerce platforms, ride-share and room-share companies, stock traders, and others, there are unlikely to be anti-competitive consequences. It is when market competitors avail themselves of the same algorithmic program or service that the specter of unlawful collusion arises.” That risk increases as markets become more concentrated, he says.

He is Jonathan Rubin, Partner and Co-Founder of MoginRubin LLP, a widely recognized competition law attorney, economist, and commentator who has presented at antitrust conferences in the United States and Europe, testified before several congressional committees, and before the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission.

“The fact that these services employ an algorithm is not central to what's going on in this scenario,” he told me, “because what's important is the conduct of the businesspeople involved.”

Listen to my interview with Jonathan Rubin as we discuss what algorithmic or software-facilitated pricing is, what the law says about price collusion, how this new pricing mechanism violates that law, and recent developments in litigation.

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation Conferences and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
Subscribe on your favorite platform.

Companies are grappling with how to market the eco-friendly, people friendly, and animal friendly characteristics of their products and services, while also not getting in trouble with the law. Some have learned this the hard way. Some have wisely consulted experts. (That's foreshadowing.)

ESG – or Environmental, Social and Governance – reporting and so-called greenwashing litigation have implications for a wide range of stakeholders. Companies face significant financial and reputational risks, while investors, regulators, advocacy groups, and consumers all have an interest in ensuring the accuracy and transparency of ESG information.

Last year the SEC adopted amendments to the Investment Company Act with the “Names Rule,” which addresses fund names that are likely to mislead investors about a fund’s investments and risks.

On the consumer side, the FTC has been on the case as it stalks misleading advertising claims. Violations have real consequences. In 2022 the FTC reached multimillion dollar settlements with store chains Kohl’s and Walmart over claims that certain products were eco-friendly and made from bamboo, when they were really made from rayon.

More recently, a class action was filed in federal court in New York over the "carbon neutral" branding on bottled water. But there are some important court decisions our guest wants to know about, involving shoemaker AllBirds and beauty products company Sephora.

She is Ramya Ravishankar, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary of the HowGood company, an independent research firm that helps the world’s largest food brands meet their sustainability commitments. Ramya is a former environmental biologist turned attorney who is – as you will soon hear -- passionate about the intersection of food and sustainability. Previously, Ramya was Associate General Counsel at Bowery Farming – producer of pesticide free lettuce, other leafy foods and herbs. Before that she was a regulatory enforcement associate at Skadden Arps. Ramya earned her J.D. from Columbia Law School in New York and a B.S. from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada.

Enjoy the interview!

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This podcast is the audio companion to the Journal of Emerging Issues in Litigation. The Journal is a collaborative project between HB Litigation Conferences and the vLex Fastcase legal research family, which includes Full Court Press, Law Street Media, and Docket Alarm.

If you have comments, ideas, or wish to participate, please drop me a note at Editor@LitigationConferences.com.

Tom Hagy
Litigation Enthusiast and
Host of the Emerging Litigation Podcast
Home Page
Follow us on LinkedIn
Subscribe on your favorite platform.